Big news day. China seems to have brokered some peace talks between the United States and North Korea. Also two cabinet ministers in Hong Kong have resigned. Most of it is covered in the mainstream media, so there is no point in me repeating it.

What isn't in the news is that in the last few days, Beijing has stepped up complaining about the efforts in Taiwan to push a referendum as well as complaining about neo-conservatives in Washington.

http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200307/11/eng20030711_119989.shtml

and here

http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200307/10/eng20030710_119940.shtml

Some of the complaining about the referendum in Taiwan has made it in the Chinese edition. Interestingly and significantly, there was no mention made about the referendum issue until after the DPP draft didn't pass the legislature, and right now there is a lull in the coverage on Taiwan. I'm pretty sure there was a quiet deal made about North Korea over Taiwan. Also complaining about anti-China forces in Washington D.C. makes a bit of sense since the people who have been most loudly anti-PRC and pro-Taiwan are largely the same people who got the United States in the mess in Iraq. The United States is going to have its hands full in Iraq for quite some time, and its doesn't want another crisis either in North Korea or Taiwan.

Curiously, and (this is something else that hasn't been much reported), China has been very supportive of the United States in Iraq. At the last press conference, Kong Quan was saying about how China supported the interim authority in Iraq.

It's going to come up again for a debate in September in Taiwan. Basically, President Chen may try to go ahead with a referendum without a legislative law, but the Taipei city government has made it clear that it won't go along with a law on referendums, which would make an all-island referendum useless.

Speaking of deals and negotiations. I've been trying to figure out what is going to happen to Tung Che-Hwa and I've concluded that he will serve out his term. My reasoning is a bit unconventional, but it comes from reading very closely what the Democratic Party is saying.

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/03_29/b3842013_mz046.htm

and also listening to the head of the Democratic Party on National Public Radio.

It's not that Beijing doesn't want him to go, but rather that the pro-democracy forces in Hong Kong aren't that interested in having Tung leave. If Tung leaves now, you force Beijing to choose a successor, and neither Beijing nor the pro-democracy forces want that. What the Democrats do want is for the person after Tung to be elected via universal suffrage, and I think they stand a very good chance of that happening.

Anyway, I think that is what people are talking about right now. If you look at the article, Martin Lee is saying some very fascinating things. He says good things about Beijing and doesn't rule out supporting Article 23. This leads me to suspect that there are a lot of behind the scenes discussions between Beijing and Democrats that are bypassing the local liasion office, and that what is being discussed is less the future of Tung Chee-Hwa than the constitution of Hong Kong post-2007.

2003 July 8

Western news organizations don't seem to know how to read Chinese.

Here is a link to a transcript of what Kong Quan said today about the Hong Kong situation.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/newscenter/2003-07/08/content_961524.htm

The first paragraph, I've translated because it establishes the tone of the conference.

: Good afternoon everyone. I have no statements to report. I've heard that many reporters failed the body temperature screening, and afterward we found that the air temperature was too high, and this caused a high reading on the thermometers, so there is nothing to worry about. I'm glad everyone is healthy and will now answer questions.

: Q: About the delay in Article 23, as a result of conflict of it. Two questions. Is the debate on Article 23 legal? According to some sources, the National People's Congress wants the Legislative Council to pass the law quickly. Will this be viewed by the outside world as interference of one country two systems.

: A: About Article 23, our position has been stated many times. On Sunday, the SAR government made a decision, to open the draft up to further public comment. We believe that the vast majority of compatriots are patriotic and love Hong Kong, and they will support the administration of Tung Che-Hwa as it completes this legislation

(I've seen some translations that take this as Chinese support for Tung. It's really quite lukewarm if it is support. Also I've see mistransations that drop "the administration of" or "as it completes the legislation". Also virtually everyone drops the question, which is important context).

: A: About your second question. Are you referring to the discussion by the person responsible for legal affairs in the national People's Congress on Friday? We believe that he was clear. On the one hand, Article 23 legislation is a requirement for the HK government to complete under the Basic Law. On the other hand, regarding the wishes of the Hong Kong government to make further revisions to certain sections, they have stated this clearly, and does not point to the conclusion in your question.

(questions about other things)

: Q: The Chinese government has stated that it believes that Tung's admistration will be able to finish the legislation. If the Chinese government believes that the work of Tung's government is good, then why have 500,000 Hong Kong residents demonstrated against the law. The second question is, what has the Chinese government and Chinese news media not covered the Article 23 situation, especially the decision to postpone Article 23 legislation.

: A: About the opinions of the Hong Kong citizens, the Hong Kong government has already stated their assessment. You should understand that this question is not within the area for a foreign ministry spokesman to answer.

(VOA badly mistranslated that section, and replaced foreign ministry spokesman with outsider. Other newspapers have carried the mistranslation.)

: A: About your second question, I'd like for you to understand. As a foreign policy spokesman in one half hour to one hour, I personal answer 75 questions. However the European and American press limits their coverage and sometimes 40 minutes of what I say is not broadcast. You have to ask the your question to each of media yourself.

Also, I've seen a quote that the spokesman said that he things that Hong Kong will have a bright future under Tung's administration. I can't find that in the transcript.

Anyway, it's clear that Beijing isn't coming to Tung's defense. We'll see what happens Wednesday. If people are still angry, the DAB might pull out of the Executive Council. If you have threats of mass resignations then Tung is finished, and we are really in uncharted waters.

A lot of people are saying that it is impossible that Beijing will let Tung step down, but these are mostly the same people that said that the demonstration was going to be useless. Time ASIA's headline last week was

:Poisonous Minds [June 30, 2003] : Hundreds of thousands of Hong Kongers demonstrate against Article 23 and the Tung government. It won't do any good

Looks like Tung has miscalcuated. The Liberal Party leader James Tien has withdrawn from the government, and Tung does not now have the votes to push the bill through the Legislative Council. This occurred after Tien visited Beijing.

We are seeing the "baby in the ditch" syndrome again. This was an observation made by a report for the Guardian. In China, there is a reasonable amount of infant abandonment, so the Western press talks about the girl babies that get abandoned. What's interesting is that they don't talk about the people who rescue and adopt these babies.

We have something similar here. On the day of the demonstation, much of the Western press was talking all about how one country, two system was a hoax and that this was the beginning of the end for Hong Kong. Today, we have OCTS working more or less they way that it should. A party is afraid of what will happen to it in the next elections, making it impossible for the Hong Kong government to go through with elections. Beijing is for the most part, keeping hands off, and letting things in Hong Kong run themselves, and this isn't covered nearly as much.

What will be interesting is to see what happens after this mess blows over. The basic problem is that Tung is incompetent. The national security law isn't that bad, but Tung did a horrible job trying to get public support for it.

Tung Che-Hwa has announced that he has made some amendments to the article 23 bill amd will attempt to get it passed on Wednesday. The calculation I think he, the Democratic Alliance, and Beijing is making is that getting this over with is important. If there is a delay in passing the bill, then it will drag on and become an election issue next year. I think that people are hoping that if it passes in modified form on Wednesday, there will be a lot of screaming then, but six month from now everyone will have forgotten the issue.

The big question is what the mood on the street is. Does the government have the political support needed to pass the legislation. A lot will ride on the attitude of the Liberal Party. What I think will happen is that the government will go ahead with the bill, and then see how big the demonstrations are. If they are like the one on Tuesday, they'll back down. If they are smaller, they will go ahead.

There is one bit of advice that I have for people looking at the news. Check if it is a wide shot or a close up. If you look at the pictures from the demonstration on the 1st, it was a wide shot. Hundreds of thousands of people. The one for the demonstration today was a close-up, 50 people or so.

One thing that is interesting is how this whole row will probably increase Beijing's involvement in Hong Kong since this whole incident has revealed how totally incompetent that Tung Che-Hwa is and there is no easy way of getting rid of him.

http://edition.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/asiapcf/east/07/06/hk.china/index.html

Terribly interesting things are happening in Hong Kong in the aftermath of the massive demonstration on the first. The pro-Beijing Liberal Party has called for a delay in voting, and it's starting to become questionable whether or not there are enough votes in the Legislative Council to pass Article 23 legislation.

The interesting thing is that Beijing is saying nothing, and what is also interesting is that the Liberal Party leader made the announcement after flying to Beijing.

One thing to keep in mind is that Beijing tends to be much less doctrinaire and stupid than many Western observers believe. I think that its likely that the Article 23 legislation is either going to get put off for a few months or there are going to be some amendments to it.

2003 July 1

Massive demonstration in Hong Kong. Two factors that contributed to the size of the demonstration that weren't mentioned were the fact that it was a public holiday and also that there was a lot of pent up discontent that hadn't been expressed because demonstrations had been frozen because of SARS. There are two good analysis pieces

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/EG01Ad02.html

http://edition.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/asiapcf/east/07/01/willy.column/index.html

Also a good write up on what is going on in Taiwan over the referendum

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/EG01Ad01.html

2003 June 28

Curiouser and curiouser. The KMT-PFP coalition has announced that not only do they not oppose a referendum, but that they want a referendum on unification/independence and they want the referendum was quickly as possible in August.

The reason why is that if there is a referendum in August, especially a U-I referendum, they all hell will break loose, which means that by March, Chen Shuibian is going to be in trouble. The assumption I think everyone is working on is that Chen is going to lose in March, and that the nuclear power plant is also going to lose. If the referendum is in March, then the next President is going to have to pick up the pieces. If the referendum is in August, then Chen is going to have to explain to the United States why there is a referendum on indepdendence despite swearing up and down that there is going to be no referendum.

Also, this news has made the Western press. One phrase that is common is that a referendum is sure to anger Beijing. This is wrong. Beijing is not going to get very angry because they want Lien-Soong to win the election in March. Any display of anger is going to make that less likely.

2003 June 26

Chen Shuibian has announced a referendum on the fourth nuclear power plant on March 18th, two days before the Presidental election. I'm not sure why the timing. Curiously, the Lien-Soong ticket has announced that they also support the referendum. The United States seems to have withdrawn its objections after being assured that Chen has no intention of having a referendum on independence. Beijing is being quiet. One thing that I noticed was that Beijing's objection to the referendum was issued by a low level spokesman at a regular briefing so they don't object too much. Something that is even more significant is that they published this objection in the English version of People's Daily, but not at all in the Chinese version.

Lien-Soong has decided not to fight the referendum, because that is a vote loser and it's really not worth the effort. The interesting thing is that I personally have no idea which way that they referendum will go.

More referendum news.... The United States representative in Taiwan said that it isn't necessarily against a referendum as long as the unification-independence issue isn't involved. Chen's office said that it would abide by its promise not to have a referendum on the U/I issue. Beijing issued a statement that it was against any referendum because it would advance the cause of independence, and Taipei returned a statement that superficially defiant, but underneath said not to overreact.

The opposition KMT-PFP are softer in their opposition to a referendum than before, largely because a referendum law is rather popular and they don't want to be portrayed as an anti-reform party before next years elections.

Something else that is interesting is that Chen mentioned the possibility of including in the referendum a proposal to half the seats in the legislature. It will be interesting to see if that goes anywhere because that would be constitutionally problematic. Voting on the fourth nuclear plant is one thing, voting on a constitution issue is another. Curiously, he didn't seem to mention voting on WHO membership.

My sense is that there is a lot of posturing for a final showdown in which there will be a referendum on the fourth nuclear power plant.

2003 June 23

Big news day. A Taiwanese family of three in Shanghai was shot by robbers, which made the headlines until in Taipei, an unemployed man burned himself to death.

The United States has officially weighed in on the Taiwan referendum issue. Again, I'm amazed that none of this is making the Western press, but here is the official State Department transcript.

http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/dpb/2003/21834.htm

It was amusing that the spokesman referred to two countries and then the State Department in the transcript put an asterisk saying that he should have said two sides.

One thing about the PRC-Taiwan situation is that the thing is so volatile, that a lot of public statements consist of formulas. One new formula, which I've heard a few times already is

: Well, President Chen, himself, said in his inaugural speech in May of 2000, May 20th of 2000, I think, that he would not promote a referendum to change the status quo in regards to the question of independence or unification. We appreciate that pledge by President Chen and we take it very seriously.

The other thing that happens is that because the thing is so volatile, major shifts are difficult, so people like me look for minor shifts. Here is one

: And so let me, once again, say that we do not support Taiwan independence. We have a One China policy based on the three communiques and the Taiwan Relations Act.

The order of the three statements is considerably different from statements in the early Bush administration.

The other thing that has happened is that Taiwanese politics have gotten very complicated because there are not only two sides. On the referendum issue, I can count at least five different distinct interest groups, each with its own motivations. This makes it very unclear as to what will end up happening, but the United States's interest is that whatever happens, it won't end up in a major crisis.

Fortunately, I don't think that President Chen wants a crisis either. My reading of the situation is that the main reason he wants a referendum is not the independence issue since his position is that Taiwan is already independent. My reading is that he wants a referendum to get the support of the anti-fourth nuclear plant movement. If he campaigns hard for independence, he only gains the votes of people who will vote for him anyway. With a referendum on the fourth nuclear power plant, he gets the votes of environmentalists who could easily vote for Lien-Soong.

The other reason for a referendum that some people have mentioned was to show the voice of the Taiwanese people so that presumably it would get the support of other nations. Presumably, the defacto ambassador to Taiwan Richard Paal saw this talk in the Taiwanese media and he wanted to kill that idea.

Anyway Chen is going to make a speech on the 26th about this.

One more thing. I've noticed that the Green newspapers are taking an increasingly desperate tone. Chen is not in good shape for this election. What stands a good chance of happening is that Lien-Soong will get elected and reach some sort of settlement with the PRC which will link Taiwan economically with the Mainland in a way that will make any sort of independence impossible.

This is not rocket science, and most people in Taiwan see this coming.

2003 June 22

Been out for a while. There has been a lot of news in both Mainland China and Taiwan, and oddly very little of of it making it into the Western press.

In Mainland China, the big news is that the State Council has issued new regulations regarding the treatment of homeless people. The old regulations were abandoned after a public outcry in which a student Sun Zhigang was taken into police custody and beaten to death after not having his identity card. This is a huge change in China, and I'm surprised that the Western press isn't covering it more.

In Taiwan, the big news is that Richard Paal apparently expressed concern to Chen Shui-Bian that his proposed consultative referendum might be a slow path to a referendum on independence. A lot of people on Taiwan are a bit outraged over this, however my suspicion is that a non-binding referendum over the fourth nuclear power plant and over WHO membership would take place. Chen has nothing to lose, and the opposition is probably going to make an strong issue over this.

The other interesting thing is the Taiwanese Foreign Minister Chien is in the United States in the American Enterprise Institute's World Forum where Dick Cheney is also meeting. What is most remarkable about this is that the PRC has said nothing over this (and over the referendum issue). The PRC has gotten much more adept on Taiwan policy over the last few years, and my guess is that they've realized that commenting either on a non-binding referendum or on the World Forum will be quite counterproductive.

One final thing. The United States is going to have a lot of explaining to do. I don't think that the United States is going to find weapons of mass destruction because I don't think that there are weapons of mass destruction to be found. It will be interesting to see how the Bush administration manages this.

2003 April 27

I've been fairly quiet over the past few weeks, basically just looking at the news. It's clear that SARS is going to change a lot of things, but it's far from clear what those things are going to be.

2003 April 9

More about SARS in the news. The Chinese government doesn't seem to be reacting well at all. In situations like this, the best policy is to put out all of the information you can as quickly as possible, otherwise people will assume the worst, and the truth is generally no where as bad as the rumors that people will come up with. What has happened is that up until about a week ago, all of this was being handled by provincial and lower level officials who aren't as knowledgeable about public relations as central government officials. Things have improved, but we'll see in the next few days if the Chinese government really has learned how to deal with bad facts. In particular, I'll be interested in seeing how it reacts to reports that SARS cases in Beijing are higher than reported.

In Iraq, I think that today will be the day that separated before and after. There might be some hard fighting ahead, but this is the day that the regime collapsed. One error that people seemed to make is that the metaphor used was a house of cards. It wasn't. A better metaphor is a brittle vase. You need to hit it hard to break it, but when it breaks, it shatters.

As far as whether it is a good thing. Oddly enough, no one has found any chemical weapons (and one thing that I did get right was that they would be hard to find if they were there), but oddly enough, no one in the United States seems to care any more. This sounds so Straussian.

I still am not sure going in to Iraq was a good idea for the United States, but there is a small bit of comfort in thinking that the United States can't mess up Iraq as much as Hussein did. Even if two years from now, Iraq is furious at the United States and leads a revolution to drive the United States out, it is still better off than it probably would have been under Hussein.

2003 April 3

Looks like Bagdhad is aboout to fall. Can't be more than one or two weeks.

The big upcoming story is SARS, and the Chinese government doesn't seem to be reacting well. Here is a story on it.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A14967-2003Apr2.html

2003 March 26

It looks like that there was no uprising in Basra after all.

Today, the coalition forces have decided to move south and I suspect that the reason why is something that no one is mentioning loudly. Remember that Hussein began this with several divisions of the regular army. I think it is those divisions that are making the most trouble. At this point the United States would be running huge risks if it attempted to take Baghdad. the regular army could come in and cut the supply lines. Bad to be in a battle when your fuel and water run out.

Something that keep in mind is that people use the terms paramilitary and guerilla tactics a bit too loosely. Guerillas generally operate only in small groups, and do hit and run operations. What we've been seeing are massed and coordinate operations, which are regular military tactics rather than guerilla tactics.

There are two things that worry me. The first is the minor military issue that I talked about earlier. I think it is minor since the United States will just wait for the 4th Infantry and may be some more units and press forward.

The major thing that worries me is not that the United States will loose its nerve. It won't. It's made too much of an investment to back out. The thing that worries me is that the United States will lose.

Let me explain. The worst thing that could happen is for there to be a sustained guerilla war in Iraq. For this to happen you have to have the people hate the United States. This could easily happen if the United States gets too impatient and starts relaxing the rules against harming civilians. I also fear that a prolonged war will do bad things to the soul of the troops. After a 19 year old sees his buddy die from a fake surrender, there will be a tendency to develop a bad attitude toward the Iraqis. If this happens enough the United States will start to turn from an army of liberation to an army of occupation. Once this happens, the United States is setting itself up for guerrilla war which it might lose.

Interesting article. Seems like the British are going into the Bahsra to aid the civil rebellion there.....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A27522-2003Mar25.html

We shall we what is there. I have this really bad feeling that they are about to go into a nasty trap, and that when they go in they aren't going to find any civilian uprising, but rather one or two Iraqi divisions and lots of cameras from Iraqi state television.

If I were the British commander, I'd wait a day or so before going in, and do some more reconnaissance. The big reason that I'm suspicious is that in Bashra you have someone that seems to be very good at psychological operations. He managed to convince the Coalition that the 51st division was dead which meant that the First Marine Expeditionary Force was sent elsewhere.

Then suddenly Hussein gives a speech in which he congratulates by name the commander of the 51st which let the British know that the unit was alive. By now the First Marines are elsewhere.

So what we do know is that someone in southern Iraqi is good at deception and British military intel is not all that good.

But we shall see.... Maybe I'm wrong and tomorrow we shall see Iraqis cheering at their British liberators. I'd rather have a short war than be right about these things. Ultimately, lives are more important than bragging rights.

Every now and then I like to go out on a limb and make a prediction just to see if it turns out right. It's a way of honing my thought and analytic processes to see what works and what doesn't.

I'm guessing right now that there is no uprising in Bahsra. One method of analysis is to look at who is talking to who and seeing how information gets spread. In the case of the Bahsra revolt. all of the stories of an uprising end up with one British unit seeing something and telling a BBC embedded correspondent. I haven't seen any report that ultimately doesn't come from that one source.

The second thing is the dog that doesn't bark. The New York Times have reported that people have been moving in and out of Bahsra. Presumably someone would have mentioned something if there were a civil uprising.

The other thing I strongly suspect is that there are probably one or maybe two divisions of regular army in Bahsra. The New York Times said that at first people thought the 51st division had the commander and deputy commander surrender, then it turns out it was someone else who was pretending to be a commander. I'm starting to think that this is all a disinformation campaign by the Iraqis to convince the Coalition that the units aren't were they think they are.

The fire that seems to be coming out doesn't not seem to be militia. Miltia aren't known for firing heavy artillery or driving tanks.

Which makes me wonder if the talk of a civil uprising is an attempt to get the British to enter the city?

Something else that is interesting is that both sides seem to have an interest in talking about miltia and fedeyeen and no interest in talking about the regular army. The Iraqis want to make it look like that there is a popular resistance so they don't talk about the regular army. The Coalition wants people to believe that there isn't significant resistance in the south so they are talking about irregulars.

One final thing, after a few days, finally some reporters have figured out that humanitarian supplies aren't the only then that the military wants to move through Um Qasa.

The United States is making a fatal mistake in warfare in that it appears to be starting to believe its own propaganda.

The message that the United States has been trying to give the Iraqis is that Saddam Hussein is finished, that the United States will occupy Baghdad and the Hussein regime will collapse and then everyone will live happily ever after.

But what if it doesn't happen?

What if Hussein decided not to fight and die in Baghdad? Instead he pulls a Bin-Laden. Baghdad falls, and he becomes a guerilla fighter and the United States spends the next several years fighting an insurgency that makes the Israeli occupied territories look tame. Or maybe he gets shot, but some of his generals decide to carry on the war?

What if Hussein turns out not to have chemical weapons at all? Of course he does. Right?

I've just spent three days watching grown men who seem to have this psychological inability to assume that the man on the tape is Saddam Hussein. Is it at least possible that there is a lack of intelligence here?

Also, I just read this article which is frightening.

http://www.nypost.com/commentary/71661.htm

It's a commentary by the author of Shock and Awe that talks about how showing the POW pictures will backfire. This guy has a basic misunderstanding of human psychology, and our defense strategy is based on him.

2003 March 23

This was a bad day for the United States, and it's only going to get worse. Hussein's strategy has been a competent one. Let the first wave through and the start guerilla movements in the rear. The big danger for the United States is that it will militarily destroy the Hussein regime and be left with guerilla and irregular armies all over Iraq, which aren't under any central control. These guerilla armies will start turning into terrorist groups.

I fear that this whole war is going to turn into one of the biggest and most stupid blunders in American history. It may be worse than Vietnam. In Vietnam, the United States could at least declare defeat and get out. We have intervened in Iraq in a way that will be impossible to extricate.

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

What is interesting is how this war is being marketted. Marketing a war is like marketing anything else. You have a message and a brand. The marketing message of the United States is that Saddam is doomed and that the Iraqi armies had better switch sides. We haven't heard the marketing message of Iraqi, but I think we will over the next few days.

The reason that we haven't heard much from Iraqi is I think a curious one. Most Americans don't quite realize how smart people in authoritarian regimes are about news. Frankly, I'm willing to bet that no one in Iraq trusts the Iraqi media, and so if the Iraqi government said something they know that no one in Iraq will believe them. This is why is was important for Iraq to display the pictures of the dead American servicemen and POW's. If Iraq just said that it had them, no one in Iraq would believe them, but with these American dead and wounded, Iraq can work against the American media message.

I think that the media message that Iraq will try to present is David versus Goliath. This puts the United States in a race against time. If the United States had been able to immediately put an army in Bagdhad on day one, then you might have seen an immediate collapse in morale. But with each day that the United States is delayed from Baghdad and each day that you have pictures of Iraqis fighting hard you start having Iraqis in Baghdad starting to think that defeat is not certain and that they should continue to fight.

This is not only going to be painful going in, but it greatly affects the post-war environment. If the Iraqis start to see the war as a war of national liberation then you might see this thing degenerate into a guerilla war. People in Iraq hated Saddam Hussein before this thing started, but I fear that the United States will turn him into a national hero.

2003 March 21

I still think that this whole thing is going to be a disaster, but it's too late to avoid it. The goal now is to accept the situation and make the best of this. I think it was stupid to get into this, but we are in.

2003 March 21

Feeling much better. It's amazing what a good nights sleep will do. As usually I've been trawling the net for information and I found some good stuff that makes the American strategy make a bit more sense....

As usual, the Brookings Institution at http://www.brookings.edu/ has good stuff. There are two articles in particular that make the adminstration strategy make more sense. First there is the psychological profile of Saddam Hussein

http://www.brookings.edu/views/op-ed/fellows/baram20030204.htm

He is a very rational person who is hyper-optimistic about himself and believes that he is a man of destiny and is willing to accept temporary setbacks but not permanent ones for his dream of being the center of an Arab superpower.

There is a second article which takes about a wargame last year about the invasion of Iraq.

http://www.brookings.edu/views/op-ed/indyk/20021104.htm

The wargames pointed out a very key problem. How do you end the war? Saddam is never going to surrender and accept defeat. So how do you end the war?

This is where Rumsfeld's comments make sense. I was afraid that the U.S. Defense Department was expecting a quick and relatively painless war. After sleeping on it, I don't believe that the United States is nearly that stupid to think that units will quickly surrender en masse, and I'm sure that there are plan C, D, and E in place for the assault on Bagdhad. Also, after a bit of sleep, I think that disaster is a bit too much to characterize that assault. I've been reading some more, and although it will be nasty and bloody, the United States emerge without too many causalties and without too many bad pictures.

But what I think Rumsfeld is doing to laying the foundations for the endgame. Eventually, the United States is going to win, and eventually the United States is going to need someone to surrender to it and that person won't be Saddam Hussein.

Which gets to the bombing campaign. I do believe that the bombing campaign is largely militarily useless, and that the buildings being bombed are empty. But the point of the bombing is not military. To be militarily useful a bombing campaign is going to kill too many civilians. The point of the bombing is to send a message that Hussein is not in control, and as a result the United States can bomb symbols of power, and rebomb them, without causing civilian causalities. It's a giant fireworks show, and it has to be a fireworks show.

This is not going to cause the Iraqi army to crack immediately, but eventually they will need to way to surrender.

But something does worry me. Hussein is not a martyr. What does the United States do if Hussein does surrender? If the United States puts him on war crimes trials then this is going to make him a martyr. What worries me is what if Hussein is ultra-rational. He fights to the bitter end, but surrenders with the intention of turning his war crime trial into a show.

2003 March 20

I hope I'm wrong about this, but I'm smelling disaster. The hope of the Bush administration appears to be that by bombing Iraq, it will cause the Iraqi military to collapse, saving it the need to fight a real war.

The problem with war is that war is ugly and war is cruel. In order to do any real damage to the Iraqi military, the U.S. military forces will have to do ugly and cruel things. This is the nature of the beast. Bush so far as hoped that by showing toughness it will be able to scare the Iraqis into submission without having to conduct a real war.

This (seems to me and I hope I'm wrong) is an idiotic miscalculation. It's exactly the same calculation the Japanese military high command in attacking Pearl Harbor. When your country is being attacked, you rally around the flag. It would take extremely careful and sensitive diplomacy to make this work otherwise, and the Bush administration is not known for careful and sensitive diplomacy.

Within a few days, I fear that the United States will find that it is involved in a real war with a real enemy, and I don't know if the political leadership has come to grips with what they have done.

Some observations:

* Every network has a general, but very few of them are saying anything substantial. I'm sure that they know what the situation is, but they don't want to make things worse. Stuff that they aren't mentioning are....

* There is a reason why the United States has been unable to carry out a campaign of "shock and awe." This campaign requires that the United States have total air superiority, and it simply doesn't have it over the skies over Baghdad. The reason that air war is happening in short bursts is that the United States doesn't want to run out of cruise missiles before it degrades Baghdad's air defenses.

* Iraq is running a competent air defense. Something that reporters to Baghdad have noticed is that there are no outward signs of military preparation. This is intentional. If you can see it, then its dead. Iraq's air defense is also competent, one thing that you will notice is that the AAA goes up the moment there are cruise missiles and stops after five minutes. Artillery is precious. In addition, Iraq has refrained from launch surface to air missiles, launching surface to air missiles is worse than useless, because it lets you know where the missile batteries are.

* I consider it highly unlikely that Iraqi units will break. People mention Mussolini, but keep in mind that Mussolini never controlled all of the political institutions of Italy (in particular the monarchy). A much more apt comparison is Hitler and the Third Reich, there despite being clearly losing, the German armies retained unit cohesion until the end. Another bad comparison is Desert Storm. Something to keep in mind is that none of the units of the Iraqi regular army surrendered en masse.

* More to the point, I'm guessing that Hussein has figured out that the United States style of war makes command and control vulnerable and has arranged things so that area commanders can conduct operations autonomously.

* Saddam Hussein is an evil man. He is also very intelligent, he does seem quite capable of learning from his mistakes, and he has nothing to lose. Something that I found chilling was Dan Rather telling that after his interview with Hussein, Hussein asked him about why Americans supported Bush. The man listens, and the man learns. He is not to be underestimated.

* Both Iraq and the United States are facing some very key military decisions. Iraq has to decide what to do about Basra. Does it withdraw troops from it, or does it keep it as a thorn in the side of the United States? The United States has to make some key decisions about the air war over Iraq. Thus far, U.S. air attacks against Iraq have been militarily useless. Unless they are completely stupid, the Iraqis have long abandoned their buildings and their command and control systems are now mobile in densely populated urban areas. For the United States to progress in the air war, it has to be willing to suffer causalities as well as inflict causalities on Iraqi civilians.

* Something that was almost embarrassing was the "Hussein has a double" speculation. The notion that Hussein was dead and that a double taped a message is so utterly absurd that it frightens me that seemingly rational people would believe it.

2003 March 19

I'm almost too depressed to write. Here is an article of note that sort of explains how we got into this mess

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/EC20Ak07.html

It puts the war at the feet of Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Bill Kristol, Richard Kagan and the Project for the New American Century.

http://www.newamericancentury.org/

This sort of makes sense to me. During the mid-1990's these people tried to make China the enemy. Fortunately they didn't succeed, China was too military powerful and more importantly the United States had too many business interests.

So they've found their enemy and started their war.

Another name mentioned is Leo Strauss

http://home.earthlink.net/~karljahn/Strauss.htm

http://www.mun.ca/animus/1999vol4/roberts4.htm

If you read this then a lot of what has happened over the last few weeks makes sense.

Anyway, under normal circumstances, I would be railing against how dangerously stupid these people are, but I'm too depressed to.

I hope Wolfowitz turns out to be right, and I'm wrong. Anyway talk to you later.

2003 March 18

Alea jacta est.

The best background source for what is going on I've found are the usual suspects http://www.csis.org/ has good reports about the Iraqi army and http://www.brookings.edu/ is holding a weekly conference on the subject.

One thing that is scary is how much isn't known. The big question is how well the Iraqi army is going to hold up. Will they fight or will they break? The fact is that no one known. Saddam Hussein and George Bush don't know, the Director of Central Intelligence doesn't know. No one knows. We are all going to find out by the end of the week.

The CSIS report talked about wild cards. I think that one big wild card is how the internet is going to effect things. Something I am predicting is the "Massacre of Basra." It won't be a real massacre

but there will be some event which is either completely stage managed by the Iraqis or else a trap in which American forces are tricked into (for example) bombing a hospital while cameras are running. Something else that will be interesting is how Hussein manages the media. In 1991, his media management was awful, but today things are different. In 1991, most of the media was concentrated in the United States whereas today you have a lot of Arab sources of media. In 1991, you saw the war from the point of view of the bomber. I'm willing to bet there are going to be some grusome pictures of what it looks like to be bombed.

The point of this will be so that by the time the American forces reach Bagdhad, the civilians will not trust them, and so the United States is going to be faced with a city of six million people, mostly armed, with troops mixed in to the civilian population.

2003 March 13

I have a lot of respect for Henry Kissinger, which is why it is really scary to me when he gets something very, very wrong. In an interview with Charlie Rose, Kissinger stated that he thought the French were not seriously against the resolution and were against it only because they have tied their horse to the Germans. He also said that he thought it was inconceivable that the French would use their veto.

Well it looks like that Kissinger was wrong, which makes me feel less bad about me being wrong. But it is scary. If Henry Kissinger cannot understand the French then what hope do we have of understanding the Iraqis.

2003 March 13

I haven't written anything in a while, and the main reason is that the news has been too depressing. The United States has been busily self-destructing over Iraq. Through diplomacy that has been breath-takingly incompetent, its been trying to undermine its own power.

Right after 9/11, I was optimistic about the future because we saw the United States at its best, bold, compassionate, and diverse. Right now, we are seeing the United States at its worse, impatient, arrogant, and insensitive. There is a scary analogy with the WTC. The WTC held up against the initial crash, but the crash led to a series of events that caused the towers to fall apart. I fear that this is what is happening now.

The basic fact is that Saddam Hussein and Osama bin-Laden cannot destroy the United States. The United States is far too strong and resilient. Even if Hussein and bin-Laden nuked New York City, the United States would remain strong and standing.

The only power that can destroy the United States is the United States itself, and this is what we are seeing. The United States is systematically getting everyone to be mad at it, and this will fatally destroy American power. American power is fundamentally not based on guns or even on money. It is fundamentally based on a vision which people across the world share with it. The United States leads because people are willing to be led by it.

This is why the events of the past few months have been amazing. Rather than working with possible allies, the United States has been systematically alienating it.

I think the reason is that when people or nations are under stress, they refer to old patterns of behavior which can be counter-productive. Two important patterns in the American psyche is impatience and the tendency to see the world in terms of good and evil. The United States is the land of the microwave popcorn and the drive through.

And it's this impatience which has become utterly self-destructive. Rather than waiting days, weeks, months, or even years, Bush wants the matter resolved next week (literally).

And this impatience is destroying American commitment to democracy and debate. Democracy is one of the most annoying systems of government because everyone has their own opinion and trying to work out conflicting opinions takes time and energy. It's annoying, it's frustrating, but it often results in better decisions and it often keeps you from doing stupid things.

But it seems that the United States has become too impatient for democracy and debate. Everything has to be decided tomorrow, and if people don't agree, well then they don't matter. It's amazing that with all of the anti-war sentiment both within and outside of the United States, that there is no debate on this within the government. Congress has signed over it authority to the President.

I think this is going to be a disaster. The Bush administration has lost the support of the French and British people, and is even treating its allies badly. If the United States cannot manage to get the support of the French and British and cannot stay on top of European politics, then what chance does it possibly have of getting the support of the Kurds and Iraqi Shiites, and managing Iraqi politics.

I'm hoping for a miracle.

2003 February 16

There are some interesting articles poping up today.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/16/opinion/16FRIE.html

One is one complaining about China's passivity over Iraq. I have a lot of respect for Tom Friedman, but I think that his enthusiasm for a war in Iraq is misplaced. One of the problems is that I think he far overestimates Chinese dependence on the US economy and the ripple effects that another 9/11 in the United States would have on the Chinese economy. Another 9/11 wouldn't be the end of globalization, the forces involve are too strong for that to happen. Also, as someone that has been on the receiving end of foreign troops and someone that has had thousands of years of experience in what happens when you put troops somewhere else, China is well aware that they can make things worse and is generally not interested in intervening in other countries. The talk that China gives about not intervening in other nation's internal affairs, is not wholely propaganda.

Here is the question that makes me nervous? If the United States has managed to annoy the French, the Germans, and the South Koreas, what makes it think that the Iraqis will love the United States five years into the occupation?

Another far more interesting story is here....

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2003/02/16/194737

American defense experts are annoyed that Taiwan isn't spending enough money on defense. I read as saying that the hammer is beginning to drop. For Taiwan to compete with the PRC in the military realm requires Taiwan to spend much more on defense and this is politically unpopular within Taiwan.

There is a deep tension between Taiwan and the United States as far as defense. It's in the United States interested to get Taiwan to spend more on defense because a strong Taiwan would eliminate the need for the United States to get involved with a war against the PRC. At the same time, it is in Taiwan's interest to rely as much as possible on the United States for defense as this removes the need for Taiwan to spend anything on its military. It will be interesting to see how this will get resolved. Really the only way to get Taiwan to get serious about spending money on its own defense is to state that either American forces or will are insufficient to defend Taiwan against the PRC, but this politically difficult.

2002 February 14

It looks like we are headed for war in Iraq. The world is going to change profoundly soon. Ten years from now, the invasion of Iraq is going to either be one of the best things that has ever been done or the worst thing that has ever been done. But the die has been cast, and we are going to see what happens. At this point the United States has backed itself into a corner, and it can't not go to war without losing all of its credibility.

But I'm nervous. The main reason I'm nervous is that the goals of the war ultimately have little to do with weapons of mass destruction. The goals of the war are to completely remold Iraq into a modern liberal state to trigger democratization and liberalization throughout the Arab world. Nice if it's possible, but I have my doubts. The main reason I'm worried has to do with Chinese public opinion in the 1990's. It went from being overwhelmingly pro-American in 1989 to anti-American in 1995 and causing damage that has only started to be repaired. I am seriously worried that the United States does not have the wisdom or cultural understanding to run Iraq, and that within a decade, it will be totally hated there.

People mention the German and Japanese examples, but what is being contemplated in Iraq is far more ambitious than either Germany and Japan. In those nations, the United States got rid of the militarists and then incorporated more or less liberal elements from the pre-war years to staff an administration. The United States was also dealing with an nations that were territorially intact and already industrialized. In Iraq, the United States will be responsible for building a nation from scratch. I have my doubts as to whether the United States will have the energy and patience to do this, but I hope I'm wrong and everything works out.

In news in Taiwan, it looks like the blue coalition is going to have a Lien-Soong ticket. It will be interesting to see what happens with the election and then beyond.