Weekend Reading: N-Deal, China, Sarah Palin

First, this great post on the N-Deal from BarbarIndian: The mis-argumentative Indian (recommended).

Next, Bhaskar Roy writes on China’s Assasin’s Mace strategy re. the recent N-deal…

and finally, why Sarah palin may not be that different from a Muslim Fundamentalist.

Extracts from all these links below.

Keep smiling, Stay Healthy and Enjoy the weekend.

*** Excerpts from The mis-argumentative Indian ***

In India, debates are settled by repetitively shouting straw man arguments. The side that shouts the loudest, wins. So, what was the Nuclear Deal about? India’s energy needs you say? Well, can’t find that in any newspaper reports. Let’s look at some of the ideas put forward in support of the deal:

We need Nuclear Power:

No, we don’t. We need electrical power, not specifically from Nuclear reactors. Unless we get it real cheap and without hassles. What we have here is not cheap, and not likely to become a significant source of energy in the next decade or so, despite the “deal”. Let’s not even talk about the hassles yet.

We need Electrical Power:

No we don’t. We need to develop resources we can trade in exchange for power. If we are good at producing Rutabagas, let’s make lots of Rutabagas and sell it to Bangladesh. Then we use the money to buy thermal power from grids off Pakistan or Hydro power from Nepal. Flippancy aside, even during the rare moments India Inc. actually thinks “reforms”, we have a way to completely distort it still it stops making economic sense.

This is a pertinent point rendered a straw man argument by the after-deal fiasco. As we see it, reforming the conventional power sector….(incl.) allowing more privatization will have a much bigger impact than Nuclear power. In fact…only about 10% of projected installed capacity of 300,000 MW (Kalam estimate: 400,000) in year 2020 will come from Nuclear reactors…

Oil is becoming expensive:Oil is not used to make electricity. Next?

Actually, coal and gas are becoming more expensive too but so will nuclear fuel. Plus oil has become a victim of gravity lately anyway.

This is our last chance:

Just because Congress has a few months to go, doesn’t mean we need rush into something this important…

President Kalam likes the deal:

This has little value other than say celebrity endorsement for soaps and detergents.

Kalam is a technological man. Men like toys. Besides, Kalam’s take on the deal is something very different. Here is CNN-IBN transcript and here is the TOI transcript for the recent Kalam interview. Watch the interview, the man has a completely odd perspective on the testing issue.

Kalawati wants Nuclear Power:

Well, Kalawati wants food, shelter and education for her children first. This would be the classic socialist argument, so it can be turned on its head. Assuming Kalawati does get prosperous and able to afford electricity, in year 2020 only about 10% of her electric will come from Nuclear reactors.

Nuclear Power is high-tech:

That is the basic problem, Nuclear Power has a sex appeal that titillates the middle class crowd. Admittedly, Nuclear science is at the most cutting age of science. But we are already doing some good Nuke stuff. We can still do those things and more.

India’s Nuclear isolation (apartheid) will end:

Surely this is a subliminal appeal to the automatic revulsion Indians feel towards the caste system but has nothing to do with the original objective (Electricity, remember?). It is being implied that unless we do this deal, our development in all fronts, not just Nuclear Power, will be impacted. The Nuclear “isolation” only limited to a narrow range of technologies…

The Nuclear deal is complex and hence ordinary people won’t understand it

Actually much of India’s problems are a result of intellectual overload…

BJP also wanted this deal:

And that makes it a good deal? A pure conjecture and hence a straw man argument. In any case, the fact that BJP had something to do with this is being purged from history as we speak, after the King Singh’s great “victory”. The TOI timeline here, CNN-IBN timeline here. Do you see a mention of BJP?

BJP would have signed it under much less favorable terms:

See above.

It turns out that Congress also signed it under much less favorable terms! Pranab Mukherjee made a grand speech and they simply appended it to the waiver text. We should really keep politicians out of diplomatic matters – they simply do not know the difference between when they are speaking to Kalawati in an election rally and when they are speaking to the top hawks in the world.

Hey, does anyone still remember the original objective?

…

Bloggers support the deal:

Well, yeah, sure.

***  End of Excerpts ***

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*** Excerpts from N-deal, China and the Assassin’s Mace (emphasis mine)***
 
…India came out of the tense two-day negotiations (NSG, Vienna) winning its rightful place in the nuclear community, despite opposition from powerful interest groups.

Of the Gang of Four and a Half (GOFH), there were three in the forefront – Austria, New Zealand and Ireland. They were allegedly compelled by domestic political pressure to take a hard line.

…All the three countries, as was revealed on September 4 in Vienna, were being strongly backed by China to either vote outright against India, or delay the negotiations to such an extent that the issue would die down at least for the near future.

…Had US President George W. Bush not called the Chinese President Hu Jintao on September 6, the Chinese delegation would have sabotaged the NSG waiver process.

…The Indian National Security Advisor (NSA) M K Narayan finally made clear India’s “disappointment” with China’s role at the NSG meeting. He officially revealed for the first time that China at the highest levels i.e. President Hu Jintao, Premier Wen Jiabao, and Foreign Ministers Yang Jiachi, had assured India that China would not obstruct India at the NSG. …

…India’s nuclear programme forms a very important part of China’s India strategy: to turn it into a bonsai nation. Beijing may tolerate India with the attributes of a great nation, but clipped into a drawing room size. This strategy appears to have collapsed to a significant extent with the NSG waiver in China’s perception, and one should expect a variety of Chinese thrusts to counter India aggressively from now on.

It is well established and beyond any debate that the Chinese government has been the biggest proliferator officially, helping Pakistan to become a stand alone nuclear power with a missile delivery system. Chinese language nuclear weapons documents were given by Libya to the US when Tripoli decided to completely surrender its nuclear establishment and plans and come clean. Even after China signed the NPT, it continued proliferation to Pakistan to complete the latter’s technology and equipment agreement to the full.

…While India has been slow, hesitant and cautiously reactive most of the time, China followed a consistent policy to undermine India at every stage – bilaterally, regionally and globally.

…The import of China’s strategy and its threat to India’s security is undeniable. Since Beijing had political difficulties in setting up nuclear missile bases on India’s shoulder in Tibet, bases in Pakistan more than served the purpose. A nuclear Pakistan could only target India as China’s surrogate. It was an astute strategy. Beijing could use Pakistan to threaten India, and yet restrain it at the right time to show to the world that it was a responsible power. A highly dishonest and deceitful strategy served on a plate of deniability.

…An old Chinese warfare strategy states – when confronting a strong enemy, appease its head but sever its weakest link. Here, the US is seen as the head and India the weakest link.

…Mr. D. Raja of the CPM described September 6, the day of the NSG waiver came India’s way as a “Black Day’ for India. A statement so steeped in deep dismay and frustration is not normally used by a senior politician on a subject of such strategic definition as the nuclear deal. Is it a catastrophe for India, or is it for some other country?

Throughout the period when the left front was with the Congress-led UPA government, they concentrated on two basic issues, both of which ran in parallel. One was anti-“American imperialism”. The other was to promote China in India’s sensitive security areas and arbitrate on behalf of China.

To the left front, especially the CPM, scuttling the Indo-US nuclear deal within the Indian government, Indian Parliament, and the political stage, became as important for them as it was for China. There was a desperation which ended in the left walking out of the UPA alliance, and a call for the trust vote in Parliament.

The CPM leaders claim that they are fighting to protect India’s sovereignty. Their frustration over failing to stop India appears as deep as that of China’s.

…From within the UPA, the CPM ensured that the government absorbed all Chinese transgressions along the borders and Beijing’s sharp rhetoric. Even Chinese official criticism of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to Arunachal Pradesh had to be given a go by. In the interest of keeping the government together, the Congress allowed the CPM to blackmail the country.

…To appreciate China, which has one of the oldest strategic cultures of governance and warfare, is important. The Confucian theory of a benevolent and equitable King, avoiding outward war as far as possible is very significant. War brings hurt and deprivation to all, including this victor.

Master strategist Sun Zi advocated winning a war without fighting a war. A later strategy developed was the “Assassin’s Mace”, something on the lines of the Trojan Horse, but also very different in that the activation of the Trojan Horse strategy was limited by time. The “Assassin’s Mace” is not.

The “Assassin’s Mace” strategy creates agents in the opponent King’s Court, agents who will strike when the master signals. In modern asymmetric warfare terms, the actionable strategy has been polished and developed by China’s political security establishments. This is a strategy being studied and turned into a highly potent weapon in China’s armory.

The Indian government and its strategic policy establishment appear to have realized only now that when dealing with any country, “trust” must be based on “verification” of the opponent’s intent. India has to deal with China, work with China and sit with China. With a 4,000 km border dispute yet to be resolved, there would have to be certain cooperation.

Having said that, China has demonstrated in global headlines that it cannot be trusted by any country. To deceive, deny, and kill with a smile, is the backbone of its strategy and foreign policy. It is a sad commentary.

The people of India had started trusting China. Attempting to murder India twice over is unpardonable.

But as the old proverb goes: Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

***  End of Excerpts ***

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*** Excerpts from What’s the difference between Palin and Muslim fundamentalists? ***

John McCain announced that he was running for president to confront the “transcendent challenge” of the 21st century, “radical Islamic extremism,” contrasting it with “stability, tolerance and democracy.” But the values of his handpicked running mate, Sarah Palin, more resemble those of Muslim fundamentalists than they do those of the Founding Fathers. On censorship, the teaching of creationism in schools, reproductive rights, attributing government policy to God’s will and climate change, Palin agrees with Hamas and Saudi Arabia rather than supporting tolerance and democratic precepts.

…Palin argued when running for governor that creationism should be taught in public schools, at taxpayers’ expense, alongside real science. Antipathy to Darwin for providing an alternative to the creation stories of the Bible and the Quran has also become a feature of Muslim fundamentalism. Saudi Arabia prohibits the study, even in universities, of evolution, Freud and Marx. Malaysia has banned a translation of “The Origin of the Species.” Likewise, fundamentalists in Turkey have pressured the government to teach creationism in the public schools.

…The GOP vice-presidential pick holds that abortion should be illegal, even in cases of rape, incest or severe birth defects, making an exception only if the life of the mother is in danger. She calls abortion an “atrocity” and pledges to reshape the judiciary to fight it. Ironically, Palin’s views on the matter are to the right of those in the Muslim country of Tunisia, which allows abortion in the first trimester for a wide range of reasons….

…Palin’s stance is even stricter than that of the Parliament of the Islamic Republic of Iran. …Saudi Arabia’s restrictive law on abortion likewise disallows it in the case or rape or incest, or of fetal impairment, which is also Gov. Palin’s position.

…Just as Muslim fundamentalists believe that God has given them the vast oil and gas resources in their regions, so Palin asks church workers in Alaska to pray for a $30 billion pipeline in the state because “God’s will has to get done.” Likewise, Palin maintained that her task as governor would be impeded “if the people of Alaska’s heart isn’t right with God.” Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei of Iran expresses much the same sentiment when he says “the only way to attain prosperity and progress is to rely on Islam.”

…Neither Christians nor Muslims necessarily share the beliefs detailed above. Many believers in both traditions uphold freedom of speech and the press. Indeed, in a recent poll, over 90 percent of Egyptians and Iranians said that they would build freedom of expression into any constitution they designed. Many believers find ways of reconciling the scientific theory of evolution with faith in God, not finding it necessary to believe that the world was created suddenly only 6,000 ago. Some medieval Muslim thinkers asserted that the world had existed from eternity, and others spoke of cycles of hundreds of thousands or millions of years. Mystical Muslim poets spoke of humankind traversing the stages of mineral, plant and animal. Modern Islamic fundamentalists have attempted to narrow this great, diverse tradition.

…Palin has a right to her religious beliefs, as do fundamentalist Muslims who agree with her on so many issues of social policy. None of them has a right, however, to impose their beliefs on others by capturing and deploying the executive power of the state. The most noxious belief that Palin shares with Muslim fundamentalists is her conviction that faith is not a private affair of individuals but rather a moral imperative that believers should import into statecraft wherever they have the opportunity to do so. That is the point of her pledge to shape the judiciary. Such a theocratic impulse is incompatible with the Founding Fathers’ commitment to tolerance and democracy, which is why they forbade the government to “establish” or officially support any particular religion or denomination….

*** End of Excerpts ***