SASF – Blogs

Post-modern warfare is a new term used to justify the new type of warfare, whereby it is fought with precision weapons with minimal collateral damage and extensively improved types of immediate information (speed of sending info), surveillance and of equipment for locating targets. This new type of warfare has been possible due to the new military technology available, the RMA (Revolution in Military Affairs) and the information technology.

Now you may ask yourself What is the difference between post-modern warfare and the traditional war? Who is responsible for its development and creation? And most important, other than its lesser implications on collateral damage comparing to traditional warfare, how valid or legal is it for it to be practised on sovereign nation-states?

To answer the two first questions pose no difficulty, while the last question can be found to be very debatable. To start off, post-modern warfare development and the ideas can be traced back a fairly long time ago. The usages of catapult and far distant weapons that can fire their weapons against the army are examples of weapons that shield the people who are firing them from getting killed or hurt. The usage of these weapons was to destroy the enemy with getting the least damage to one self. Although these weapons were not as precise and mobile as todays, lets say airplanes and ships; they were a sort of a foundation for this new age in warfare. Like John Donne a metaphysical poet mentioned sometime during the 1500s giving recognition to the catapult and long-distance artillery saying that we are moving into a new era of warfare which can bring less bloodshed to future wars.

Skipping forward a few hundred years we can see as the technology in the military developed. At the beginning of the 1970s the Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) which still operates today is observed to developing a technology for the use in military that aims at decreasing casualties or death to people. It seeks to control what ever it is attacking.

This new type of warfare has been made possible thanks to the RMA, the programme created for the sole purpose of returning war to the West to its position as the prolongation of politics by other means. As the two superpowers during the Cold War were competing, the only way they could confront each other was with nuclear weapons which they couldnt use. This created a stalemate and opened up for developing of conventional or non-nuclear weapons that the other side did not have. The advantage of these weapons was that they actually could be used. These weapons could be applied only in certain ways and with some restrictions. They had to be politically and morally approved and accepted by different charters and human rights laws and declarations.

Also, in order for this new type of weaponry to be accepted they need to be more effective and efficient in comparison to the traditional warfare before the post-modern one. The necessity to avoid human losses of the people who are actually firing these weapons was one of the factors to its efficiencies. Retaining these people as far away from the battlefield frontiers to decrease, if not fully eliminate, the risk to them. Decreasing collateral or civilian damage by providing better accuracy or precision on the target is usually second on the priority list. This all means war that has to be fought needed to be as bloodless, risk-free and precise as possible.

The US military is seen as having a much greater technological advancement than any other nation in the modern world and is the founder of these great new technologies. Always one step ahead of the rest, the US military lies overwhelmingly militarily-technologically advance than any other nation. That is why its running a monopoly in this new technology for military! As the only one with this capacity of waging war in this way it could give you the expression of them being the World Police. Other people disagree with the image of the US as the World Police claiming US foreign policy is aimed at helping nations in need and restoring their government to follow the democratic polices. There are now self-interests in any countries they are involved in.

Their claim that through these less bloody actions of post-modern warfare (more victims but less severe) peace can be brought about in the world where conflicts arise. How authentic is this statement actually, considering what the US has done in Serbia (Kosovo), Iraq and Afghanistan? But disregarding their aims are we aware and how can we justify or validate these sorts of actions. Yes, the US military and NATO have not lost many men in their military actions on these countries (trhough waging post-modern warfar, i.e. warfare from a distance), however, their bombs, such as cluster bombs have caused severe damages to both military and civilian targets, letting these conflict stricken countries endure collateral damage.

No matter what type of warfare we embark ourselves on, none of them can settle anything considerable. Through any form of force used in this magnitude, they cant solve problems. This is especially true when the force that uses post-modern warfare use it illegally, that is to say, rather than bringing peace, hidden agendas occupy their calculation (e.g. oil in Iraq, having control of Kosovo for having military bases in Eastern Europe). Force should be used only as a last resort, but it doesnt promise to settle anything, a last resort is the last plan, meaning the least best or in other words the worst idea of them all. The war or force that can resolve problems like in the former Yugoslavia or Iraq, or any country for that fact, is of utopian idea; the war where no casualties exist and can be resolved is unlikely to happen any time soon or even ever.

Author: Darko Perun
Article Source: EzineArticles.com

Ramtanu Maitra

29 Sep 2008

In recent weeks, particularly following the removal of Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan’s former President and Chief of Army Staff, on 18 August, Washington has begun to train its guns on Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), which is on the border with Afghanistan.

On 3 September, US troops raided a known habitat of Taliban leaders in South Waziristan, without seeking permission from Islamabad. The USA’s unilateral violation of Pakistani territory created a furore in Islamabad, but it is evident that Washington has come to the dangerous conclusion that the Durand Line – the international border that separates Pakistan from Afghanistan, and was drawn on sand more than century ago by a British clerk – does not hold any longer. In order to secure Afghanistan, and tame the insurgents there, Washington has decided that US troops have no choice but to take the bull by the horns and move into the FATA physically, to eliminate the Taliban leaders.

Beside the furore that the raid has caused, it is evident that the Americans do not really understand what they are taking on. It is not that the US troops are not militarily competent to deal with the enemy, no matter what the strength of that enemy could be; the real issue here is that Washington refuses to acknowledge who its actual enemies are.

On the ground, the FATA is controlled by the tribal groups, who have remained non-integrated as a result of the British policy of divide and rule, and by the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), a section of which works hand-in-glove with MI6.

In other words, the enemy is the British controllers, not the local tribesmen. In a recent article, the senior Indian journalist Bhaskar Menon pointed out that relations between the ISI and the British intelligence community have been close for decades, and have extended into a variety of areas.

Britain’s post-World War II role as the patron of the Muslim Brotherhood (inherited from Nazi Germany), developed into a low-profile alliance with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, to guide the most effective anti-communist movement in the Islamic world.

“The Brotherhood has provided the leadership of every major ‘Islamic’ terrorist organization, including the Taliban and al- Qaeda,” Menon noted (17 September 2008, www.vijayvaani.com).

Following the US incursion into the FATA, Pakistan’s newly appointed President Asif Ali Zardari travelled to London to seek the British Prime Minister’s support against the US-led border violation. While it is true that the FATA is basically controlled from London, with the help of the MI6 and the ISI, it is nonetheless strange, but at the same time revealing, that Zardari, who “got” his job by ousting Musharraf with the help of the United States, ran to London, and not to Washington, to seek help.  continue reading…

Ramtanu Maitra

12/30/07

The gruesome killing of Benazir Bhutto in the evening hours of Dec. 27 in Pakistan’s garrison town of Rawalpindi is yet another step in the process of weakening, and eventual break-up, of Pakistan.

Despite the crocodile tears shed in Washington and London over Bhutto’s assassination, it was a disaster waiting to happen and therefore, was altogether expected. Those who believed, naively, that Bhutto’s mission was to reinstate democracy in Pakistan and put its usurpers, the Pakistani military, in the background, do not realize why she was inserted into the scene, which was already rife with violence. The truth is that the British imperial circles, with their stooges in Washington, set up Bhutto’s execution, to advance their scheme to break up Pakistan, and create chaos throughout this strategic region.

Bhutto, no doubt, was a mass-based political leader, but she was a woman (an excuse used by the puppet Islamic jihadists to commit violence against a person), and she was goaded into the scene by the United States-perhaps now the most hated nation among Muslims in general-to serve Washington’s purpose, which was to put the Pakistani military on the defensive and force it to share power with a democratic politician. According to the master strategists in Washington, that is the best of both worlds-the Pakistani military stays friendly, while the United States shakes off its guilt of backing a military dictator.

It is not known what transpired in the telephone call between U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Benazir Bhutto that led to Bhutto’s decision to return. What promises were made will not be known unless Rice can shake off the national security garb and tell the truth. The one who knew, and could tell others, is gone.

The 9/11 event had enticed a weak-in-the-head Bush Administration to embark on a journey, the path of which was paved by the British colonialists. The vestiges of British colonial aspirations exist not only at Buckingham Palace, but even more so in the power of the intrigue and secrecy-ridden City of London.

Britain and the Muslims

The partition of India, and the formation of Pakistan, a Muslim nation, by the British Raj, was not done because the British liked Muslims. They had slaughtered them by the thousands in 1856, when the Hindus and Muslims joined hands under the last Mughal emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar, to drive out the firenghee (white-skinned foreigners). Those who remember that untold part of the history of the Indian independence movement, talk of the piles of bodies lying in the streets of Delhi slaughtered by British soldiers. Most of them, like Benazir Bhutto and her colleagues who died on Dec. 27, were Muslims.

The Muslims were “traitors” aspiring to reinstate the “despicable” and “corrupt” Mughal dynasty, London screamed.

The key to the British Empire’s financial success was its ability to manipulate Islam. The British Empire-builders eliminated the Islamic Caliphate, created nations out of deserts, eliminated some nations, and partitioned others to create Islamic nations. Britain was aware that the oil fields of Arabia would be a source of great power in the post-World War II decades. The western part of British India bordered Muslim Central Asia, another major source of oil and gas, bordering Russia and Muslim Afghanistan. British India also bordered Islamic Iran and the Persian Gulf-the doorway to the oil fields of Arabia. In order to keep its future options open, Balochistan, bordering northeastern Iran, and the tribal Pushtun-dominated areas bordering Afghanistan, remained as British protectorates. continue reading…

LONDON – Harry Patch, the last British military veteran of World War I, has died at 111, the nursing home where he lived said Saturday.

The Fletcher House care home in Wells, southwest England, said Patch died early Saturday.

Patch had been the last surviving soldier from the British Army to have served in the 1914-18 war. The only other surviving British veteran of the war, former airman Henry Allingham, died a week ago at age 113.

Patch was called up for service in the British army in 1917 when he was working as a teenage apprentice plumber.

A few weeks later, in one of the bloodiest battles of the Great War, at Passchendaele, near the Belgian town of Ypres, he was badly wounded and three of his best friends were killed by a shell explosion.

Patch’s death Saturday severs Britain’s living links with “the war to end all wars,” which killed about 20 million people.

In recent years he and his dwindling band of fellow survivors became poignant symbols of the conflict.

Last year he, Allingham and Bill Stone — the last British naval veteran of the war — attended remembrance ceremonies at the Cenotaph in London to mark the 90th anniversary of the war’s end at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918. The three frail men in wheelchairs laid wreaths of red poppies at the base of the stone memorial.

Stone died in January.

At a remembrance ceremony in 2007, Patch said he felt “humbled that I should be representing an entire generation.”

“Today is not for me. It is for the countless millions who did not come home with their lives intact. They are the heroes,” he said. “It is also important we remember those who lost their lives on both sides.”

Patch said he did not speak about the war for 80 years. But he came to believe the casualties were not justified.

“I met someone from the German side and we both shared the same opinion: we fought, we finished and we were friends,” he said in 2007.

“It wasn’t worth it.”

Harry Patch, last British WWI veteran, dies at 111 – Yahoo! News.

Ramtanu Maitra Feb 2005

On February 1, Lieutenant General J J Singh took over as India’s new Army chief. He is expected to direct the Indian Army for three years, a tenure that is anticipated to be a period of great significance for the Indian Army. India’s army is in the process of developing and adopting a new generation of military technology, based on precision and speed.

At the same time, cursed with the border situation in its west and the neverending insurgency activities, supported externally by anti-India elements operating from within Bangladesh and Nepal, in the northeast part of India, Singh will have to formulate more effective counterterrorism measures that have increasingly become regular military interventions. It is almost a certainty that Singh will find the Indian army’s counterterrorism operations in need of modernisation and adoption of new tactical measures. An army press release on the adoption of a new counterterrorism doctrine states that it would prioritise “winning hearts and minds” in such situations.

In other words, the army will have to institutionalise an approach, which has to be spread from the top officerlevel to the foot soldiers, calling for less ruthless and more personal relations with the people among whom it operates. It is a difficult task,  particularly in Jammu and Kashmir and north-eastern India, where terrorists and secessionists enjoy the support of some of the locals.

On the other hand, the frequency of Indo-Pakistani talks at the official level to build confidence, and the growing opposition within Pakistan to the anti-India campaign of the Pakistani army, may provide some break to the new chief on India’s western borders. With infiltration levels down and talks on with both Pakistan and dissidents in Kashmir, no Indian army chief has perhaps ever had the chance to look at the Jammu and Kashmir situation as positively as the new Army chief. However, such a break for the army chief will be hard to come by in India’s north-eastern sector.

The new doctrine

Interestingly reports indicate that the Indian military has framed a new military doctrine keeping in mind the duration of future wars, which are likely to be short and intense. The doctrine highlights more roles for the special forces, capable of quick movement and swift strikes, rather than having large armies.

Outgoing Army Chief N C Vij pointed out recently that Indian defence forces were being trained to mobilise troops quickly should there be a war in the future. This fits in pretty much with the military-think of today’s Pentagon, which is involved in intense discussions with the Indian military on a strategic alliance, particularly since the events of September 11, 2001.

There is no question that a large number of analysts within the Indian defence establishment have been seduced by this  Pentagon-think. The US Army’s messy handling of the Iraq situation further confirms their belief that slow, conventional warfare is a  loser in the present context of achieving specific objectives.

At the same time, a study by the New Delhi-based Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies (IPCS) says that some important features of the doctrine are poorly matched to the concept of limited war. The Indo- Asian News Service quoted General Vij as saying, “The new military doctrine envisages training and finetuning of our armed forces to gear up for such eventualities.” continue reading…

Dec 13, 2003

By Ramtanu Maitra

The volley of peace initiatives between New Delhi and Islamabad during October and November has puzzled many political analysts around the world. Two questions are asked most: Are these proposals for real? And why now?

The sequence of events is as follows. The first salvo was actually fired in May, by Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee before his three-nation tour of Germany, France and Russia. Vajpayee said that India wanted to start talks with Pakistan “as soon as possible”, but also made it clear that for a meaningful dialogue, cross-border terrorism should end and the terror infrastructure be dismantled.

Then, on October 22, Indian External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha offered a 12-point peace package to Pakistan. One of the proposals was the immediate resumption of sporting contacts, namely, cricket. The others are equally practical: more road, rail and ferry connections between the two nuclear-armed states and a bus route between the two halves of disputed Kashmir; fresh talks on air links; cooperation between coastguard forces to reduce unnecessary arrests of fishermen; and more diplomats in each other’s capitals.

Without responding to this proposal, one way or the other, a week later, Pakistan made a counter-proposal of 13 items. Soft proposals such as the restoration of sporting ties in all fields, including cricket, were endorsed without any hitch. But changes were sought in the case of some confidence-building measures. For instance, on India’s proposal for a Muzaffarabad-Srinagar bus link in Kashmir, Pakistan Foreign Secretary Riaz A Khokar told a press conference: “We welcome the start of a bus service between Muzaffarabad and Srinagar, but since Kashmir is a disputed territory, checkposts in the area must be manned by UN forces and people of both sides must carry UN documents.”

On November 23, Pakistani Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali, in his address to the nation on completion of the first year of his government, announced a unilateral ceasefire along the Line of Control (LoC) that divides the disputed state of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) between India and Pakistan, beginning with the holy Muslim day of Eid (November 26). Formally, India has welcomed this response, but has, at the same time, urged Pakistan to stop cross-border infiltration to make the ceasefire worthwhile. In a statement, the Ministry of External Affairs said that the government of India had earlier proposed a ceasefire along the actual ground position line in Siachen in the high altitude northern section of the LoC.

In addition to the ceasefire along the LoC, Jamali also expressed his willingness to start a bus service between Srinagar – the summer capital of the Indian part of J&K – and Muzaffarabad, the capital of the Pakistani part of J&K; to start a ferry service from the Pakistani port of Karachi to the Indian port of Mumbai; to revive air links between the two countries; and to open the Khokhrapar-Munabao railroad route, between the province of Sindh in Pakistan and the Indian state of Rajasthan, which was closed following the 1965 India-Pakistan war. All these proposals, except the ceasefire proposal, were among the 12 peace proposals offered to Pakistan by Sinha on October 22.

Then, on November 24, Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf announced that Pakistan would permit the restoration of flights to India and permit Indian airliners to fly over its landmass. Vajpayee reciprocated the gesture on December 1. continue reading…