Ok, don't fret just yet. Your favourite may be missing but this is just one list of the many out there...
Thursday, 6 September 2018
JOINT CURFEW PLAN FOR INTERNAL SECURITY SITUATIONS: SENSING TROUBLE AROUND THE CORNER
Civil unrest is the making of the civilians (politicians and administrators) and they must shoulder the responsibility to control it with their resource, the police. The current curfew plan is a master-stroke to prevent the Army from staying away from unruly mobs and ensuring its involvement abinitio. However, given the drawbacks, the premature commitment of troops as part of the police curfew plan must be scrapped.
Introduction
The curfew plan, evolved by the civil police post the 2010 protests that rocked the Valley, envisages the occupation of cut-off points by the Army whenever the civil police activate the plan ahead of expected unrest or protests. The Army, blinded by its zeal for synergy, has no say in the activation of the curfew plan and readily complies. While it may seem a matter that is trivial when we encourage police-led rehearsals in the absence of violent mobs to confront, it is the pragmatic analysis of the likely repercussions that must be taken note of.
Wednesday, 5 September 2018
India, Pakistan & Partition: Borders of Blood
On August 15, 1947, the Partition of the Indian subcontinent created two nation states - India and Pakistan.
In this two-part special, 101 East traces the events and conflicting politics that led to the greatest migration of people in human history, and unleashed a wave of communal violence that claimed more than a million lives.
The Partition sparked three wars, the birth of Bangladesh, and transformed Kashmir into the world's most militarised zone. As tensions between India and Pakistan persist, 101 East explores the Partition's troubled legacy and the unresolved geopolitics between the two nuclear powers.
The Partition sparked three wars, the birth of Bangladesh, and transformed Kashmir into the world's most militarised zone. As tensions between India and Pakistan persist, 101 East explores the Partition's troubled legacy and the unresolved geopolitics between the two nuclear powers.
India, Pakistan & Partition: Borders of Blood Part 2 - 101 East
Tuesday, 4 September 2018
Taliban Say Haqqani Founder Is Dead. His Group Is More Vital Than Ever. - The New York Times
"KABUL, Afghanistan — For the first time, the Taliban have confirmed the death of Jalaluddin Haqqani, an American ally from the Cold War who later turned his weapons against the United States as the founder of the feared Haqqani militant network, behind some of the deadliest attacks of the 17-year Afghan war.
In their announcement on Tuesday, the Taliban gave no details on the timing of Mr. Haqqani’s death. Throughout his 70s, he remained ill even as his followers continued in his name to stage huge bombings and suicide commando attacks in Afghan cities."
Sunday, 2 September 2018
Pakistan:The State that Refuses to Fail
Author: TWI
T |
he discourse on failed states, dominant through the 1990s, is fuelled afresh by the Failed States Index (FSI)[1]sponsored by the Fund for Peace and supported by Foreign Policy since 2005. Expectedly, the applicability of the 12 indicators[2] being used to judge the extent of failure of Nation States has been debated for their apparent common treatment of disparate circumstances in societies spanning the nether to the first world. Consider a social factor like ‘Continual Human Flight’ described as ‘brain drain’ of professionals, intellectuals and political dissidents, intentional emigration of the middle class or ethnic population to other places of the State or any other State. Or an economic indicator like ‘Imbalance in Economic Development’ defined as inequality and injustice against a group or a tribe in education, jobs, and economic status according to their communal or religious identity. Any discerning analyst, without a goose to cook, will amplify incessantly the resultant discrepancy from applying the same yardstick to States that have evolved and stabilised over seven centuries as against those having a history countable in mere decades.
Security Wise (Bharat Karnad): Why Not Show Pakistan The Same Consideration Shown To China?
"The chief beneficiaries of a squabbling India and Pakistan are China and the United States. They are able to play off the South Asian states against each other, egging on one and then the other, to serve their distinct national interests. For instance, the U.S. has been vocal about its anti-terrorism stance but Washington has time and again made plain—and this has not been paid attention to by Delhi—that their concern is mainly with Pakistan assisting the Afghan Taliban factions fighting the NATO forces in that country, and not with Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammed, Masood Azhar, or Hafiz Saeed. Consider China: The so-called China-Pakistan Economic Corridor is increasingly recognised by Pakistanis as a debt trap that would permit the Chinese to put down roots and redo the ‘East India Company’ scene from some 300 years ago."
Read the full article here
Saturday, 1 September 2018
Oxford Research Group | The Golden Age of Special Operations Forces
Oxford Research Group | The Golden Age of Special Operations Forces:
"Special Forces have long captured people’s imaginations. Books, films, videogames and news outlets propagate an image of heroism and mysticism – only added to by governments’ reticence to discuss their operations. The impact of this is that, while almost everyone knows or thinks they know what Special Forces are, few really know what they do. This article seeks to address this by giving an introduction to the operations of Special Forces, using the US Special Operations Forces (SOF) as a case study. The first section of this article will describe what SOF do, especially looking at their two core tasks in dismantling terrorist groups – direct and indirect operations – and their increasing role as the sole boots on the ground. The second section briefly describes the history of SOF, from their origins in World War Two to the Obama administration – where, attempting to balance tackling this threat with the political desire to bring troops home, they became his ‘tool of choice’. The final section touches upon three dangers with the current use of SOF: the damage to democracy, given the secrecy of SOF and prominence of their use in US operations; the overuse what is a comparably small and specifically trained part of the US force; and the problems it could present for US’s broader foreign policy goals."
"Special Forces have long captured people’s imaginations. Books, films, videogames and news outlets propagate an image of heroism and mysticism – only added to by governments’ reticence to discuss their operations. The impact of this is that, while almost everyone knows or thinks they know what Special Forces are, few really know what they do. This article seeks to address this by giving an introduction to the operations of Special Forces, using the US Special Operations Forces (SOF) as a case study. The first section of this article will describe what SOF do, especially looking at their two core tasks in dismantling terrorist groups – direct and indirect operations – and their increasing role as the sole boots on the ground. The second section briefly describes the history of SOF, from their origins in World War Two to the Obama administration – where, attempting to balance tackling this threat with the political desire to bring troops home, they became his ‘tool of choice’. The final section touches upon three dangers with the current use of SOF: the damage to democracy, given the secrecy of SOF and prominence of their use in US operations; the overuse what is a comparably small and specifically trained part of the US force; and the problems it could present for US’s broader foreign policy goals."
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