Prisoners of Geography

Highlights

Page 129

Seeing geography as a decisive factor in the course of human history can be construed as a bleak view of the world, which is why it is disliked in some intellectual circles. It suggests that nature is more powerful than man, and that we can only go so far in determining our own fate. However, other factors clearly have an influence on events too. Any sensible person can see that modern technology is now bending the iron rules of geography. It has found ways over, under, or through some of the barriers.

Page 272

When the Soviet Union broke apart, it split into fifteen countries. Geography had its revenge on the ideology of the Soviets and a more logical picture reappeared on the map, one in which mountains, rivers, lakes and seas delineate where people live, are separated from each other and thus how they develop different languages and customs. The exceptions to this rule are the ‘Stans’, such as Tajikistan, whose borders were deliberately drawn by Stalin so as to weaken each state by ensuring it had large minorities of people from other states.

Page 343

The Kremlin has a law which compels the government to protect ‘ethnic Russians’. A definition of that term is, by design, hard to come by because it will be defined as Russia chooses in each of the potential crises which may erupt in the former Soviet Union. When it suits the Kremlin, ethnic Russians will be defined simply as people who speak Russian as their first language. At other times the new citizenship law will be used, which states that if your grandparents lived in Russia, and Russian is your native language, you can take Russian citizenship. Given that, as the crises arise, people will be inclined to accept Russian passports to hedge their bets, this will be a lever for Russian entry into a conflict. Approximately 60 per cent of Crimea’s population is ‘ethnically Russian’, so the Kremlin was pushing against an open door. Putin helped the anti-Kiev demonstrations, and stirred up so much trouble that eventually he ‘had’ to send his troops out of the confines of the naval base and onto the streets to protect people. The Ukrainian military in the area was in no shape to take on both the people and the Russian army, and swiftly withdrew. Crimea was once again a de facto part of Russia. You could make the argument that President Putin did have a choice: he could have respected the territorial integrity of Ukraine. But, given that he was dealing with the geographic hand God has dealt Russia, this was never really an option. He would not be the man who ‘lost Crimea’, and with it the only proper warm-water port his country had access to.

Page 370

the best teaching can be done only when there is a direct individual relationship between a student and a good teacher—a situation in which the student discusses the ideas, thinks about the things, and talks about the things. It’s impossible to learn very much by simply sitting in a lecture, or even by simply doing problems that are assigned.

Page 668

When Westerners, be they Mr Gere or former President Obama, talk about Tibet, the Chinese find it deeply irritating. Not dangerous, not subversive – just irritating. They see it not through the prism of human rights, but that of geopolitical security, and can only believe that the Westerners are trying to undermine their security. However, Chinese security has not been undermined and it will not be, even if there are further uprisings against the Han. Demographics and geopolitics oppose Tibetan independence.

Page 687

Once, the majority of the population of Manchuria, Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang were ethnically Manchurian, Mongolian and Uighur; now all three are majority Han Chinese, or approaching the majority. So it will be with Tibet.

Page 743

The Chinese look at society very differently from the West. Western thought is infused with the rights of the individual; Chinese thought prizes the collective above the individual. What the West thinks of as the rights of man, the Chinese leadership thinks of as dangerous theories endangering the majority, and much of the population accepts that, at the least, the extended family comes before the individual.

Page 746

I once took a Chinese ambassador in London to a high-end French restaurant in the hope they would repeat Prime Minister Zhou Enlai’s much-quoted answer to Richard Nixon’s question ‘What is the impact of the French Revolution?’, to which the prime minister replied ‘It’s too soon to tell.’ Sadly this was not forthcoming, but I was treated to a stern lecture about how the full imposition of ‘what you call human rights’ in China would lead to widespread violence and death and was then asked, ‘Why do you think your values would work in a culture you don’t understand?’

Page 956

In 1803 the United States simply bought control of the entire Louisiana Territory from France. The land stretched from the Gulf of Mexico north-west up to the headwaters of the tributaries of the Mississippi River in the Rocky Mountains. It was an area equivalent in size to modern-day Spain, Italy, France, the UK and Germany combined. With it came the Mississippi basin, from which flowed America’s route to greatness. At the stroke of a pen, and the handing over of $15 million, the Louisiana Purchase of 1803 doubled the size of the USA and gave it mastery over the greatest inland water transport route in the world. As the American historian Henry Adams wrote, ‘Never did the United States get so much for so little.’ The greater Mississippi basin has more miles of navigable inland waterways than the rest of the world put together. Nowhere else are there so many rivers whose source is not in high land, and whose waters run smoothly all the way to the ocean across vast distances. The Mississippi, fed by much of the basin river system, begins near Minneapolis and ends 1,800 miles away in the Gulf of Mexico. So the rivers were the natural conduit for ever-increasing trade, leading to a great port and all using waterborne craft which was, and is, many times cheaper than road travel.

Page 045

A century earlier, the British had learnt they needed forward bases and coaling stations from which to project and protect their naval power. Now, with Britain in decline, the Americans looked lasciviously at the British assets and said, ‘Nice bases – we’ll have them.’ The price was right. In the autumn of 1940 the British had desperately needed more warships. The Americans had fifty spare and so, with what was called the ‘Destroyers for Bases Agreement’, the British swapped their ability to be a global power for help in remaining in the war. Almost every British naval base in the Western Hemisphere was handed over.

Note: TIL

Page 128

Analysts often write about the need for certain cultures not to lose face, or ever be seen to back down, but this is not just a problem in the Arab or East Asian cultures – it is a human problem expressed in different ways. It may well be more defined and openly articulated in those two cultures, but American foreign policy strategists are as aware of the issue as any other power. The English language even has two sayings which demonstrate how deeply ingrained the idea is: ‘Give them an inch and they’ll take a mile’, and President Theodore Roosevelt’s maxim of 1900, which has now entered the political lexicon: ‘Speak softly, but carry a big stick.’

Page 163

Due to offshore drilling in US coastal waters, and underground fracking across huge regions of the country, America looks destined to become not just self-sufficient in energy, but a net exporter of energy by 2020. This will mean that its focus on ensuring a flow of oil and gas from the Gulf region will diminish. It will still have strategic interests there, but the focus will no longer be so intense. If American attention wanes, the Gulf nations will seek new alliances. One candidate will be Iran, another China, but that will only happen when the Chinese have built their Blue Water navy and, equally importantly, are prepared to deploy it.

Note: Sunnis allying with Shias? I’ll believe it when it happens.

Page 201

In Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, the USA underestimated the mentality and strength of small powers and of tribes. The Americans’ own history of physical security and unity may have led them to overestimate the power of their democratic rationalist argument, which believes that compromise, hard work and even voting would triumph over atavistic, deep-seated historical fears of ‘the other’, be they Sunni, Shia, Kurd, Arab, Muslim or Christian. They assumed people would want to come together whereas in fact many dare not try and would prefer to live apart because of their experiences. It is a sad reflection upon humanity, but it appears throughout many periods of history, and in many places, to be an unfortunate truth. The American actions took the lid off a simmering pot which had temporarily hidden that truth.

Page 206

This does not make American policymakers ‘naive’, as some of the snootier European diplomats like to believe; but they do have a ‘can do’ and a ‘can fix’ attitude which inevitably will not always work.

Page 232

The Prussian statesman Otto von Bismarck, in a double-edged remark, said more than a century ago that ‘God takes special care of drunks, children and the United States of America.’ It appears still to be true.

Page 242

The climate, fed by the Gulf Stream, blessed the region with the right amount of rainfall to cultivate crops on a large scale, and the right type of soil for them to flourish in. This allowed for population growth in an area in which, for most, work was possible all year round, even in the heights of summer. Winter actually adds a bonus, with temperatures warm enough to work in but cold enough to kill off many of the germs which to this day plague huge parts of the rest of the world. Good harvests mean surplus food that can be traded; this in turn builds up trading centres which become towns. It also allows people to think of more than just growing food and turn their attention to ideas and technology.

Page 259

Europe’s major rivers do not meet (unless you count the Sava, which drains into the Danube in Belgrade). This partly explains why there are so many countries in what is a relatively small space. Because they do not connect, most of the rivers act, at some point, as boundaries, and each is a sphere of economic influence in its own right; this gave rise to at least one major urban development on the banks of each river, some of which in turn became capital cities. Europe’s second-longest river, the Danube (1,780 miles), is a case in point. It rises in Germany’s Black Forest and flows south on its way to the Black Sea. In all, the Danube basin affects eighteen countries and forms natural borders along the way, including those of Slovakia and Hungary, Croatia and Serbia, Serbia and Romania, and Romania and Bulgaria. Over 2,000 years ago it was one of the borders of the Roman Empire, which in turn helped it to become one of the great trading routes of medieval times and gave rise to the present capital cities of Vienna, Bratislava, Budapest and Belgrade. It also formed the natural border of two subsequent empires, the Austro-Hungarian and the Ottoman. As each shrank, the nations emerged again, eventually becoming nation states. However, the geography of the Danube region, especially at its southern end, helps explain why there are so many small nations there in comparison to the bigger countries in and around the North European Plain.

Page 293

Spain is also struggling, and has always struggled because of its geography. Its narrow coastal plains have poor soil, and access to markets is hindered internally by its short rivers and the Meseta Central, a highland plateau surrounded by mountain ranges, some of which cut through it. Trade with Western Europe is further hampered by the Pyrenees, and any markets to its south on the other side of the Mediterranean are in developing countries with limited income. It was left behind after the Second World War, as under the Franco dictatorship it was politically frozen out of much of modern Europe. Franco died in 1975 and the newly democratic Spain joined the EU in 1986. By the 1990s it had begun to catch up with the rest of Western Europe, but its inherent geographical and financial weaknesses continue to hold it back and have intensified the problems of overspending and loose central fiscal control. It has been among the countries hit worst by the 2008 economic crisis. Greece suffers similarly. Much of the Greek coastline comprises steep cliffs and there are few coastal plains for agriculture. Inland are more steep cliffs, rivers which will not allow transportation, and few wide, fertile valleys. What agricultural land there is is of high quality; the problem is that there is too little of it to allow Greece to become a major agricultural exporter, or to develop more than a handful of major urban areas containing highly educated, highly skilled and technologically advanced populations. Its situation is further exacerbated by its location, with Athens positioned at the tip of a peninsula, almost cut off from land trade with Europe. It is reliant on the Aegean Sea for access to maritime trade in the region – but across that sea lies Turkey, a large potential enemy. Greece fought several wars against Turkey in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and in modern times still spends a vast amount of euros, which it doesn’t have, on defence.

Note: I wonder how import agricultural throughout is in the 21st century. Why can’t you import what you need?

Page 393

The dilemma of Germany’s geographical position and belligerence became known as ‘the German Question’. The answer, after the horrors of the Second World War, indeed after centuries of war, was the acceptance of the presence in the European lands of a single overwhelming power, the USA, which set up NATO and allowed for the eventual creation of the European Union. Exhausted by war, and with safety ‘guaranteed’ by the American military, the Europeans embarked on an astonishing experiment. They were asked to trust each other. What is now the EU was set up so that France and Germany could hug each other so tightly in a loving embrace that neither would be able to get an arm free with which to punch the other. It has worked brilliantly and created a huge geographical space now encompassing the biggest economy in the world.

Page 464

This strategic advantage has diminished in tandem with the reduced role and power of the Royal Navy, but in time of war it would again benefit the UK. The GIUK is one of many reasons why London flew into a panic in 2014 when, briefly, the vote on Scottish independence looked as if might result in a Yes. The loss of power in the North Sea and North Atlantic would have been a strategic blow and a massive dent to the prestige of whatever was left of the UK.

Page 544

AFRICA’S COASTLINE? GREAT BEACHES, REALLY, REALLY lovely beaches, but terrible natural harbours. Rivers? Amazing rivers, but most of them are rubbish for actually transporting anything, given that every few miles you go over a waterfall. These are just two in a long list of problems which help explain why Africa isn’t technologically or politically as successful as Western Europe or North America. There are lots of places that are unsuccessful, but few have been as unsuccessful as Africa, and that despite having a head start as the place where Homo sapiens originated about 200,000 years ago. As that most lucid of writers, Jared Diamond, put it in a brilliant National Geographic article in 2005, ‘It’s the opposite of what one would expect from the runner first off the block.’ However, the first runners became separated from everyone else by the Sahara Desert and the Indian and Atlantic oceans. Almost the entire continent below the Sahara developed in isolation from the Eurasian land mass, where ideas and technology were exchanged from east to west, and west to east, but not north to south. Africa, being a huge continent, has always consisted of different regions, climates and cultures, but what they all had in common was their isolation from each other and the outside world, especially in the interior regions where, most notably, the Congo rainforests were a massive barrier to trade routes. That is less the case now, but the legacy remains.

Page 578

But back south there were few plants willing to be domesticated, and even fewer animals. Much of the land consists of jungle, swamp, desert or steep-sided plateau, none of which lend themselves to the growing of wheat or rice, or sustaining herds of sheep. Africa’s rhinos, gazelles and giraffes stubbornly refused to be beasts of burden – or as Diamond puts it in a memorable passage, ‘History might have turned out differently if African armies, fed by barnyard-giraffe meat and backed by waves of cavalry mounted on huge rhinos, had swept into Europe to overrun its mutton-fed soldiers mounted on puny horses.’ But Africa’s head start in our mutual story did allow it more time to develop something else which to this day holds it back: a virulent set of diseases, such as malaria and yellow fever, brought on by the heat and now complicated by crowded living conditions and poor healthcare infrastructure. This is true of other regions – the subcontinent and South America, for example – but sub-Saharan Africa has been especially hard hit, for example by the HIV virus, and has a particular problem because of the prevalence of the mosquito and the Tsetse fly.

Page 608

When the Europeans finally made it down the west coast in the fifteenth century they found few natural harbours for their ships. Unlike Europe or North America, where the jagged coastlines give rise to deep natural harbours, much of the African coastline is smooth. And once they did make land they struggled to penetrate any further inland than about 100 miles due to the difficulty of navigating the rivers, as well as the challenges of the climate and disease. Both the Arabs and then the Europeans brought with them new technology which they mostly kept to themselves, and took away whatever they found of value, which was mainly natural resources and people. Slavery existed long before the outside world returned to where it had originated. Traders in the Sahel region used thousands of slaves to transport vast quantities of the region’s then most valuable commodity, salt, but the Arabs began the practice of subcontracting African slave-taking to willing tribal leaders who would deliver them to the coast. By the time of the peak of the Ottoman Empire in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries hundreds of thousands of Africans (mostly from the Sudan region) had been taken to Istanbul, Cairo, Damascus and across the Arabian world. The Europeans followed suit, outdoing the Arabs and Turks in their appetite for, and mistreatment of, the people brought to the slave ships anchored off the west coast.

Page 624

There are now fifty-six countries in Africa. Since the ‘winds of change’ of the independence movement blew through the mid twentieth century, some of the words between the lines have been altered – for example, Rhodesia is now Zimbabwe – but the borders are, surprisingly, mostly intact. However, many encompass the same divisions they did when first drawn, and those formal divisions are some of the many legacies colonialism bequeathed the continent. The ethnic conflicts within Sudan, Somalia, Kenya, Angola, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Nigeria, Mali and elsewhere are evidence that the European idea of geography did not fit the reality of Africa’s demographics. There may have always been conflict: the Zulus and Xhosas had their differences long before they had ever set eyes on a European. But colonialism forced those differences to be resolved within an artificial structure – the European concept of a nation state. The modern civil wars are now partially because the colonialists told different nations that they were one nation in one state, and then after the colonialists were chased out a dominant people emerged within the state who wanted to rule it all, thus ensuring violence. Take, for example, Libya, an artificial construct only a few decades old which at the first test fell apart into its previous incarnation as three distinct geographical regions. In the west it was, in Greek times, Tripolitania (from the Greek tri polis, three cities, which eventually merged and became Tripoli). The area to the east, centred on the city of Benghazi but stretching down to the Chad border, was known in both Greek and Roman times as Cyrenaica. Below these two, in what is now the far south-west of the country, is the region of Fezzan. Tripolitania was always orientated north and north-west, trading with its southern European neighbours. Cyrenaica always looked east to Egypt and the Arab lands. Even the sea current off the coast of the Benghazi region takes boats naturally eastwards. Fezzan was traditionally a land of nomads who had little in common with the two coastal communities. This is how the Greeks, Romans and Turks all ruled the area – it is how the people had thought of themselves for centuries. The mere decades-old European idea of Libya will struggle to survive and already one of the many Islamist groups in the east has declared an ‘emirate of Cyrenaica’. While this may not come to pass, it is an example of how the concept of the region originated merely in lines drawn on maps by foreigners.

Page 647

The DRC is an illustration of why the catch-all term ‘developing world’ is far too broad-brush a way to describe countries which are not part of the modern industrialised world. The DRC is not developing, nor does it show any signs of so doing. The DRC should never have been put together; it has fallen apart and is the most under-reported war zone in the world, despite the fact that six million people have died there during wars which have been fought since the late 1990s. The DRC is neither democratic, nor a republic. It is the second-largest country in Africa with a population of about 81 million, although due to the situation there it is difficult to find accurate figures. It is bigger than Germany, France and Spain combined and contains the Congo Rainforest, second only to the Amazon as the largest in the world. The people are divided into more than 200 ethnic groups, of which the biggest are the Bantu. There are several hundred languages, but the widespread use of French bridges that gap to a degree. The French comes from the DRC’s years as a Belgian colony (1908–60) and before that, when King Leopold of the Belgians used it as his personal property from which to steal its natural resources to line his pockets. Belgian colonial rule made the British and French versions look positively benign and was ruthlessly brutal from start to finish, with few attempts to build any sort of infrastructure to help the inhabitants. When the Belgians went in 1960 they left behind little chance of the country holding together.

Page 704

Egypt was, arguably, a nation state when most Europeans were living in mud huts, but it was only ever a regional power. It is protected by deserts on three sides and might have become a great power in the Mediterranean region but for one problem. There are hardly any trees in Egypt, and for most of history, if you didn’t have trees you couldn’t build a great navy with which to project your power. There has always been an Egyptian navy – it used to import cedar from Lebanon to build ships at huge expense – but it has never been a Blue Water navy.

Page 769

Angola is another country familiar with conflict. Its war for independence ended in 1975 when the Portuguese gave up, but it instantly morphed into a civil war between tribes disguised as a civil war over ideology. Russia and Cuba supported the ‘socialists’, the USA and apartheid South Africa backed the ‘rebels’. Most of the socialists of the MPLA (Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola) were from the Mbundu tribe, while the opposition rebel fighters were mostly from two other main tribes, the Bakongo and the Ovimbundu. Their political disguise was as the FNLA (National Liberation Front of Angola) and UNITA (National Union for the Total Independence of Angola). Many of the civil wars of the 1960s and 1970s followed this template: if Russia backed a particular side, that side would suddenly remember that it had socialist principles while its opponents would become anti-Communist. The Mbundu had the geographical but not the numerical advantage. They held the capital, Luanda, had access to the oilfields and the main river, the Kwanza, and were backed by countries which could supply them with Russian arms and Cuban soldiers. They prevailed in 2002 and their top echelons immediately undermined their own somewhat questionable socialist credentials by joining the long list of colonial and African leaders who enriched themselves at the expense of the people. This sorry history of domestic and foreign exploitation continues in the twenty-first century.

Page 807

What Beijing wants in Angola is what it wants everywhere: the materials with which to make its products, and political stability to ensure the flow of those materials and products. So when former president José Eduardo dos Santos, who had been in charge for thirty-six years, decided to pay Mariah Carey $1 million to sing at his birthday party in 2013, that was his affair – as was any other way he chose to spend his vast wealth in his poverty-stricken country. And if the Mbundu, to which dos Santos belongs, continue to dominate, that is theirs. China does not have a view on human rights or corruption in Africa – only on economics. Chinese involvement is an attractive proposition for many African governments. Beijing and the big Chinese companies don’t ask difficult questions about human rights, they don’t demand economic reform or even suggest that certain African leaders stop stealing their countries’ wealth as the IMF or World Bank might. For example, China is Sudan’s biggest trading partner, which goes some way to explaining why China consistently protects Sudan at the UN Security Council and continued to back its President Omar al-Bashir even when there was an arrest warrant out for him issued by the International Criminal Court. Western criticism of this gets short shrift in Beijing, however; it is regarded as simply another power play aimed at stopping China doing business, and hypocrisy given the West’s history in Africa. All the Chinese want is the oil, the minerals, the precious metals and the markets. This is an equitable government-to-government relationship, but we will see increasing tension between local populations and the Chinese workforces often brought in to assist the big projects. This in turn may draw Beijing more into the local politics, and require it to have some sort of minor military presence in various countries.

Page 195

The West Bank is almost seven times the size of Gaza but is landlocked. Much of it comprises a mountain ridge which runs north to south. From a military perspective, this gives whoever commands the high ground control of the coastal plain on the western side of the ridge, and of the Jordan Rift Valley to its east. Leaving to one side the ideology of Jewish settlers, who claim the biblical right to live in what they call Judea and Samaria, from a military perspective the Israeli view is that a non-Israeli force cannot be allowed to control these heights, as heavy weapons could be fired onto the coastal plain where 70 per cent of Israel’s population lives. The plain also includes its most important road systems, many of its successful high-tech companies, the international airport and most of its heavy industry. This is one reason for the demand for ‘security’ by the Israeli side and its insistence that, even if there is an independent Palestinian state, that state cannot have an army with heavy weapons on the ridge, and that Israel must also maintain control of the border with Jordan. Because Israel is so small it has no real ‘strategic depth’, nowhere to fall back to if its defences are breached, and so militarily it concentrates on trying to ensure no one can get near it. Furthermore, the distance from the West Bank border to Tel Aviv is about 10 miles at its narrowest; from the West Bank ridge, any half decent military could cut Israel in two. Likewise, in the case of the West Bank Israel prevents any group from becoming powerful enough to threaten its existence.

Note: Only now do I understand that the Israelis cannot and therefore will not cede control of the West Bank. I’m not endorsing their BS apartheid but if I was the Israeli Premier I’m not sure I would have an option.

Page 214

Another serious potential threat comes from Lebanon’s bigger neighbour Syria. Historically, Damascus wants and needs direct access to the coast. It has always regarded Lebanon as part of Syria (as indeed it was) and remains bitter about its troops having been forced to leave in 2005. If that route to the sea is blocked, the alternative is to cross the Golan Heights and descend to the hilly region around the Sea of Galilee en route to the Mediterranean. But the Heights were seized by Israel during the Six-Day War in 1967, and it would take an enormous onslaught by a Syrian army to break through to the coastal plain leading to the major Israeli population centres. This cannot be discounted at some future point, but in the medium term it remains extremely unlikely.

Page 240

The mountainous terrain of Iran means that it is difficult to create an interconnected economy, and that it has many minority groups each with keenly defined characteristics. Khuzestan, for example, is ethnically majority Arab, and elsewhere there are Kurds, Azeri, Turkmen and Georgians, among others. At most 60 per cent of the country speaks Farsi, the language of the dominant Persian majority. As a result of this diversity, Iran has traditionally centralised power and used force and a fearsome intelligence network to maintain internal stability. Tehran knows that no one is about to invade Iran, but also that hostile powers can use its minorities to try and stir dissent and thus endanger its Islamic revolution.

Page 385

When Hosni Mubarak was ousted as President of Egypt it was indeed people power that toppled him, but what the outside world failed to see was that the military had been waiting for years for an opportunity to be rid of him and his son Gamal, and that the theatre of the street provided the cover they needed. It was only when the Muslim Brotherhood called its supporters out that there was enough cover. There were only three institutions in Egypt: Mubarak’s National Democratic Party, the military and the Brotherhood. The latter two destroyed the former, the Brotherhood then won an election, began turning Egypt into an Islamist state, and paid the price by itself being overthrown by the real power in the land – the military. The Islamists remain the second power, albeit now underground. When the anti-Mubarak demonstrations were at their height the gatherings in Cairo attracted several hundred thousand people. After Mubarak’s fall, when the radical Muslim Brotherhood preacher Yusuf al-Qaradawi returned from exile in Qatar, at least a million people came out to greet him, but few in the Western media called this the ‘voice of the people’. The liberals never had a chance. Nor do they now. This is not because the people of the region are radical; it is because if you are hungry and frightened, and you are offered either bread and security or the concept of democracy, the choice is not difficult.

Note: Different from how Obama told it

Page 434

The area within our frame, despite being relatively flat, has always been too large and diverse to have strong central rule. Even the British colonial overlords, with their famed bureaucracy and connecting rail system, allowed regional autonomy and indeed used it to play local leaders off against each other. The linguistic and cultural diversity is partially due to the differences in climate – for example, the freezing north of the Himalayas in contrast to the jungles of the south – but it is also because of the subcontinent’s rivers and religions. Various civilisations have grown up along these rivers, such as the Ganges, the Brahmaputra and the Indus. To this day the population centres are dotted along their banks, and the regions, so different from each other – for example the Punjab, with its Sikh majority, and the Tamil speakers of Tamil Nadu – are based on these geographical divides.

Note: Very vague

Page 441

Different powers have invaded the subcontinent over the centuries, but none have ever truly conquered it. Even now New Delhi does not truly control India and, as we shall see, to an even greater extent Islamabad does not control Pakistan. The Muslims had the greatest success in uniting the subcontinent under one leadership, but even Islam never overcame the linguistic, religious and cultural differences. The first Muslim invasion was as early as the eighth century CE, when the Arabs of the Umayyad Caliphate made it as far as the Punjab in what is now Pakistan. From then until the eighteenth century various foreign invasions brought Islam to the subcontinent; however, east of the Indus River Valley a majority of the Hindu population resisted conversion, thus sowing the seeds for the eventual partition of India.

Note: What’s a foreign invasion? What resist?

Page 469

Pakistan is geographically, economically, demographically and militarily weaker than India. Its national identity is also not as strong. India, despite its size, cultural diversity, and secessionist movements, has built a solid secular democracy with a unified sense of Indian identity. Pakistan is an Islamic state with a history of dictatorship and populations whose loyalty is often more to their cultural region than to the state.

Note: I would have agreed 4-5 years ago

Page 472

Secular democracy has served India well, but the 1947 division did give it a head start. Within the new borders of India was the vast majority of the subcontinent’s industry, most of the taxable income base and the majority of the major cities. For example Calcutta, with its port and banking sector, went to India, thus depriving East Pakistan of this major income provider and connection to the outside world. Pakistan received just 17 per cent of the financial reserves which had been controlled by the pre-partition government. It was left with an agricultural base, no money to spend on development, a volatile western frontier and a state divided within itself in multiple ways.

Note: Ezzzzz

Page 477

The name Pakistan gives us clues about these divisions; pak means ‘pure’ and stan means ‘land’ in Urdu, so it is the land of the pure, but it is also an acronym. The P is for Punjab, A is for Afghania (the Pashtun area by the Afghan border), K for Kashmir, S for Sindh and T stands for ‘tan’, as in Baluchistan.

Note: Pan legendary acronym skills. American legislators would be proud

Page 480

From these five distinct regions, each with their own language, one state was formed, but not a nation. Pakistan tries hard to create a sense of unity, but it remains rare for a Punjabi to marry a Baluchi, or a Sindh to marry a Pashtun. The Punjabis comprise 60 per cent of the population, the Sindhs 14 per cent, Pashtuns 13.5 per cent and Baluchis 4.5 per cent. Religious tensions are ever present – not only in the antagonism sometimes shown to the country’s Christian and Hindu minorities, but also between the majority Sunni and the minority Shia Muslims. In Pakistan there are several nations within one state.

Note: It’s Sindhi. Btw it’s clear this guy has swallowed the Indian myth that it’s one nation. How many Tamils marry Punjabis?

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The official language is Urdu, which is the mother tongue of the Muslims of India who fled in 1947, most of who settled in the Punjab. This does not endear the language to the rest of the country. The Sindh region has long chafed at what it feels to be Punjabi dominance and many Sindhs think they are treated as second-class citizens. The Pashtuns of the North West Frontier have never accepted the rule of outsiders: parts of the frontier region are named the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, but in reality they have never been administered from Islamabad. Kashmir remains divided between Pakistan and India, and although a majority of Kashmiris want independence, the one thing India and Pakistan can agree on is that they cannot have it. Baluchistan also has an independence movement which periodically rises up against the state. Baluchistan is of crucial importance: while it may only contain a small minority of Pakistan’s population, without it there is no Pakistan. It comprises almost 45 per cent of the country and holds much of its natural gas and mineral wealth. Another source of income beckons with the proposed overland routes to bring Iranian and Caspian Sea oil up through Pakistan to China. The jewel in this particular crown is the coastal city of Gwadar. Many analysts believe this strategic asset was the Soviet Union’s long-term target when it invaded Afghanistan in 1979: Gwadar would have fulfilled Moscow’s long-held dream of a warm-water port. The Chinese have also been attracted by this jewel and invested billions of dollars in the region. A deep-water port was inaugurated in 2007 and the two countries are now working to link it to China. In the long run, China would like to use Pakistan as a land route for its energy needs. This would allow it to bypass the Strait of Malacca, which as we saw in the chapter on China is a choke point that could strangle Chinese economic growth. In the spring of 2015, the two countries agreed a $46 billion deal to build a superhighway of roads, railways and pipelines running 1,800 miles from Gwadar to China’s Xinjiang region. The China–Pakistan Economic Corridor, as it is called, will give China direct access to the Indian Ocean and beyond. In late 2015, China also signed a forty-year lease on 2,300 acres of land in the port area, to develop a massive ‘special economic zone’ and an international airport, all as part of the China– Pakistan Economic Corridor. Because both sides know that Baluchistan is likely to remain volatile, a security force of up to 25,000 men is being formed to protect the zone. Massive Chinese investment in building a land route such as this would make Pakistan very happy, and this is one of the reasons Pakistan will always seek to crush any secessionist movements that arise in the province. However, until more of the wealth Baluchistan creates is returned home and used for its own development, the area is destined to remain restive and occasionally violent.

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Pakistan lacks internal ‘strategic depth’ – somewhere to fall back to in the event of being overrun from the east – from India. The Pakistan/Indian border includes swampland in the south, the Thar Desert and the mountains of the north; all are extremely difficult territory for an army to cross. It can be done and both sides have battle plans of how to fight there. The Indian Army plan involves blockading the port of Karachi and its fuel storage depots by land and sea, but an easier invasion route is between the south and the north – it lies in the centre, in the more hospitable Punjab, and in the Punjab is Pakistan’s capital – Islamabad. The distance from the Indian border to Islamabad is less than 250 miles, most of it flat ground. In the event of a massive, overwhelming, conventional attack the Indian army could be in the capital within a few days. That they profess no desire to do so is not the point: from Pakistan’s point of view they might, and the geographical possibility is enough for Pakistan to require a Plan A and a Plan B to counter the risk. Plan A is to halt an Indian advance in the Punjab and possibly counter-attack across the border and cut the Indian Highway 1A, which is a vital supply route for the Indian military. The Indian Army is more than 1 million strong, twice the size of Pakistan’s, but if it can’t be supplied, it can’t fight. Plan B is to fall back across the Afghan border if required, and that requires a sympathetic government in Kabul. Hence geography has dictated that Pakistan will involve itself in Afghanistan, as will India. To thwart each other, each side seeks to mould the government of Afghanistan to its liking – or, to put it another way, each side wants Kabul to be an enemy of its enemy. When the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in 1979 India gave diplomatic support to Moscow, but Pakistan was quick to help the Americans and Saudis to arm, train and pay for the Mujahedeen to fight the Red Army. Once the Soviets were beaten Pakistan’s intelligence service, the ISI, helped to create, and then back, the Afghan Taliban, which duly took over the country. Pakistan had a natural ‘in’ with the Afghan Taliban. Most are Pashtun, the same ethnicity as the majority of the Pakistanis of the North West Frontier (now known as Khyber Pakhtunkhwa). They have never thought of themselves as two peoples and consider the border between them as a Western invention, which in some ways it is.

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It is also a staging post for ISI officers en route to Afghanistan with funds and instructions for the Talibanesque groups across the border. Pakistan has been involved militarily in Afghanistan for decades now, but it has overreached itself, and the tiger it was riding has bitten it. In 2001 the Pakistani-created Taliban had been hosting the foreign fighters of Al Qaeda for several years. Then, on 9/11, Al Qaeda struck the USA on its home soil in an operation put together in Afghanistan. In response US military power ran the Taliban and Al Qaeda out of town. Afghan Northern Alliance anti-Taliban forces moved down to take over the country and a NATO stabilisation force followed. Across the border on the day after 9/11, the Americans had begun breathing diplomatic fire on the Pakistanis, demanding their participation in the ‘War on Terror’ and an end to their support for terrorism. The then Secretary of State, Colin Powell, had phoned President Musharraf and demanded he come out of a meeting to take the call, in which he told him: ‘You are either with us or against us.’ It has never been confirmed by the American side, but Musharraf has written that the call was followed up by Powell’s deputy Richard Armitage ringing the head of the ISI and telling him ‘that if we chose the terrorists, then we should be prepared to be bombed back to the Stone Age’. Pakistan co-operated, and that was that. Except – they hadn’t fully co-operated, and that wasn’t that. Islamabad was forced to act, and did; but not everyone in the Pakistani system was on board. The government banned several militant groups and tried to rein in religious groups it deemed extremist. By 2004 it was involved militarily against groups in the North West Frontier and privately accepted the American policy of drone strikes on its territory whilst publically decrying them. These were tough decisions. The Pakistan military and ISI had to turn on the very Taliban leaders they had trained and formed friendships with in the 1990s. The Taliban groups reacted with fury, seizing complete control of several regions in the tribal areas. Musharraf was the target of three failed assassination attempts, his would-be successor Benazir Bhutto was murdered, and amid the chaos of bombing campaigns and military offensives up to 50,000 Pakistani civilians have been killed. The American/NATO operation in Afghanistan, and the Pakistani measures across the border, had helped scatter the Arab, Chechen and other foreign fighters of Al Qaeda to the corners of the earth, where their leadership was hunted down and killed; but the Taliban had nowhere to go – they were Afghans and Pakistanis – and, as they told these new technologically advanced foreign invaders from America and Europe, ‘You may have the watches – but we have the time.’ They would wait out the foreigners no matter what was thrown at them, and in this they would be helped by elements in Pakistan. Within a couple of years it became clear: the Taliban had…

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bitten. The Pakistani Taliban is a natural outgrowth of the Afghan version. Both are predominantly Pashtun and neither will accept domination from any non-Pashtun power, be it the British army of the nineteenth century or the Punjabidominated Pakistani army of the twenty-first century. This was always understood and accepted by Islamabad. The Pakistani government pretended it ruled the entire country, and the Pashtun of the North West Frontier pretended they were loyal to the Pakistani state. This relationship worked until 11 September 2001. The years since then have been exceptionally hard on Pakistan. The civilian death toll is enormous and foreign investment has dwindled away, making ordinary life even harder. The army, forced to go up against what was a de facto ally, has lost up to 5,000 men and the civil war has endangered the fragile unity of the state. Things became so bad that the Pakistani military and government ended up having to give the US military intelligence and co-ordinates allowing them to conduct drone strikes against Pakistani Taliban targets in the North West Frontier. At the same time, when the strikes became apparent, Islamabad had to pretend to condemn them and describe them as a violation of Pakistani sovereignty due to the hundreds of civilian deaths attributed to mistakes by the US.

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The whole of the region from Malaysia up to the Russian port of Vladivostok eyes the North/South Korea problem nervously. All the neighbours know it has the potential to blow up in their faces, dragging in other countries and damaging their economies. The Chinese don’t want to fight on behalf of North Korea, but nor do they want a united Korea containing American bases close to their border. The Americans don’t really want to fight for the South Koreans, but nor can they afford to be seen to be giving up on a friend. The Japanese, with their long history of involvement in the Korean Peninsula, must be seen to tread lightly, knowing that whatever happens will probably involve them. The solution is compromise, but there is limited appetite for that in South Korea, and none at all displayed by the leadership of the North. The way forward is not at all clear; it seems as if it is always just out of sight over the horizon.

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The name ‘The Hermit Kingdom’ was earned by Korea in the eighteenth century after it attempted to isolate itself following centuries of being a target for domination, occupation and plunder, or occasionally simply a route on the way to somewhere else. If you come from the north, then once you are over the Yalu River there are few major natural defensive lines all the way down to the sea, and if you can land from the sea the reverse is true. The Mongols came and went, as did the Chinese Qing dynasty and the Japanese several times. So for a while the country preferred not to engage with the outside world, cutting many of its trade links in the hope that it would be left alone. It was not successful. In the twentieth century the Japanese were back, annexing the whole country in 1910, and later set about destroying its culture. The Korean language was banned, as was the teaching of Korean history, and worship at Shinto shrines became compulsory. The decades of repression have left a legacy which even today impacts on relations between Japan and both the Korean states.

Note: This is probably a simplification of centuries of Korean history. But forgivable.

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In the hills above the 148-mile-long DMZ the North Korean military has an estimated 10,000 artillery pieces. They are well dug in, some in fortified bunkers and caves. Not all of them could reach the centre of Seoul, but some could, and all are able to reach the greater Seoul region. There’s little doubt that within two or three days the combined might of the South Korean and US air forces would have destroyed many of them, but by that time Seoul would be in flames. Imagine the effect of just one salvo of shells from 10,000 artillery weapons landing in urban and semi-urban areas, then multiply it dozens of times.

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By the beginning of the twentieth century Japan was an industrial power with the third-largest navy in the world, and in 1905 it defeated the Russians in a war fought on land and at sea. However, the very same island-nation geography that had allowed it to remain isolated was now giving it no choice but to engage with the world. The problem was that it chose to engage militarily. Both the First Sino-Japanese War and the Russo-Japanese War were fought to thwart Chinese and Russian influence in Korea. Japan considered Korea to be, in the words of its Prussian military advisor, Major Klemens Meckel, ‘A dagger pointed at the heart of Japan’. Controlling the peninsula removed the threat, and controlling Manchuria made sure the hand of China, and to a lesser extent Russia, could not get near the dagger’s handle. Korea’s coal and iron ore would also come in handy. Japan had few of the natural resources required to become an industrialised nation. It had limited and poor-quality supplies of coal, very little oil, scant quantities of natural gas, limited supplies of rubber and a shortage of many metals. This is as true now as it was 100 years ago, although offshore gas fields are being explored along with undersea deposits of precious metals. Nevertheless it remains the world’s largest importer of natural gas, and third-largest importer of oil.

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