The Stratfor document dump I want to see

Ninja Babe image from a Creative Brush Adobe Illustrator tutorial

Wikileaks as started publishing the 5 million or so Stratfor emails hacked by Anonymous. Julian Assange claimed, "What we have discovered is a company that is a private intelligence Enron." Of the chilling revelations I did read something about Coca-Cola and PETA. Yea, well, whatever.

At any rate, the Stratfor document dump I want to see is the tens of thousands of emails they no doubt sent to each other discussing my Hot Stratfor Babe selections. I'm pretty sure that those emails will reveal that Fred Barnes and George Friedman nearly came to blows on several occasions as they debated my choices.

Also, although I have no information to back up this sensational claim, I suspect they came close to dispatching a squad of highly trained, female ninjas to take me out when I awarded Lotte Lenya her Hot Stratfor Babe honor.

I await those emails with bated breath.
 

Stratfor and Mata Hari

Today's Strafor article is a long piece that discusses, in light of the U.S. locating and eliminating Bin Laden in Pakistan, the importance of human intelligence assets. It covers the history of the rebuilding of the CIAs  human intelligence network in the wake of 9/11, the difficulties with the liason between the CIA and Pakistan's ISI, and possible scenarios as to how Bin Laden was located.

Normally I select a model or actress as an article's Hot Stratfor Babe, but all the talk of spies immediately brought Mata Hari to mind. Hence, and no doubt greatly mitigating her reputation as a seductress and German Spy, she has been selected as this article's Hot Stratfor Babe.

She was born Margaretha Zelle and at the age of 18, after a family bankrupcy, she answered a newspaper ad and married a much older Dutch army officer. They moved to Java where she studied the local culture. The husband was an alcoholic and abusive, so when they returned to Europe she left him.

She took up performing to support herself, and eventually drifted into exotic dancing where she claimed she was a Java princess of priestly Hindu birth and other such malarkey. She was extremely successful and also extremely promiscuous, which led her into a number of affairs with wealthy men.

It is not clear that she actually was a spy in WWI. Being a neutral she could freely travel, and she ended up being questioned in Britain where she claimed she was a French spy. Meanwhile the French had intercepted a poorly coded radio message which led them to believe she was a German spy.

In spite of the sketchy evidence against her, and perhaps hurt by her own tendency to spin yarns, she was convicted of espionage by the allies and executed by firing squad in 1917.

As a bonus, at the end of the article, I've included a video clip of from a 1931 movie of Greta Garbo vamping it up as Mata Hari as she seduces some poor sap. You'll have to watch it to see if he falls for her charms, and what dastardly deed he will have to do if he does.


THE BIN LADEN OPERATION: TAPPING HUMAN INTELLIGENCE
By Fred Burton, May 26, 2011

Since May 2, when U.S. special operations forces crossed the Afghan-Pakistani border and killed Osama bin Laden, international media have covered the raid from virtually every angle. The United States and Pakistan have also squared off over the U.S. violation of Pakistan's sovereign territory and  Pakistan's possible complicity in hiding the al Qaeda leader. All this surface-level discussion, however, largely ignores almost 10 years of intelligence development in the hunt for bin Laden.

While the cross-border nighttime raid deep into Pakistan was a daring and daunting operation, the work to find the target -- one person out of 180 million in a country full of insurgent groups and a population hostile to American activities on its soil -- was a far greater challenge. For the other side, the challenge of hiding the world's most wanted man from the world's most funded intelligence apparatus created a clandestine shell game that probably involved current or former Pakistani intelligence officers as well as competing intelligence services. The details of this struggle will likely remain classified for decades.

Examining the hunt for bin Laden is also difficult, mainly because of the sensitivity of the mission and the possibility that some of the public information now available could be disinformation intended to disguise intelligence sources and methods. Successful operations can often compromise human sources and new intelligence technologies that have taken years to develop. Because of this, it is not uncommon for intelligence services to try to create a wilderness of mirrors to protect sources and methods. But using open-source reporting and human intelligence from STRATFOR's own sources, we can assemble enough information to draw some conclusions about this complex intelligence effort and raise some key questions.

The Challenge

Following the 9/11 attacks, finding and killing bin Laden became the primary mission of the U.S. intelligence community, particularly the CIA. This mission was clearly laid out in a presidential "finding," or directive, signed on Sept. 17, 2001, by then-U.S. President George W. Bush. By 2005 it became clear to STRATFOR that bin Laden was deep inside Pakistan. Although the Pakistani government was ostensibly a U.S. ally, it was known that there were elements within it sympathetic to al Qaeda and bin Laden. In order to find bin Laden, U.S. intelligence would have to work with -- and against -- Pakistani intelligence services.

Finding bin Laden in a hostile intelligence environment while friends and sympathizers were protecting him represented a monumental intelligence challenge for the United States. With bin Laden and his confederates extremely conscious of U.S technical intelligence abilities, the search quickly became a human-intelligence challenge. While STRATFOR believes bin Laden had become tactically irrelevant since 9/11, he remained symbolically important and a focal point for the U.S. intelligence effort. And while it appears that the United States has improved its intelligence capabilities and passed an important test, much remains undone. Today, the public information surrounding the case illuminates the capabilities that will be used to find other high-value targets as the U.S. effort continues.

The official story on the intelligence that led to bin Laden's Abbottabad compound has been widely reported, leaked from current and former U.S. officials. It focuses on a man with the cover name Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti, a Pakistani Pashtun born in Kuwait who became bin Laden's most trusted courier. With fluency in Pashto and Arabic, according to media reports, al-Kuwaiti would be invaluable to al Qaeda, and in order to purchase bin Laden's property and run errands he would also need to be fluent in Urdu. His position as bin Laden's most trusted courier made him a key link in disrupting the organization. While this man supposedly led the United States to bin Laden, it took a decade of revamping U.S. intelligence capabilities and a great deal of hard work (and maybe even a lucky break) to actually find him. [continued after jump]

Stratfor and Evangeline Lilly

In this Stratfor article Friedman discusses Obama's speech in context of how he may have been using it to try to reassemble, or at least hold together, the Muslim component of the Coalition of the Willing in light of the Arab Spring demonstrations and uprisings.

Like Friedman I don't think Obama's speech was quite as inimical as a lot of people do. That said, Obama is clearly not a friend of Israel and as a result its tone was, as usual with Obama, off-kilter. He simply can't avoid shining the spot light where he thinks Israel has to compromise, while being vague about the obvious steps the Palestinians have to take. That made it sound worse than it actually was in my opinion.

Also,  giving it immediately before Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrived in Washington was a political mistake. I imagine he expected Netanyahu to be in the same sort of box he put the Supreme Court Judges and Boehner in earlier, where Netanyahu would have to be polite during the lecture for appearances sake. Instead he ended up ceding the ground to Netanyahu, who turned tables on Obama by lecturing him during the press conference and strongly laying out Israel's position in the process.  

Finally, I'll bang one of my favorite drums again -- the speech should have slid the Israel/Palestine issue into the background and swung around to pressuring Syria. I believe events will show that the Palestinians made a grave error in aligning themselves with the Iranian proxy Hamas. I doubt the arabs, who already have a low opinion of the Palestinians, will long tolerate that. I believe that Iranian tentacle could be leveraged by American diplomats to influence events in the region. Prying Syria away from Iran should be the aim of American diplomacy at this time. 

Then again, I really don't know what I'm talking about, so you can take my diplomatic master-minding with a huge grain of salt. All I've got to say is... thank God for blogs, everybody can be an expert.

At any rate, the Middle East is a mess, the Arab Spring is a mess, and the Israel/Palestine situation is a mess; so the notion of messes was on my mind as I pondered the article's Hot Stratfor Babe possibilities. Naturally this turned my mind towards mud wrestling, and for that reason I selected Evangeline Lilly for the honor.

Evangeline Lilly played Kate on TV's Lost which, come to think of it, had a plot about as complex, nonsensical and pointless as Middle Eastern diplomacy. In Season III there was an episode where Kate was handcuffed to her mortal enemy Juliet. Juliet lipped off one too many times, Kate got hopping mad, and they ended up in a fight which led to the two of them flopping into a mud puddle to do some wrestling. 

The picture of her above is from later in the episode, when the now mud-covered Kate was hopping mad over something else. She was hopping mad a lot in that episode. As a bonus, after the Strafor article I've embedded a video of another fight between the two, this one in the rain, from earlier in the episode (as I said, Kate got hopping mad a lot in that episode).



OBAMA AND THE ARAB SPRING
By George Friedman, May 24, 2011

U.S. President Barack Obama gave a speech last week on the Middle East. Presidents make many speeches. Some are meant to be taken casually, others are made to address an immediate crisis, and still others are intended to be a statement of broad American policy. As in any country, U.S. presidents follow rituals indicating which category their speeches fall into. Obama clearly intended his recent Middle East speech to fall into the last category, as reflecting a shift in strategy if not the declaration of a new doctrine.

While events in the region drove Obama's speech, politics also played a strong part, as with any presidential speech. Devising and implementing policy are the president's job. To do so, presidents must be able to lead -- and leading requires having public support. After the 2010 election, I said that presidents who lose control of one house of Congress in midterm elections turn to foreign policy because it is a place in which they retain the power to act. The U.S. presidential campaign season has begun, and the United States is engaged in wars that are not going well. Within this framework, Obama thus sought to make both a strategic and a political speech.

Obama's War Dilemma

The United States is engaged in a  broad struggle against jihadists. Specifically, it is engaged in a war in Afghanistan and is in the terminal phase of the Iraq war.

The Afghan war is stalemated. Following the death of Osama bin Laden, Obama said that the Taliban's forward momentum has been stopped. He did not, however, say that the Taliban is being defeated. Given the state of affairs between the United States and Pakistan following bin Laden's death, whether the United States can defeat the Taliban remains unclear. It might be able to, but the president must remain open to the possibility that the war will become an extended stalemate.

Meanwhile, U.S. troops are being withdrawn from Iraq, but that does not mean the conflict is over. Instead, the withdrawal has opened the door to Iranian power in Iraq. The Iraqis lack a capable military and security force. Their government is divided and feeble. Meanwhile, the Iranians have had years to infiltrate Iraq. Iranian domination of Iraq would open the door to  Iranian power projection throughout the region. Therefore, the United States has proposed keeping U.S. forces in Iraq but has yet to receive Iraq's approval. If that approval is given (which looks unlikely), Iraqi factions with clout in parliament have threatened to renew the anti-U.S. insurgency.

The United States must therefore consider its actions should the situation in Afghanistan remain indecisive or deteriorate and should Iraq evolve into an Iranian strategic victory. The simple answer -- extending the mission in Iraq and increasing forces in Afghanistan -- is not viable. The United States could not pacify Iraq with 170,000 troops facing determined opposition, while the 300,000 troops that Chief of Staff of the Army Eric Shinseki argued for in 2003 are not available. Meanwhile, it is difficult to imagine how many troops would be needed to guarantee a military victory in Afghanistan. Such surges are not politically viable, either. After nearly 10 years of indecisive war, the American public has little appetite for increasing troop commitments to either war and has no appetite for conscription.

Obama thus has limited military options on the ground in a situation where conditions in both war zones could deteriorate badly. And his political option -- blaming former U.S. President George W. Bush -- in due course would wear thin, as Nixon found in blaming Johnson.

The Coalition of the Willing Meets the Arab Spring

For his part, Bush followed a strategy of a coalition of the willing. He understood that the United States could not conduct a war in the region without regional allies, and he therefore recruited a coalition of countries that calculated that radical Islamism represented a profound threat to regime survival. This included Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Gulf Cooperation Council, Jordan, and Pakistan. These countries shared a desire to see al Qaeda defeated and a willingness to pool resources and intelligence with the United States to enable Washington to carry the main burden of the war.

This coalition appears to be fraying. Apart from the tensions between the United States and Pakistan, the unrest in the Middle East of the last few months apparently has undermined the legitimacy and survivability of many Arab regimes, including key partners in the so-called coalition of the willing. If these pro-American regimes collapse and are replaced by anti-American regimes, the American position in the region might also collapse. [continued after jump]

Stratfor and Karolina Kurkova

The Visegrad Group (V4) consists of Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, all countries that had been behind the Iron Curtain. It was formed when the Soviet Union collapsed. 

On May 12th they announced that they were going to form a Battle Group, independent of NATO and under the overall command of Poland. Today's Stratfor article discusses the rationale of the V4, all sandwiched between Germany and Russia, forming a force to act as a mutual defensive force.

For the article's Hot Stratfor Babe I looked for a woman soldier in a movie and was delighted to find the Czech supermodel Karolina Kurkova who played Courtney “Cover Girl” Kreiger in the film G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra.  

I've never seen the movie, but her name appears suspiciously far down in the credits, which leads me to believe she may not be the female lead. That's a shame, 'cause nothing signals a commitment to a realistic portrayal of ass-kicking soldiers more than casting an anorexic supermodel as one of the warriors.

Ah well, what do you expect out of a movie based on dolls (a.k.a action figures in the vernacular of my younger readers), comic books (graphic novels) and cartoons (animated films)?

EDIT: I almost forgot, be sure to click on her picture and check out the camouflage pattern on her uniform. No reason for a girl not to be stylish when going to war.


VISEGRAD: A NEW EUROPEAN MILITARY FORCE
By George Friedman, May 17, 2011

With the Palestinians demonstrating and the International Monetary Fund in turmoil, it would seem odd to focus this week on something called the Visegrad Group. But this is not a frivolous choice. What the Visegrad Group decided to do last week will, I think, resonate for years, long after the alleged attempted rape by Dominique Strauss-Kahn is forgotten and long before the Israeli-Palestinian issue is resolved. The obscurity of the decision to most people outside the region should not be allowed to obscure its importance.

The region is Europe -- more precisely, the states that had been dominated by the Soviet Union. The Visegrad Group, or V4, consists of four countries -- Poland, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Hungary -- and is named after two 14th century meetings held in Visegrad Castle in present-day Hungary of leaders of the medieval kingdoms of Poland, Hungary and Bohemia. The group was reconstituted in 1991 in post-Cold War Europe as the Visegrad Three (at that time, Slovakia and the Czech Republic were one). The goal was to create a regional framework after the fall of Communism. This week the group took an interesting new turn.

On May 12, the Visegrad Group announced the formation of a "battle group" under the command of Poland. The battle group would be in place by 2016 as an independent force and would not be part of NATO command. In addition, starting in 2013, the four countries would begin military exercises together under the auspices of the NATO Response Force.

Since the fall of the Soviet Union, the primary focus of all of the Visegrad nations had been membership in the European Union and NATO. Their evaluation of their strategic position was threefold. First, they felt that the Russian threat had declined if not dissipated following the fall of the Soviet Union. Second, they felt that their economic future was with the European Union. Third, they believed that membership in NATO, with strong U.S. involvement, would protect their strategic interests. Of late, their analysis has clearly been shifting.

click to enlarge

First, Russia has changed dramatically since the Yeltsin years. It has increased its power in the former Soviet sphere of influence substantially, and in 2008 it carried out an effective campaign against Georgia. Since then it has also extended its influence in other former Soviet states. The Visegrad members' underlying fear of Russia, built on powerful historical recollection, has become more intense. They are both the front line to the former Soviet Union and the countries that have the least confidence that the Cold War is simply an old memory.

Second, the infatuation with Europe, while not gone, has frayed. The ongoing economic crisis, now focused again on Greece, has raised two questions: whether Europe as an entity is viable and whether the reforms proposed to stabilize Europe represent a solution for them or primarily for the Germans. It is not, by any means, that they have given up the desire to be Europeans, nor that they have completely lost faith in the European Union as an institution and an idea. Nevertheless, it would be unreasonable to expect that these countries would not be uneasy about the direction that Europe was taking. If one wants evidence, look no further than the unease with which Warsaw and Prague are deflecting questions about the eventual date of their entry into the Eurozone. Both are the strongest economies in Central Europe, and neither is enthusiastic about the euro.

Finally, there are severe questions as to whether NATO provides a genuine umbrella of security to the region and its members. The NATO strategic concept, which was drawn up in November 2010, generated substantial concern on two scores. First, there was the question of the degree of American commitment to the region, considering that the document sought to expand the alliance's role in non-European theaters of operation. For example, the Americans pledged a total of one brigade to the defense of Poland in the event of a conflict, far below what Poland thought necessary to protect the North European Plain. Second, the general weakness of European militaries meant that, willingness aside, the ability of the Europeans to participate in defending the region was questionable. Certainly, events in Libya, where NATO had neither a singular political will nor the military participation of most of its members, had to raise doubts. It was not so much the wisdom of going to war but the inability to create a coherent strategy and deploy adequate resources that raised questions of whether NATO would be any more effective in protecting the Visegrad nations. [continued after jump]

Stratfor and Isabelle Adjani

This Stratfor article discusses the Al Queda leadership in Yeman, with attention payed to al-Awlaki, the American who has risen high in the ranks of the terrorist organization.  

By tradition, for Yemani articles I scour desert movies for a candidate as the Hot Stratfor Babes. For this article, after my usual exhaustive search, I selected Isabelle Adjani who appeared in the box office bomb Ishtar.

Ishtar was supposedly an attempt to make a modern movie in the style of the old 'Road' films made by Bob Hope and Bing Crosby. The attempt was a resounding flop as most of the critics and audience hated it. However, there are some people who think it some sort of a cult classic. I've never seen it, so I have no opinion.

In it Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffman as a couple of terrible lounge singers who get tangled up in some sort of international hijinx in Morocco. Since I've never seen it, and didn't care to wade through a synopsis of it, I have no idea what Adjani's role in the film was.

I always considered Adjani as the prototypical French girl with a permanently transfixed pout, so I was surprised, while digging around for information for this introduction, to discover that she wasn't actually ethnically French at all. Her father, Mohammed Cherif Adjani, was an Algerian who served in the French army in WWII (I couldn't find if it was the Free or Vichy version of the French army) while her mother Agusta was German (hmmm... ).

Adjani was raised in an immigrant neighborhood on the outskirts of Paris and her first language was German. At age 12 she began acting in plays, and by age 14 she landed her first movie role. I've seen her in one film, Camille Claudel, and her acting was quite impressive in that film. 


AL QAEDA'S LEADERSHIP IN YEMEN
By Scott Stewart, May 12, 2011

On May 5, a Hellfire missile fired from a U.S. unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) struck a vehicle in the town of Nissab in Yemen's restive Shabwa province. The airstrike reportedly resulted in the deaths of two Yemeni members of the Yemen-based al Qaeda franchise group al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and injured a third AQAP militant. Subsequent media reports indicated that the strike had targeted Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S.-born member of AQAP, but had failed to kill him.

The May 5 strike was not the first time al-Awlaki had been targeted and missed. On Dec. 24, 2009 (a day before the failed AQAP Christmas Day bombing attempt against Northwest Airlines Flight 253), an airstrike and ground assault was launched against a compound in the al-Said district of Shawba province that intelligence said was the site of a major meeting of AQAP members. The Yemeni government initially indicated that the attack had killed al-Awlaki along with several senior AQAP members, but those reports proved incorrect.

In 2009 and 2010, the United States conducted other strikes against AQAP in Yemen, though most of those strikes reportedly involved Tomahawk cruise missiles and carrier-based fixed-wing aircraft. Still, the United States has reportedly used UAVs to attack targets in Yemen on a number of occasions. In November 2002, the CIA launched a UAV strike against Abu Ali al-Harithi and five confederates in Marib. That strike essentially decapitated the al Qaeda node in Yemen and greatly reduced its operational effectiveness for several years. There are also reports that a May 24, 2010, strike may have been conducted by a UAV. However, that strike mistakenly killed the wrong target, which generated a great deal of anger among Yemen's tribes, who then conducted armed attacks against pipelines and military bases. The use of airstrikes against AQAP was heavily curtailed after that attack.

All this is to say that a UAV strike in Yemen is not particularly surprising -- nor is a strike targeting AQAP or al-Awlaki. Indeed, we noted in January our belief that AQAP had eclipsed the al Qaeda core on the physical battlefield due to the efforts of its tactical commanders and on the ideological battlefield due to the efforts of its propaganda wing, Al-Malahem Media.

One thing that has struck us as odd about the May 5 airstrike, however, is the way al-Awlaki has been characterized in the press. Several media outlets have referred to him as the leader of AQAP, which he clearly is not (he is not even the group's primary religious leader). Other reports have even speculated that al-Awlaki could be in line to become the global leader of the jihadist movement following the death of Osama bin Laden. In light of such statements, it seems a fitting time to discuss once again the leadership of AQAP and to examine al-Awlaki's role within the organization.

Stepping Into the Void

Yemen became a focus of U.S. counterterrorism efforts following the October 2000 attack on the USS Cole in Aden, Yemen; the 9/11 attacks; and the October 2002 bombing attack against the oil tanker Limburg off the Yemeni coast. As noted above, following the November 2002 UAV strike that killed Abu Ali al-Harithi, the jihadists in Yemen entered a period of disorganization and operational dormancy. This period was also marked by the arrests and imprisonment of several important Yemeni jihadists. There remained many jihadists in Yemen, and many more sympathizers, but the movement in Yemen lacked effective leadership and direction.

This leadership void was filled by a man named Nasir al-Wahayshi, who is also known by the honorific name, or kunya, Abu Basir. Al-Wahayshi is an ethnic Yemeni who spent time in Afghanistan while allegedly working closely with Osama bin Laden. Some reports even indicate al-Wahayshi was bin Laden's personal secretary. Al-Wahayshi fled Afghanistan following the battle at Tora Bora and went to Iran, where he was arrested by the government of Iran in late 2001 or early 2002. Al-Wahayshi was repatriated to Yemen in 2003 through an extradition deal with the Iranian government and subsequently escaped from a high-security prison outside Sanaa in February 2006, along with 22 other jihadists. Other escapees in the group included Jamal al-Badawi, who is wanted by U.S. officials for his alleged role as the leader of the cell that carried out the suicide bombing of the USS Cole, and Qasim al-Raymi, who became AQAP's military leader. Al-Raymi is said to be an aggressive, ruthless and fierce fighter (some have likened him to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi). Al-Raymi has also been unsuccessfully targeted by an airstrike.

Following the 2006 prison break, there was a notable change in jihadist activity in Yemen. In September 2006 there was an attack involving dual vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices (VBIEDs) against oil facilities. This was the first use of VBIEDs on land in Yemen (large IEDs in boats had been used in the USS Cole and Limburg attacks). [continued after jump]

Stratfor and Kristanna Loken

This Stratfor article discusses the deteriorating diplomatic relationship between the U.S. and Pakistan in the aftermath of the raid that killed Osama Bin Laden. Both sides have some common interests, but neither side can entirely trust the either. How this crisis plays out will have a significant effect on the future of the region.

Since the act of Bin Laden getting his noggin ventilated is the prime mover in the article, I naturally turned towards female movie assassins to find this article's Hot Stratfor Babe. I selected Kristanna Loken who played T-X in the movie Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. Although she plays a Killer Robot from the Future instead of a SEAL, I figure that results-wise, considering the ensuing mayhem, it's close enough.

In the film Loken plays the Bad Terminator that has to fight Arnold, who's the Good Terminator, as she to tries to kill John Connor once again. Frankly, the more we see of these Terminators the more they seem to be pretty much a pack of bunglers when it comes to the whole 'Killing Machine' ethos they're supposed to epitomize. Mr. Terminator has turned into a goody-two-shoes by this movie, and as for Ms Terminator completing her mission? Well, let's just say the door is open for a sequel.  

As a bonus, I've embedded a video of a fight between the two Killer Robots, T-X and T-101, after the end of the article.


U.S.-PAKISTANI RELATIONS BEYOND BIN LADEN
By George Friedman, May 10, 2011

The past week has been filled with announcements and speculations on how Osama bin Laden was killed and on Washington's source of intelligence. After any operation of this sort, the world is filled with speculation on sources and methods by people who don't know, and silence or dissembling by those who do.

Obfuscating on how intelligence was developed and on the specifics of how an operation was carried out is an essential part of covert operations. The precise process must be distorted to confuse opponents regarding how things actually played out; otherwise, the enemy learns lessons and adjusts. Ideally, the enemy learns the wrong lessons, and its adjustments wind up further weakening it. Operational disinformation is the final, critical phase of covert operations. So as interesting as it is to speculate on just how the United States located bin Laden and on exactly how the attack took place, it is ultimately not a fruitful discussion. Moreover, it does not focus on the truly important question, namely, the future of U.S.-Pakistani relations.

Posturing Versus a Genuine Breach

It is not inconceivable that Pakistan aided the United States in identifying and capturing Osama bin Laden, but it is unlikely. This is because the operation saw the already-tremendous tensions between the two countries worsen rather than improve. The Obama administration let it be known that it saw Pakistan as either incompetent or duplicitous and that it deliberately withheld plans for the operation from the Pakistanis. For their part, the Pakistanis made it clear that further operations of this sort on Pakistani territory could see an irreconcilable breach between the two countries. The attitudes of the governments profoundly affected the views of politicians and the public, attitudes that will be difficult to erase.

Posturing designed to hide Pakistani cooperation would be designed to cover operational details, not to lead to significant breaches between countries. The relationship between the United States and Pakistan ultimately is far more important than the details of how Osama bin Laden was captured, but both sides have created a tense atmosphere that they will find difficult to contain. One would not sacrifice strategic relationships for the sake of operational security. Therefore, we have to assume that the tension is real and revolves around the different goals of Pakistan and the United States.

A break between the United States and Pakistan holds significance for both sides. For Pakistan, it means the loss of an ally that could help Pakistan fend off its much larger neighbor to the east, India. For the United States, it means the loss of an ally in the war in Afghanistan. Whether the rupture ultimately occurs, of course, depends on how deep the tension goes. And that depends on what the tension is over, i.e., whether the tension ultimately merits the strategic rift. It also is a question of which side is sacrificing the most. It is therefore important to understand the geopolitics of U.S.-Pakistani relations beyond the question of who knew what about bin Laden.

Stratfor and Nihad Alaeddin, aka Igraa

This Sratfor article discusses Syria, and gives an explanation as to why Syrian President Bashar al Assad may be more secure in power than other Middle Eastern leaders who's regimes are coming apart during the Arab Spring. 

 Nihad Alaeddin, better known by her stage name Igraa, may seem a little long in the tooth to be an article's Hot Strafor Babe, but I couldn't find another picture of her, yet her story is illuminating and she deserves the well-earned honor.

In the 1950s she traveled to Cairo with her sister where a promoter renamed them Seduction (Igraa) and Charm and launched them on a highly successful belly dancing career. By the 1970s her sister took to the veil and became a conservative Muslim while Igraa began to make films. In her first big film, The Leopard, she did the region's first nude scen. The movie created a lot of controversy, but was well received by the public.

She went on to appear in numerous other films, and wrote 25 screenplays.  She was unapologetic about her work, and often critical of the sexual mores of the area. “My films criticized the double standard of the Eastern man,” she said. “He studies in Europe, but he comes back East and returns to his old attitudes. If he could lock his wife and sister up, he would.”

You can read more about her in the NY Times article Syrian Actress Tests Boundaries Again.


MAKING SENSE OF THE SYRIAN CRISIS
By Reva Bhalla, May 5, 2011

Syria is clearly in a state of internal crisis. Facebook-organized protests were quickly stamped out in early February, but by mid-March, a faceless opposition had emerged from the flashpoint city of Daraa in Syria's largely conservative Sunni southwest. From Daraa, demonstrations spread to the Kurdish northeast, the coastal Latakia area, urban Sunni strongholds in Hama and Homs and to Aleppo and the suburbs of Damascus. Feeling overwhelmed, the regime experimented with rhetoric on reforms while relying on much more familiar iron-fist methods in cracking down, arresting hundreds of men, cutting off water and electricity to the most rebellious areas and making clear to the population that, with or without emergency rule in place, the price for dissent does not exclude death. (Activists claim more than 500 civilians have been killed in Syria since the demonstrations began, but that figure has not been independently verified.)

A survey of the headlines would lead many to believe that Syrian President Bashar al Assad will soon be joining Tunisia's Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and Egypt's Hosni Mubarak in a line of deposed Arab despots. The situation in Syria is serious, but in our view, the crisis has not yet risen to a level that would warrant a forecast that the al Assad regime will fall.

Four key pillars sustain Syria's minority Alawite-Baathist regime:

-Power in the hands of the al Assad clan.
-Alawite unity.
-Alawite control over the military-intelligence apparatus.
-The Baath party's monopoly on the political system.

Though the regime is coming under significant stress, all four of these pillars are still standing. If any one falls, the al Assad regime will have a real existential crisis on its hands. To understand why this is the case, we need to begin with the story of how the Alawites came to dominate modern Syria.

The Rise of the Alawites

Syria's complex demographics make it a difficult country to rule. It is believed that three-fourths of the country's roughly 22 million people are Sunnis, including most of the Kurdish minority in the northeast. Given the volatility that generally accompanies sectarianism, Syria deliberately avoids conducting censuses on religious demographics, making it difficult to determine, for example, exactly how big the country's Alawite minority has grown. Most estimates put the number of Alawites in Syria at around 1.5 million, or close to 7 percent of the population. When combined with Shia and Ismailis, non-Sunni Muslims average around 13 percent. Christians of several variations, including Greek Orthodox and Maronite, make up around 10 percent of the population. The mostly mountain-dwelling Druze comprise around 3 percent.

Alawite power in Syria is only about five decades old. The Alawites are frequently (and erroneously) categorized as Shiite Muslims, have many things in common with Christians and are often shunned by Sunni and Shiite Muslims alike. Consequently, Alawites attract a great deal of controversy in the Islamic world. The Alawites diverged from the mainstream Twelver of the Imami branch of Shiite Islam in the ninth century under the leadership of Ibn Nusayr (this is why, prior to 1920, Alawites were known more commonly as Nusayris). Their main link to Shiite Islam and the origin of the Alawite name stems from their reverence for the Prophet Muhammad's cousin and son-in-law, Ali. The sect is often described as highly secretive and heretical for its rejection of Shariah and of common Islamic practices, including call to prayer, going to mosque for worship, making pilgrimages to Mecca and intolerance for alcohol. At the same time, Alawites celebrate many Christian holidays and revere Christian saints.

Alawites are a fractious bunch, historically divided among rival tribes and clans and split geographically between mountain refuges and plains in rural Syria. The province of Latakia, which provides critical access to the Mediterranean coast, is also the Alawite homeland, ensuring that any Alawite bid for autonomy would be met with stiff Sunni resistance. Historically, for much of the territory that is modern-day Syria, the Alawites represented the impoverished lot in the countryside while the urban-dwelling Sunnis dominated the country's businesses and political posts. Unable to claim a firm standing among Muslims, Alawites would often embrace the Shiite concept of taqqiya (concealing or assimilating one's faith to avoid persecution) in dealing with their Sunni counterparts. [continued after jump]

Stratfor and Sara Malakul Lane

This Strafor article discusses the Kaspersky kidnapping and gives tips, should you be a possible target of a kidnapping for ransom, as to how to minimize your risk. Ivan Kaspersky, who's kidnapping is discussed in the article, is the son of Russian billionaire who was kidnapped and successfully rescued. 

Naturally, that brought to mind Sara Malakul Lane, Steven Seagal's kidnapped daughter in his cinematic masterpiece Belly of the Beast as this article's Hot Stratfor Babe. 

In the film she's been kidnapped in Thailand, or some such place, but luckily for her Dear Ol' Dad is a retired CIA assassin turned zen mystic (or something like that, his movie characters tend to blend together). Of course, he has to unretire and battle his way across Asia to save her.

As an aside -- Sara Malakul Lane was to go on to appear in a movie called Sharktopus. I wonder, would that be considered a step-up or a step-down from being in a Seagal movie? Regardless, I think we can all agree that getting named a Hot Stratfor Babe is most definitely a step-up.

After the article I've embedded a video of a fight scene from the movie. It starts with some ninjas types showing up and menacing Seagal and his sidekick by standing on one foot like cranes and waving their swords around. Then they attack, and mayhem ensues.


THE KASPERSKY KIDNAPPING - LESSONS LEARNED
By Scott Stewart,April 28, 2011

On April 24, officers from the anti-kidnapping unit of Moscow's Criminal Investigation Department and the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) rescued 20-year-old Ivan Kaspersky from a dacha in Sergiev Posad, a small town about 40 miles northeast of Moscow. Kaspersky, the son of Russian computer software services billionaire Eugene Kaspersky (founder of Kaspersky Lab), was kidnapped on April 19 as he was walking to work from his Moscow apartment. A fourth-year computer student at Moscow State University, Kaspersky was working as an intern at a software company located near Moscow's Strogino metro station.

Following the abduction, Kaspersky was reportedly forced to call his father and relay his captors' demands for a ransom of 3 million euros ($4.4 million). After receiving the ransom call, the elder Kaspersky turned to Russian law enforcement for assistance. On April 21, news of the abduction hit the Russian and international press, placing pressure on the kidnappers and potentially placing Kaspersky's life in jeopardy. In order to defuse the situation, disinformation was leaked to the press that a ransom had been paid, that Kaspersky had been released unharmed and that the family did not want the authorities involved. Kaspersky's father also contacted the kidnappers and agreed to pay the ransom. Responding to the ruse, four of the five members of the kidnapping gang left the dacha where Kaspersky was being held to retrieve the ransom and were intercepted by Russian authorities as they left. The authorities then stormed the dacha, arrested the remaining captor and released Kaspersky. The five kidnappers remain in custody and are awaiting trial.

According to Russia's RT television network, Russian officials indicated that the kidnapping was orchestrated by an older couple who were in debt and sought to use the ransom to get out of their financial difficulties. The couple reportedly enlisted their 30-year-old son and two of his friends to act as muscle for the plot. Fortunately for Kaspersky, the group that abducted him was quite unprofessional and the place where he was being held was identified by the cell phone used to contact Kaspersky's father. Reports conflict as to whether the cell phone's location was tracked by the FSB, the police anti-kidnapping unit or someone else working for Kaspersky's father, but in any case, in the end the group's inexperience and naivete allowed for Kaspersky's story to have a happy ending.

However, the story also demonstrates that even amateurs can successfully locate and abduct the son of a billionaire, and some very important lessons can be drawn from this case.

The Abduction

According to the Russian news service RIA Novosti, Kaspersky's abductors had been stalking him and his girlfriend for several months prior to the kidnapping. This pre-operational surveillance permitted the kidnappers to determine Kaspersky's behavioral patterns and learn that he did not have any sort of security detail protecting him. Media reports also indicate that the kidnappers were apparently able to obtain all the information they required to begin their physical surveillance of the victim from information Kaspersky himself had posted on Vkontakte.ru, a Russian social networking site. According to RT, Kaspersky's Vkontakte profile contained information such as his true name, his photo, where he was attending school, what he was studying, who he was dating, where we was working for his internship and even the addresses of the last two apartments where he lived. [continued after jump]

Strafor and Marilyn Monroe

Whenever the word "bomb" appears in a Stratfor article it makes my task of selecting the article's Hot Stratfor Babe immeasurably simpler. All I have to do is cycle through Blonde bombshells and pick one out.

For this Strafor article, which discusses the possibility of car bombs in Mexico's drug wars, I've selected Marilyn Monroe as the Hot Stratfor Babe.

There is also a bit of a connection between Marilyn and Mexico. Shortly before her death she went on a trip to Mexico City. The FBI was to report that during that trip she attended a luncheon at the residence of Peter Lawford with President Kennedy.

That report was part of a file they were keeping about her regarding her contacts John and Robert Kennedy as well as various communists. Eventually, when the file was released, because of the proximity of her Mexican lunch to her death, that report was to get tangled into the suspicions surrounding the circumstances of her death.

If you're interested, you can read about it in some detail in the 2006 Reader's Digest article Bombshell: Documents Throw New Light on Marilyn Monroe’s Death.

As a bonus, at the end of the Strafor article I've included the famous video of Marilyn monroe, after being introduced by the same Peter Lawford, singing Happy Birthday to JFK.


THE PERCEIVED CAR BOMB THREAT IN MEXICO
By Scott Stewart, April 14, 2011

On April 5, Mexican newspaper El Universal reported that a row of concrete Jersey barriers was being emplaced in front of the U.S. Consulate General in Monterrey, Mexico. The story indicated that the wall was put in to block visibility of the facility, but being only about 107 centimeters (42 inches) high, such barriers do little to block visibility. Instead, this modular concrete wall is clearly being used to block one lane of traffic in front of the consulate in an effort to provide the facility with some additional standoff distance from the avenue that passes in front of it.

Due to the location and design of the current consulate building in Monterrey, there is only a narrow sidewalk separating the building's front wall from the street and very little distance between the front wall and the building. This lack of standoff has been long noted, and it was an important factor in the decision to build a new consulate in Monterrey (construction began in June 2010 and is scheduled to be completed in January 2013).

The U.S. Consulate in Monterrey has been targeted in the past by cartels using small arms and grenades. The last grenade attack near the consulate was in October 2010. However, the Jersey barriers placed in front of the consulate will do little to protect the building against small arms fire, which can be directed at portions of the building above the perimeter wall, or grenades, which can be thrown over the wall. Rather, such barriers are used to protect facilities against an attack using a car bomb, or what is called in military and law enforcement vernacular a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device (VBIED).

That such barriers have been employed (or re-employed, really, since they have been used before at the U.S. Consulate in Monterrey) indicates that there is at least a perceived VBIED threat in Mexico. The placement of the barriers was followed by a Warden Message issued April 8 by the U.S. Consulate General in Monterrey warning that "the U.S. government has received uncorroborated information Mexican criminal gangs may intend to attack U.S. law enforcement officers or U.S. citizens in the near future in Tamaulipas, Nuevo Leon and San Luis Potosi." It is quite possible that the placement of the barriers at the consulate was related to this Warden Message.

The Mexican cartels have employed improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in the past, but the devices have been small. While their successful employment has shown that the cartels could deploy larger devices if they decided to do so, there are still some factors causing them to avoid using large VBIEDs.

Some History

The use of IEDs in Mexico is nothing new. Explosives are plentiful in Mexico due to their widespread use in the country's mining and petroleum sectors. Because of Mexico's strict gun laws, it is easier and cheaper to procure explosives -- specifically commercial explosives such as Tovex -- in Mexico than it is firearms. We have seen a number of different actors use explosive devices in Mexico, including left-wing groups such as the Popular Revolutionary Army and its various splinters, which have targeted banks and commercial centers (though usually at night and in a manner intended to cause property damage and not human casualties). An anarchist group calling itself the Subversive Alliance for the Liberation of the Earth, Animals and Humans has also employed a large number of small IEDs against banks, insurance companies, car dealerships and other targets.

Explosives have also played a minor role in the escalation of cartel violence in Mexico. The first cartel-related IED incident we recall was the Feb. 15, 2008, premature detonation of an IED in Mexico City that investigators concluded was likely a failed assassination attempt against a high-ranking police official. Three months later, in May 2008, there was a rash of such assassinations in Mexico City targeting high-ranking police officials such as Edgar Millan Gomez, who at the time of his death was Mexico's highest-ranking federal law enforcement officer. While these assassinations were conducted using firearms, they supported the theory that the Feb. 15, 2008, incident was indeed a failed assassination attempt.

Mexican officials have frequently encountered explosives, including small amounts of military-grade explosives and far larger quantities of commercial explosives, when they have uncovered arms caches belonging to the cartels. But it was not until July 2010 that IEDs began to be employed by the cartels with any frequency. [continued after jump]

Stratfor and Esti Ginzburg

In this Strafor article Friedman discusses the rising tension between Hamas and Israel in light of the protests, revolutions, civil wars and interventions currently roiling the Middle East. 

It would be in Hamas's interest, particularly with the current, weak American Administration, for the unrest in the streets to eventually focus on Israel. However, there has yet to be a convergence between Hamas's interests and the interests of the people conducting uprisings throughout the Middle East. 

Recently, Hamas has resumed a steady drizzle of rocket attacks against Israel. This is likely intended to draw a sharp response from Israel that Hamas hopes would swing the Egyptian, and broader Arabic, crowds to their side. 

So far Israel is responding with restraint, but how long they can maintain a reactive and defensive posture is difficult to say. It seems as if the winds of war are beginning to blow.

For the last Stratfor article involving Israel I chose Bar Refaeli as the Hot Strafor Babe. Ms Rafaeli had drawn criticism for dodging the Israeli draft. One of her harshest critics was Esti Ginzburg, and Israeli model who believes it is the duty of young Israelis to support the draft. 

For that reason I've chosen Esti Ginzburg to be this article's Hot Strafor Babe. There are many pictures of her on the web frolicking around in bikinis and the like, but  I think a picture of her in her IDF uniform is more fitting to illustrate this article. Hopefully her, and all her comrades in arms, will have a peaceful summer after all.


THE ARAB RISINGS, ISRAEL AND HAMAS
By George Friedman, April 12, 2011

There was one striking thing missing from the events in the Middle East in past months: Israel. While certainly mentioned and condemned, none of the demonstrations centered on the issue of Israel. Israel was a side issue for the demonstrators, with the focus being on replacing unpopular rulers.

This is odd. Since even before the creation of the state of Israel, anti-Zionism has been a driving force among the Arab public, perhaps more than it has been with Arab governments. While a few have been willing to develop open diplomatic relations with Israel, many more have maintained informal relations: Numerous Arab governments have been willing to maintain covert relations with Israel, with extensive cooperation on intelligence and related matters. They have been unwilling to incur the displeasure of the Arab masses through open cooperation, however.

That makes it all the more strange that the Arab opposition movements -- from Libya to Bahrain -- have not made overt and covert cooperation with Israel a central issue, if for no other reason than to mobilize the Arab masses. Let me emphasize that Israel was frequently an issue, but not the central one. If we go far back to the rise of Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser and his revolution for Pan-Arabism and socialism, his issues against King Farouk were tightly bound with anti-Zionism. Similarly, radical Islamists have always made Israel a central issue, yet it wasn't there in this round of unrest. This was particularly surprising with regimes like Egypt's, which had formal relations with Israel.

It is not clear why Israel was not a rallying point. One possible explanation is that the demonstrations in the Islamic world were focused on unpopular leaders and regimes, and the question of local governance was at their heart. That is possible, but particularly as the demonstrations faltered, invoking Israel would have seemed logical as a way to legitimize their cause. Another explanation might have rested in the reason that most of these risings failed, at least to this point, to achieve fundamental change. They were not mass movements involving all classes of society, but to a great extent the young and the better educated. This class was more sophisticated about the world and understood the need for American and European support in the long run; they understood that including Israel in their mix of grievances was likely to reduce Western pressure on the risings' targets. We know of several leaders of the Egyptian rising, for example, who were close to Hamas yet deliberately chose to downplay their relations. They clearly were intensely anti-Israeli but didn't want to make this a crucial issue. In the case of Egypt, they didn't want to alienate the military or the West. They were sophisticated enough to take the matter step by step.

Hamas' Opportunity

A second thing was missing from the unrest: There was no rising, no intifada, in the Palestinian territories. Given the general unrest sweeping the region, it would seem logical that the Palestinian public would have pressed both the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) and Hamas to organize massive demonstrations against Israel. This didn't happen.

This clearly didn't displease the PNA, which had no appetite for underwriting another intifada that would have led to massive Israeli responses and disruption of the West Bank's economy. For Hamas in Gaza, however, it was a different case. Hamas was trapped by the Israeli-Egyptian blockade. This blockade limited its ability to access weapons, as well as basic supplies needed to build a minimally functioning economy. It also limited Hamas' ability to build a strong movement in the West Bank that would challenge Fatah's leadership of the PNA there.

Hamas has been isolated and trapped in Gaza. The uprising in Egypt represented a tremendous opportunity for Hamas, as it promised to create a new reality in Gaza. If the demonstrators had succeeded not only in overthrowing Hosni Mubarak but also in forcing true regime change -- or at least forcing the military to change its policy toward Hamas -- the door could have opened for Hamas to have increased dramatically its power and its room to maneuver. Hamas knew that it had supporters among a segment of the demonstrators and that the demonstrators wanted a reversal of Egyptian policy on Israel and Gaza. They were content to wait, however, particularly as the PNA was not prepared to launch an intifada in the West Bank and because one confined to Gaza would have had little effect. So they waited.

For Hamas, a shift in Egyptian policy was the opening that would allow them to become militarily and politically more effective. It didn't happen. The events of the past few months have shown that while the military wanted Mubarak out, it was not prepared to break with Israel or shift its Gaza policy. Most important, the events thus far have shown that the demonstrators were in no position to force the Egyptian military to do anything it didn't want to do. Beyond forcing Mubarak out and perhaps having him put on trial, the basic policies of his regime remained in place. [continued after jump]

Stratfor and Jean Harlow

This Stratfor article discusses Al Qaeda's latest push for Muslims in Western countries to conduct lone wolf style attacks.

It points out that small scale, locally originating terrorist plots are best detected by local law enforcement and citizens. It then discusses signs of bombmaking activity.

The word 'bomb' naturally brought to mind 'blonde bombshells'. As dedicated a blogger as I am, I immediately began researching blonde bombshells to select this article's Hot Stratfor Babe. 

There is much interesting information on the topic to peruse. Squidoo has a post called Classic Hollywood Blond Bombshells that provides a good introduction to the subject, although it only covers the 1950s.

Marilyn Monroe and Jayne Mansfield were obviously strong contenders for this article's Hot Stratfor Babe. However, in the end, being a traditionalist in these sorts of matters, I decided to bestow Jean Harlow with the honor, primarily because she is arguably the prototype blonde bombshell.
 

HOW TO TELL IF YOUR NEIGHBOR IS A BOMBMAKER 
By Scott Stewart, April 7, 2011

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) released the  fifth edition of its English-language jihadist magazine "Inspire" on March 30. AQAP publishes this magazine with the stated intent of radicalizing English-speaking Muslims and encouraging them to engage in jihadist militant activity. Since its inception, Inspire magazine has also advocated the concept that jihadists living in the West should conduct attacks there, rather than traveling to places like Pakistan or Yemen, since such travel can bring them to the attention of the authorities before they can conduct attacks, and AQAP views attacking in the West as "striking at the heart of the unbelievers."

To further promote this concept, each edition of Inspire magazine has a section called "Open Source Jihad," which is intended to equip aspiring jihadist attackers with the tools they need to conduct attacks without traveling to jihadist training camps. The Open Source Jihad sections in past editions have contained articles such as the pictorial guide with instructions titled "Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom" that appeared in the first edition.

In this latest edition of Inspire there are at least three places where AQAP encourages jihadists to conduct "lone wolf" attacks rather than coordinate with others due to the security risks inherent in such collaboration (several jihadist plots have been thwarted when would-be attackers have approached government informants looking for assistance). In recent years there have been a number of lone wolf attacks inside the United States, such as the June 2009 shooting at an armed forces recruiting center in Little Rock, Ark.; the November 2009 Fort Hood shooting; and the failed bombing attack in New York's Times Square in May 2010. Of course, the lone wolf phenomena is not just confined to the United States, as evidenced by such incidents as the March 2 shooting attack against U.S. military personnel in Frankfurt, Germany.

In the past, STRATFOR has examined the challenges that lone wolf assailants and small, insulated cells -- what we call grassroots jihadists -- present to law enforcement and intelligence agencies. We have also discussed the fact that, in many cases, grassroots defenders such as local police officers can be a more effective defense against grassroots attackers than centralized federal agencies.

But local federal agents and local police officers are not the only grassroots defenders who can be effective in detecting lone wolves and small cells before they are able to launch an attack. Many of the steps required to conduct a terrorist attack are undertaken in a manner that makes the actions visible to any outside observer. It is at these junctures in the terrorist attack cycle that people practicing good situational awareness can detect these attack steps -- not only to avoid the danger themselves, but also to alert the authorities to the suspicious activity.

Detecting grassroots operatives can be difficult, but it is possible if observers focus not only on the "who" aspect of a terrorist attack but also the "how" -- that is, those activities that indicate an attack is in the works. In the past we've talked in some detail about detecting preoperational surveillance as part of this focus on the "how." Now, we would like to focus on detecting another element of the "how" of terrorism and discuss the ways one can detect signs of improvised-explosives preparation -- in other words, how to tell if your neighbor is a bombmaker.

IEDs and Explosive Mixtures

In the 11th edition of "Sada al-Malahim," AQAP's Arabic-language online jihadist magazine, Nasir al-Wahayshi noted that jihadists "don't need to conduct a big effort or spend a lot of money to manufacture 10 grams of explosive material" and that they should not "waste a long time finding the materials, because you can find all these in your mother's kitchen, or readily at hand or in any city you are in." Al-Wahayshi is right. It truly is not difficult for a knowledgeable individual to construct improvised explosives from a wide range of household chemicals like peroxide and acetone or chlorine and brake fluid. [continued after jump]

Stratfor and Monica Bellucci

This Strafor article examines the contradiction between wars positioned as humanitarian interventions, which Friedman argues are a new type of war, and  the international principal of self-determination afforded nations by the UN charter.

He quite deftly makes the case and explores the idea that while the nations intervening in humanitarian wars position themselves are neutrals, in fact, because they almost always intervening to protect a minority from massacre, they are acting against the majority in contradiction to the idea of self-determination.

In searching for the Hot Strafor Babe for the article I remembered the movie Tears of the Sun and settled on Monica Bellucci for the honor. The events in the movie aren't exactly a true Humanitarian War, but they are close enough for my purposes. 

It starts with Bruce Willis as Lt. Waters leading a SEAL mission to rescue some Americans, among whom is the Italian Dr Lorna Kendricks (American by a previous marriage), who are in Nigeria doing charitable work as it sinks into a civil war. He is supposed to rescue just them, but when he sees the villagers left behind getting slaughtered he turns his helicopters around and injects himself into the civil war to march them to the safety of Cameroon.

Hmmm... he disobeys orders and triggers an international incident and possibly tangles America in a war in the process? No wonder he's still just a lieutenant at his ripe old age.

I mentioned Bellucci playing a doctor. Naturally, this being Hollywood, being a female doctor selflessly helping third-worlders places her pretty much at the apex of moral authority and, by God, she exercises that authority in a relentlessly annoying matter. She hectors and berates Lt Methuselah, errr... I mean Waters throughout virtually the entire film. Geez lady, he tossed away his career to help you and the villagers, would it hurt to show a little gratitude?

It is an odd movie. There is a lot of violence in it, most of it Muslims slaughtering Christians and performing atrocities, and the SEAL team is shown being competent and as compassionate as you can expect a group of cardboard characters to be; still, perhaps primarily because of Bellucci's character, there is a whiff of disapproval about it all. 

[EDIT: Apparently I didn't proof read this at all. I cleaned up a mess of typos and cleared up some mangled sentences.]

IMMACULATE INTERVENTION: THE WARS OF HUMANITARIANISM 
By George Friedman. April 5, 2011

There are wars in pursuit of interest. In these wars, nations pursue economic or strategic ends to protect the nation or expand its power. There are also wars of ideology, designed to spread some idea of "the good," whether this good is religious or secular. The two obviously can be intertwined, such that a war designed to spread an ideology also strengthens the interests of the nation spreading the ideology.

Since World War II, a new class of war has emerged that we might call humanitarian wars -- wars in which the combatants claim to be fighting neither for their national interest nor to impose any ideology, but rather to prevent inordinate human suffering. In Kosovo and now in Libya, this has been defined as stopping a government from committing mass murder. But it is not confined to that. In the 1990s, the U.S. intervention in Somalia was intended to alleviate a famine while the invasion of Haiti was designed to remove a corrupt and oppressive regime causing grievous suffering.

It is important to distinguish these interventions from peacekeeping missions. In a peacekeeping mission, third-party forces are sent to oversee some agreement reached by combatants. Peacekeeping operations are not conducted to impose a settlement by force of arms; rather, they are conducted to oversee a settlement by a neutral force. In the event the agreement collapses and war resumes, the peacekeepers either withdraw or take cover. They are soldiers, but they are not there to fight beyond protecting themselves.

Concept vs. Practice

In humanitarian wars, the intervention is designed both to be neutral and to protect potential victims on one side. It is at this point that the concept and practice of a humanitarian war become more complex. There is an ideology undergirding humanitarian wars, one derived from both the U.N. Charter and from the lessons drawn from the Holocaust, genocide in Rwanda, Bosnia and a range of other circumstances where large-scale slaughter -- crimes against humanity -- took place. That no one intervened to prevent or stop these atrocities was seen as a moral failure. According to this ideology, the international community has an obligation to prevent such slaughter.

This ideology must, of course, confront other principles of the U.N. Charter, such as the right of nations to self-determination. In international wars, where the aggressor is trying to both kill large numbers of civilians and destroy the enemy's right to national self-determination, this does not pose a significant intellectual problem. In internal unrest and civil war, however, the challenge of the intervention is to protect human rights without undermining national sovereignty or the right of national self-determination.

The doctrine becomes less coherent in a civil war in which one side is winning and promising to slaughter its enemies, Libya being the obvious example. Those intervening can claim to be carrying out a neutral humanitarian action, but in reality, they are intervening on one side's behalf. If the intervention is successful -- as it likely will be given that interventions are invariably by powerful countries against weaker ones -- the practical result is to turn the victims into victors. By doing that, the humanitarian warriors are doing more than simply protecting the weak. They are also defining a nation's history. [continued after the jump]

Stratfor and Anne Heywood

The latest Stratfor article concerns the situation in Libya. I think it places too much emphasis on the West expecting Democratic reform in North Africa as a result of their protests and revolutions. I'm sure there is some hope for that, but I suspect much of the West's maneuvering is far more cynical.

I think that Italy and the rest of the southern belly of Europe were horrified at the thought of refugees streaming north and, perhaps most importantly in terms of the drive towards military intervention, France got ahead of events by recognizing the rebel Libyan National Council as the country's legitimate government. When it all started to go pear-shaped after Moleman Gka'addaphee (<= official Flares spelling of his name) successfully pushed east to crush the rebellion I think the French, to try to save the situation, pretty much bamboozled Hillary into committing American military assets. The democracy stuff is just window dressing.

At any rate, for this articles Hot Strafor Babe I looked to ancient Carthage for inspiration, found the movie Carthage in Flames, and out popped Anne Heywood. The movie is an Italian spectacle about the fall and sacking of Carthage by the Romans and presumably has a cast of thousands. It also has a corny soap opera love triangle tacked on which drives the story. One reviewer at the IMDb described it as something that "seemed to have been plotted by a monkey on espresso". Oddly enough, that comment makes me want to see the film all the more for some reason.


LIBYA, THE WEST AND THE NARRATIVE OF DEMOCRACY

By George Friedman, March 22, 2011

Forces from the United States and some European countries have intervened in Libya. Under U.N. authorization, they have imposed a no-fly zone in Libya, meaning they will shoot down any Libyan aircraft that attempts to fly within Libya. In addition, they have conducted attacks against aircraft on the ground, airfields, air defenses and the command, control and communication systems of the Libyan government, and French and U.S. aircraft have struck against Libyan armor and ground forces. There also are reports of European and Egyptian special operations forces deploying in eastern Libya, where the opposition to the government is centered, particularly around the city of Benghazi. In effect, the intervention of this alliance has been against the government of Moammar Gadhafi, and by extension, in favor of his opponents in the east.

The alliance's full intention is not clear, nor is it clear that the allies are of one mind. The U.N. Security Council resolution clearly authorizes the imposition of a no-fly zone. By extension, this logically authorizes strikes against airfields and related targets. Very broadly, it also defines the mission of the intervention as protecting civilian lives. As such, it does not specifically prohibit the presence of ground forces, though it does clearly state that no "foreign occupation force" shall be permitted on Libyan soil. It can be assumed they intended that forces could intervene in Libya but could not remain in Libya after the intervention. What this means in practice is less than clear.

There is no question that the intervention is designed to protect Gadhafi's enemies from his forces. Gadhafi had threatened to attack "without mercy" and had mounted a sustained eastward assault that the rebels proved incapable of slowing. Before the intervention, the vanguard of his forces was on the doorstep of Benghazi. The protection of the eastern rebels from Gadhafi's vengeance coupled with attacks on facilities under Gadhafi's control logically leads to the conclusion that the alliance wants regime change, that it wants to replace the Gadhafi government with one led by the rebels.

But that would be too much like the invasion of Iraq against Saddam Hussein, and the United Nations and the alliance haven't gone that far in their rhetoric, regardless of the logic of their actions. Rather, the goal of the intervention is explicitly to stop Gadhafi's threat to slaughter his enemies, support his enemies but leave the responsibility for the outcome in the hands of the eastern coalition. In other words -- and this requires a lot of words to explain -- they want to intervene to protect Gadhafi's enemies, they are prepared to support those enemies (though it is not clear how far they are willing to go in providing that support), but they will not be responsible for the outcome of the civil war.

The Regional Context

To understand this logic, it is essential to begin by considering recent events in North Africa and the Arab world and the manner in which Western governments interpreted them. Beginning with Tunisia, spreading to Egypt and then to the Arabian Peninsula, the last two months have seen widespread unrest in the Arab world. Three assumptions have been made about this unrest. The first was that it represented broad-based popular opposition to existing governments, rather than representing the discontent of fragmented minorities -- in other words, that they were popular revolutions. Second, it assumed that these revolutions had as a common goal the creation of a democratic society. Third, it assumed that the kind of democratic society they wanted was similar to European-American democracy, in other words, a constitutional system supporting Western democratic values.

Each of the countries experiencing unrest was very different. For example, in Egypt, while the cameras focused on demonstrators, they spent little time filming the vast majority of the country that did not rise up. Unlike 1979 in Iran, the shopkeepers and workers did not protest en masse. Whether they supported the demonstrators in Tahrir Square is a matter of conjecture. They might have, but the demonstrators were a tiny fraction of Egyptian society, and while they clearly wanted a democracy, it is less than clear that they wanted a liberal democracy. Recall that the Iranian Revolution created an Islamic Republic more democratic than its critics would like to admit, but radically illiberal and oppressive. In Egypt, it is clear that Mubarak was generally loathed but not clear that the regime in general was being rejected. It is not clear from the outcome what will happen now. Egypt may stay as it is, it may become an illiberal democracy or it may become a liberal democracy. [continued after the jump]

Stratfor and Yoko Yaguchi

This Stratfor article deals with Japan's energy dependence and how their problems with their nuclear reactors, as well the unrest in the Middle East, the main source of their oil, are converging to show how fragile of a base their industrial economy rests upon. 

Freidman discusses how Japan's nuclear plants were an attempt to provide itself with an alternative to having to import 100% of their energy needs and how the post-tsunami problems with the reactors have shaken Japan's faith in that supposed safety net.

The last time Japan felt threatened over imports led them to war with the U.S. and so I reached back to the WWII Japanese propaganda film The Most Beautiful for today's Hot Stratfor Babe, Yoko Yaguchi. As far as I can tell that's her above.   

The Most Beautiful was released in 1944 and is Akira Kurosawa's second film as a director. It is a propaganda film which centers on a group of teenage girls working in an optics factory to support the war effort. Yoko Yaguchi was the star of it, and she was to eventually marry Kurosawa.   

My best wishes go out to the Japanese. The scale of suffering and destruction they have endured these last several days in unimaginable. It is going to take extraordinary effort and treasure for them to rebuild. I hope the U.S. gives them our full support.  


JAPAN, THE PERSIAN GULF AND ENERGY

By George Friedman, March 15, 2011

Over the past week, everything seemed to converge on energy. The unrest in the Persian Gulf raised the specter of the disruption of oil supplies to the rest of the world, and an earthquake in Japan knocked out a string of nuclear reactors with potentially devastating effect. Japan depends on nuclear energy and it depends on the Persian Gulf, which is where it gets most of its oil. It was, therefore, a profoundly bad week for Japan, not only because of the extensive damage and human suffering but also because Japan was being shown that it can't readily escape the realities of geography.

Japan is the world's third-largest economy, a bit behind China now. It is also the third-largest industrial economy, behind only the United States and China. Japan's problem is that its enormous industrial plant is built in a country almost totally devoid of mineral resources. It must import virtually all of the metals and energy that it uses to manufacture industrial products. It maintains stockpiles, but should those stockpiles be depleted and no new imports arrive, Japan stops being an industrial power.

The Geography of Oil

There are multiple sources for many of the metals Japan imports, so that if supplies stop flowing from one place it can get them from other places. The geography of oil is more limited. In order to access the amount of oil Japan needs, the only place to get it is the Persian Gulf. There are other places to get some of what Japan needs, but it cannot do without the Persian Gulf for its oil.

This past week, we saw that this was a potentially vulnerable source. The unrest that swept the western littoral of the Arabian Peninsula and the ongoing tension between the Saudis and Iranians, as well as the tension between Iran and the United States, raised the possibility of disruptions. The geography of the Persian Gulf is extraordinary. It is a narrow body of water opening into a narrow channel through the Strait of Hormuz. Any diminution of the flow from any source in the region, let alone the complete closure of the Strait of Hormuz, would have profound implications for the global economy.

For Japan it could mean more than higher prices. It could mean being unable to secure the amount of oil needed at any price. The movement of tankers, the limits on port facilities and long-term contracts that commit oil to other places could make it impossible for Japan to physically secure the oil it needs to run its industrial plant. On an extended basis, this would draw down reserves and constrain Japan's economy dramatically. And, obviously, when the world's third-largest industrial plant drastically slows, the impact on the global supply chain is both dramatic and complex. [continued after the jump]

Stratfor and Candice Bergen

This week's Stratfor article concerns the case of Raymond Davis. If you're not familiar with the story, Davis is a low level security officer attached to the U.S. Consulate in Lahore, Pakistan and a few weeks ago his car was approached by two thieves on a motorcycle who pointed a pistol at him in a robbery attempt. He shot and killed the two men in the exchange. 

Witnesses have corroborated his story; but, fanned by anti-Americanism and radical groups calling for Davis to be hung,  it has bloomed into a serious crisis none the less. 

The article discusses Davis' situation, and then examines the threats to American facilities and businesses should the situation lead to rioting mobs.


In angling about for a Hot Strafor Babe to connect to the article, the film The Sand Pebbles came to mind.

It is an engrossing story of an American gunboat, the U.S.S. San Pablo, on the Yangtze river in 1920s China. The country is torn by civil war and the crowds grow increasingly hostile. The situation breaks down entirely as an American seamen (Paul Newman (Edit - as pointed out in the comments, it should be Steve McQueen not Paul Newman. I blame Bush for the error.)) is falsely accused of murder and the authorities demand he be turned over to face justice. Eventually violence erupts as the gunboat moves upriver to rescue some missionaries (one of which is Candice, hence her appearance in this post).

If you haven't seen it, the movie is well worth a watch.

THE THREAT OF CIVIL UNREST IN PAKISTAN AND THE DAVIS CASE

By Scott Stewart, February 16, 2011

On Feb. 13, the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) issued a statement demanding that the government of Pakistan execute U.S. government contractor Raymond Davis or turn him over to the TTP for judgment. Davis, a contract security officer for the CIA, has been in Pakistani custody since a Jan. 27 incident in which he shot two men who reportedly pointed a pistol at him in an apparent robbery attempt.

Pakistani officials have corroborated Davis' version of events and, according to their preliminary report, Davis appears to have acted in self-defense. From a tactical perspective, the incident appears to have been (in tactical security parlance) a "good shoot," but the matter has been taken out of the tactical realm and has become mired in transnational politics and Pakistani public sentiment. Whether the shooting was justified or not, Davis has now become a pawn in a larger game being played out between the United States and Pakistan.

When one considers the way similar periods of tension between the Pakistanis and Americans have unfolded in the past, it is not unreasonable to conclude that as this current period plays out, it could have larger consequences for Davis and for American diplomatic facilities and commercial interests in Pakistan. Unless the Pakistani government is willing and able to defuse the situation, the case could indeed provoke violent protests against the United States, and U.S. citizens and businesses in Pakistan should be prepared for this backlash.

Details of the Case

One of the reasons that the Pakistanis have been able to retain Davis in custody is that while he may have been traveling on a "black" diplomatic U.S. passport, not everyone who holds a diplomatic passport is afforded full diplomatic immunity. The only people afforded full diplomatic immunity are those who are on a list of diplomats officially accredited as diplomatic agents by the receiving country. The rest of the foreign employees at an embassy or a consulate in the receiving country who are not on the diplomatic list and who are not accredited as diplomatic agents under the Vienna Convention are only protected by functional immunity. This means they are only protected from prosecution related to their official duties.

As a contract employee assigned to the U.S. Consulate in Lahore, Davis was likely not on the diplomatic list and probably did not enjoy full diplomatic immunity. He was probably considered a member of the administrative or technical staff. Protecting himself during a robbery attempt would not be considered part of his official function in the country, and therefore his actions that day would not be covered under functional immunity. So determining exactly what level of immunity Davis was provided will be critical in this case, and the information provided by the Pakistani Foreign Ministry will have a big impact on the Pakistani judge hearing the arguments.

In all likelihood, Davis was briefed regarding his legal status by his company and by the CIA prior to being assigned to post. He also would have been told that, while he had limited immunity, the U.S. government would do its best to take care of him if some incident occurred. However, it would have been made clear to him that in working as a protective contractor he was running a risk and that if there was an incident on or off duty, he could wind up in trouble. All security contractors working overseas know this and accept the risk as part of the job.

At the time of the shooting, of course, Davis would not have had time to leisurely ponder this potential legal quagmire. He saw a threat and reacted to it. Undoubtedly, the U.S. government will do all it can to help Davis out -- especially since the case appears to be a good-shoot scenario and not a case of negligence or bad judgment. Indeed, on Feb. 15, U.S. Sen. John Kerry flew to Islamabad in a bid to seek Davis' release. However, in spite of American efforts and international convention, Davis' case is complicated greatly by the fact that he was working in Pakistan and by the current state of U.S.-Pakistani relations.