Russian mercy-line for NATO's Afghan defeat

The Russians are thumbing their noses at NATO and NATO expansion. I guess they are saying "I told you so".

In the face of NATO expansion into Georgia and Ukrain, the Russians are trying to create new options for NATO and trying to get some money.

NATO's defeat in Afghanistan is akin to the defeat at Maiwind for the British forces in 1880. Maiwind cleared the way for the ultimate departure of all British forces from Afghanistan in the "Back to the Indus" policy. Russia has had a very limited role in Afghanistan after the defeat of the USSR in Afghanistan in the 90s. Now Russia wants to get back into the game. The Russians want to resurrect a kind of "Yalta Conference" to address the future of Pakistan. To pressure Pakistan into agreeing to the demands, the Russians have indicated that they could provide a safe passage to goods and supplies through Afghanistan, for a price. This means that Pakistan would lose about $5 Billion per annum in transit fees and logistical support and Russia would make that amount for herself.

Please see the article published in Rupee News on "Inviting Russia Back: The Impact"

Karl Indurfurth is right. No American or NATO plans for Afghanistan will succeed without taking into account the Pakistani interests in Afghanistan. Afghanistan is in the Paksitani sphere of influence and no anti-Pakistani government in Kabul can hope to succeed without the blessings of Islamabad.

'Circle of freedom'

In a keynote speech hours before the two-day summit of the 26-nation alliance, Mr Bush said: "As [French] President Sarkozy put it in London last week, we cannot afford to lose Afghanistan.



If we do not defeat the terrorists in Afghanistan, we will face them on our soil

President Bush



Ashdown's Afghanistan warning

"Whatever the cost, however difficult, we cannot afford it, we must win.

"If we do not defeat the terrorists in Afghanistan, we will face them on our soil."

His attempts to rally new troops came as Lord Ashdown, the former UN envoy to Bosnia who was blocked from being UN envoy to Afghanistan by President Hamid Karzai, warned the Nato-led alliance was "getting pretty close" to losing control of the country.

Mr Bush arrived in the Romanian capital, Bucharest, late on Tuesday. He has since left to meet Romania's President Traian Basescu in the Black Sea resort of Constanta.

On the eve of his last Nato summit, Bush set out his agenda in a wide-ranging, half-hour speech.

In addition to asking for more troops, he also pushed for Nato's eastern expansion and appealed to Russia to drop opposition to US plans to establish missile defence installations in Nato members Poland and the Czech Republic.

President Bush said the "circle of freedom", as he put it, must be extended to include new Nato members from the Balkans.

He said invitations would be issued to Albania, Croatia and Macedonia to join Nato.

Russian bid to replace Pakistan as supply route: War in Afghanistan By Anwar Iqbal


WASHINGTON, April 1: At the Nato summit, which begins in Bucharest on Wednesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin is expected to offer an alternative route for supplying US and Nato troops in Afghanistan.
The proposal, if accepted, will change the course of the war in Afghanistan and will also have far-reaching consequences for Pakistan as Nato’s 43,000 troops in Afghanistan rely heavily on supplies transported via Pakistan.
Diplomatic sources in Washington told Dawn that Russian and Nato diplomats have already held a series of “productive and successful” talks on a plan that would allow non-military material – such as clothing, food and petrol – to cross Russia by land.
The plan, however, could later be expanded to include ammunition and light weapons as well, the sources said.
Russia’s new ambassador to Nato Dmitri Rogozin played a key role in selling this plan to the members of this US-led alliance, telling them that this will be a reliable alternative route free of violence and political troubles.
While America’s European allies have shown great interest in the proposal, the Americans are still reluctant as they do not want to bring Russia back to a region from where it was forcibly ousted in 1989, after battling Afghan freedom fighters (now Al Qaeda and Taliban militants) for almost 10 years.
Despite Washington’s reluctance, the Nato has held intensive talks with Russian officials on the precise routes to be used and hopes to reach agreement at this week’s summit in Bucharest.
If approved by the summit, the supplies can begin as soon as Nato wants as the Russians already have a functioning route passing through Russia, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.
Under the proposed agreement, Russia and the Collective Security Treaty Organisation, a military alliance of former Soviet republics, will jointly guarantee an interrupted supply of essential goods to the Nato forces.
Western diplomatic sources in Washington told Dawn that Nato sees the proposed route as a good alternative for supplies going through Pakistan which faces political uncertainty and may not be a reliable route for long.
The Pakistan route, according to these sources, passes through the Taliban-infested tribal zone and has become increasingly dangerous. Last Sunday, militants blew up a convoy of 36 oil tankers meant for US forces in Afghanistan.
Russian diplomats promoting their proposal also have underlined a so-called “crisis of trust” between the United States and Pakistan, where the new government plans to engage militants in a dialogue opposed by Washington.
They also argue that Russia has always had a strong interest in seeing the Nato mission in Afghanistan succeed because Moscow wants to prevent Muslim extremists enter the former Soviet republics.
But there are others in Washington who warn that an attempt to disassociate Pakistan from any plan for Afghanistan may have dangerous consequences.
In an article published on the eve of the Nato summit, Karl F. Inderfurth, a former US assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asian affairs, describes Pakistan as “one country that can make or break (Nato’s) mission” in Afghanistan.
He notes that Nato’s Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer has promised to visit Islamabad as soon as the new Pakistan government is in place.
“After Bucharest there is no better destination to reinforce Nato’s Afghan mission,” says Mr Inderfurth while backing the proposed visit.
Mr Inderfurth urges Nato leaders to work on a “new compact” that addresses Afghanistan and Pakistan’s political, economic and security concerns and seeks to neutralise regional and great power rivalries.
To attain this, he proposed an UN-sponsored, a high-level conference of all Afghanistan’s neighbours and concerned major powers for talks on a multilateral accord that addresses Pakistan’s concerns about developments in Afghanistan.
The proposed accord should recognise Afghanistan’s borders with Pakistan, pledge non-interference in Afghanistan’s internal affairs, recognise Afghanistan as a permanently neutral state and establish a comprehensive international regime to remove obstacles to the flow of trade across Afghanistan.
Mr Inderfurth also warns that any large-scale outside military intervention in Pakistan’s tribal areas would be disastrous for the Pakistani state and US interests.
Instead, he urges working with Pakistan’s new leadership to integrate the tribal region into the Pakistani political system and provide substantial assistance to build up their economy and social infrastructure.

$2.5 Billion: India purchasing archaic Russian carrier

The days of Carriers are over. The Exocet missile proved it during the Falklands war. Apparently the news has not reached the land of Non-Violence and fell on deaf ears on the Gandhian elite of the Indian Armed forces.

India's buying spree is fun to watch. It is now spending $2.5 Billion on an obsolete Aircraft Career that even the mighty Russian Empire could not afford to operate.
$2.5 Billion will not make India a superpower, and any pretenses of this need to be nipped in the bud by the latest book on the subject by Paragh Khanna. "India has missed the boat" on that count.

However it is pedantic to note that @2.5 Billion invested on India's infrastructure and slum elimination programs would have made an impact on poverty. India's irrational expenditure on these sorts of ornaments is not only mind boggling but reminds us of the folly of the "Wise Men of Gotham".

India Left Naked
April 2, 2008: India's sole aircraft carrier, the 29,000 ton INS Viraat, is going to spend the next 16 months in a shipyard getting maintenance and upgrades, leaving India with no carrier capability. This was to have been avoided by the timely arrival (this year) of the refurbished Russian carrier, the 44,000 ton Gorshkov, as the INS Vikramaditya. Under this plan, the INS Viraat was to be retired in 2012, after 53 years service (for Britain and India). But now the INS Viraat will get its engine and hull refurbished, and its electronics upgraded, and possibly serve for another decade.
Meanwhile, India has agreed to pay an additional billion dollars to complete the delayed refurbishment of the Russian aircraft carrier Gorshkov. The Russians not only demanded more money, but also admitted that a labor shortage would delay delivery until 2012. An Indian shipyard team will try to get the carrier out of the Russian yards earlier, and will also keep an eye on quality control.

The Russians have also admitted that the project also suffers from shoddy workmanship. The Indians have lots of experience with this sort of thing in Russian weapons, and will try to catch mistakes before the ship gets to India, hopefully in two or three years, rather than four. The Indians will also help with reconstructing the blueprints for the ship, which were apparently lost, and that contributed to the delay as well.

The new deal will cost $2.5 billion. This includes the purchase of the Gorshkov, and Russian shipyards performing repairs, modifications and upgrades. Another $800 is to be spent on aircraft, weapons and equipment. Building a Gorshkov type carrier today would cost about $4 billion, and take several years more. India is building another carrier, from scratch, but that 37,000 ton vessel won't be ready until 2015.

The Admiral Gorshkov entered service in 1987, but was inactivated in 1996 (too expensive to operate on a post Cold War budget). The Indian deal was made in 2004, and the carrier was to be ready by 2008. But a year ago reports began coming out of Russia that the shipyard doing the work, Sevmash, had seriously miscalculated the cost of the project. The revised costs were more like $1.1 billion for the $700 million refurb. The situation proceeded to get worse, with Sevmash reporting ever increasing costs to refurbish the carrier.

The Indians were not happy, and at first insisted that the Russian government (which owns many of the entities involved) make good on the original deal. India sent its own team of technical experts to Russia, and their report apparently confirmed what the Russians reported, about shipyard officials low-balling the cost of the work needed. This is a common tactic for firms building weapons for their own country. It gets more complicated when you try to pull that sort of thing on a foreign customer. The Russian government will cover some of the overrun cost. The Sevmash managers who negotiated the low bid are being prosecuted.

Once refurbished, the Gorshkov, renamed INS Vikramaditya, should be good for about 30 years of service. That's because, after the refit, 70 percent of the ships equipment will be new, and the rest refurbished.