Screw Pakistan

After a recent incident where U.S. helicopter gunships crossed into Pakistan, in hot pursuit of Islamic terrorists, and killed three Pakistani soldiers (and a lot more terrorists), Pakistan cut one of the two NATO supply routes that pass through Pakistan.

Aside from the fact that the Pakistani soldiers fired on the NATO helicopters (which they often do, even when the choppers are on the Afghan side of the border), the U.S. didn't have to remind the Pakistanis that such a gesture was self-defeating. 

The Pakistani government is heavily dependent on American economic and military aid, and more and more of the supplies for foreign troops in Pakistan is coming from non-Pakistani sources. This hurts Pakistani businesses that move, and often provide, the supplies.

At the moment, about half those supplies come through Pakistan. The Pakistanis only closed, for about a day, one of the two main routes. About 30 percent of the supplies come in via Central Asia railroads, and another comes from the Black Sea, via rail to the Afghan border. The remaining 20 percent comes in by air. But some of that may be shifted to the Central Asian route, which is much safer (from bandits, bad roads and the Taliban) than the Pakistan routes.

The U.S. and NATO supplies coming in via railroad from Western Europe, go through Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, to Afghanistan. This approach costs $400 a ton to get supplies into Afghanistan, versus three times that to truck it in from Pakistani ports, or $14,000 a ton to fly stuff in. 

 This Central Asian route has been under negotiation since 2003, but Russia kept agreeing to it, and then withdrawing cooperation. What has finally compelled Russia to cooperate in the last year is the growing problems they are having with heroin and opium coming out of Afghanistan into, and through, Russia. 

Shipping supplies to Afghanistan via Russian and Central Asian railroads has advantages for the nations it passes through. Russia has an economic interest in this, as more traffic makes it financially attractive for Central Asian nations to invest in upgrading their rail connections to Afghanistan. Tajikistan, for example, is extending its railroad to the Afghan border by building another 145 kilometers of track. 

Afghanistan itself has no railroads, mainly because there is not enough economic activity in the country to make this worthwhile. Foreign donors have contributed billions of dollars since 2002 to build more paved roads in Afghanistan. Currently, there are 42,000 kilometers of roads there, but only a third  are paved. There are few rivers, much less navigable ones, and no access to the sea. The place has long been a logistical nightmare. 

Most Afghans recognize that roads will make the country more prosperous, by making it economically feasible to export many commodities, and cheaper to bring in, and distribute, foreign goods. Naturally, the Taliban are opposed to all this road building, as it threatens the poverty and ancient customs that Islamic conservatives are so fond of.

Afghanistan's neighbors are eager to trade, and are using the U.S. and NATO need for more access to upgrade their transport links to the country. 

For example, 90 cargo containers were shipped through the Caucasus, via Turkey, Azerbaijan, the Caspian sea and Kazakhstan, to Afghanistan last year, as a test, and regular shipments began shortly thereafter. It's also possible to ship containers across the Caspian to a port in Turkmenistan, and thence to Afghanistan. 

The U.S. and NATO wants to move up to 50,000 containers a year via these new Russian and Caucasus routes. This makes it economically feasible to ship more civilian goods this way. As the traffic increases, it makes economic sense for Afghanistan to start building rail lines, something most nations began doing over a century ago.

Ukraine wants to become the international capital of carrier aviation training

Decades ago, the Soviet Union built its aircraft carrier pilot training facilities at Nitka, outside Odessa, a city that is, since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, in the independent country of Ukraine.

Ukraine is now trying to attract China and India as customers for these facilities. China has signed up, and is buying aircraft carrier equipment made in Ukraine.

China is expanding its own carrier aviation training center, and is buying consulting and technical services from Ukraine to assist in that project.

One interesting item to come out of the visits by Chinese naval aviation personnel to Ukraine, is that the Varyag, a former Soviet carrier that China bought from Russia six years ago, is being restored for use as a training carrier. This explains the spotty restoration work that has been done on the Varyag. However, the Chinese indicated that the Varyag could still be turned into an operational combat carrier, either before or after it enters service as a training ship.

The Nitka base was used by the Soviets to train MiG-29K and Su-33 pilots for service on their carriers. India is buying MiG-29Ks for their carriers, and China is apparently building, with Ukrainian help, a carrier version of the Su-30 (which is what the Su-33 was).

Russians Troops got Lost in Georgia and was Blind

For Background see Russian military demonstrated great resourcefulness, Russia moves SS-21 missiles into Georgia and Georgia Hidden Victories - What the Drive by Press did NOT tell you

More information is coming out of Russia describing the problems troops encountered when they invaded Georgia last month.

It turns out that the Russians lost twentyfive aircraft (ten Su-25s, five Su-24s, two Tu-22s, and eight Mi-24s "HIND" helicopter.) The Russian pilots were not prepared to deal with the three batteries of SA-11 anti-aircraft missile systems the Georgians had bought from Ukraine last year.

There is now more work being done on countermeasures, and training pilots to cope.

Another unanticipated problem was the unreliability of the Russian navigation satellites. Russia's answer to GPS, GLONASS, was at full strength (24 satellites) shortly after the Cold War ended (1995).

But the end of the Cold War meant the end of the regular financing for GLONASS. Maintaining the system meant launching replacement satellites every 5-7 years. By the end of 2002, only seven GLONASS birds were still operational.

However, a series of launches in 2003 increased the number of active satellites to twelve, and that went to 18 by the end of 2007. Russia plans to put eight more GLONASS satellites in orbit this year. That would expand the system to 24 navigation satellites.

Russia plans to have the system fully operational next year. Right now, it is active for most of Russia, but not, it turned out, in Georgia.

Aircraft and ground forces got lost, and that led to more losses.

The GLONASS problems also prevented use of Russian smart bombs with much effectiveness. The government is already planning to replace the current GLONASS satellites with 30 second generation birds by 2011.

Another Rhineland...

Russia has announced that it will, in effect, annex the Georgian separatist regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

No one is willing to face down the Russians on this issue, which many of Russias neighbors see as the first of many such annexations.

There is a precedent for this sort of thing, and it all began on the French-German border in 1936.

Some historians see the German reoccupation of the Rhineland in 1936 as the real beginning of World War II.

As part of the treaty that ended World War I, Germany agreed to keep troops out of the Rhineland (a German region on the French border). Going back in was a huge gamble for the Germans, who were in the midst of rebuilding their military, and, in 1936, much weaker than France or Britain.

But neither of these countries were willing to risk the violence that might occur if they went after the 32,000 troops and police Germany sent into the Rhineland. This convinced Hitler that he could bully the Western allies, and grab neighboring countries with impunity.

This worked for Austria and Czechoslovakia, but triggered World War II when Germany and Russia (by prior agreement) carved up Poland in 1939.

Russia may not have its sights on Poland this time around, but Belarus, Ukraine, the Baltic States and a few of the Central Asian "stans" would be nice. Would, or could, anyone stop them?

Hitler didn't have nuclear weapons, nor was Germany the supplier of a quarter of Europe's energy needs. Hitler also didn't have the support of the German people for such military adventures, the current Russian government does. Russia also still has its secret police apparatus.

Perhaps not as large as when the Soviet Union was still around, but it's still there. Credit Cards, the Internet and cell phones make it easier to keep track of people. There are still KGB old timers around who remember how to run a prison camps.

Absorbing the nations of the "near abroad" (as Russia calls its neighbors), would mean having to deal with a lot of dissidents. That's what the Gulag (the Russian acronym for the prison camp system, or "The Chief Administration of Corrective Labor Camps and Colonies") was created for. It gets the troublemakers off the streets, permanently, as needed. Puts the fear of Moscow into the newly acquired citizens of the Russian State. It worked before, it can work again. So did taking over the Rhineland.

Ukraine offers satellite defence co-operation

Ukraine offers satellite defence
co-operation
with Europe and US

Ukraine inflamed mounting East-West tensions
yesterday by offering up a Soviet-built satellite facility
as part of the European missile defence system.

By Damien McElroy in Tbilisi

The proposal, made amid growing outrage among Russia's neighbours over its military campaign in Georgia, could see Ukraine added to Moscow's nuclear hitlist. A Russian general declared Poland a target for its arsenal after Warsaw signed a deal with Washington to host interceptor missiles for America's anti-nuclear shield.

The move came as the Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, signed a cease-fire deal that sets the stage for a Russian troop withdrawal after more than a week of warfare with its neighbour Georgia.

The deal calls for both Russian and Georgian forces to pull back to positions they held before fighting erupted on August 8. As of last night, though, there was little apparent evidence of a Russian pull-out from the Georgian town of Gori, which Russian tanks and troops took last weekend. Russia's foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, insisted a broader withdrawal would be contingent on further security measures.

Just hours before Mr Medvedev put his signature to the ceasefire deal, Russian forces blew up a Georgian railway bridge on the main line west of the capital, Tbilisi, an act that critics interpreted as a malacious attempt to cripple the country's infrastructure. Moscow at first issued a denial, but television footage shot by the Reuters news agency clearly showed the bridge's twisted remains.

Ukraine said it was ready to give both Europe and America access to its missile warning systems after Russia earlier annulled a 1992 cooperation agreement involving two satellite tracking stations. Previously, the stations were part of Russia's early-warning system for missiles coming from Europe.

"The fact that Ukraine is no longer a party to the 1992 agreement allows it to launch active cooperation with European countries to integrate its information," a statement from the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said.

It follows a declaration earlier this week from Ukraine's pro-Western president, Viktor Yushchenko, that the Russian naval lease of the Ukrainian Black Sea port of Sebastopol would be scrapped if any vessels joined the conflict in Georgia.

The crisis over Russia's display of military might in Georgia has alarmed ex-Soviet satellites states in a broad arc from the Baltics to Central Asia. Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania, all of which harbour bitter memories of Soviet occupation, have expressed solidarity with the Georgian position.

Yesterday President George W. Bush hailed what he saw as progress in resolving the Georgia crisis, describing the ceasefire agreement as "a hopeful step."

He reiterated, though, that the disputed regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia remained part of Georgia, despite Moscow's insistence that they should now be allowed to become part of Russia. "There's no room for debate on this matter," said Mr Bush. "The international community is clear that South Ossetia and Abkhazia are part of Georgia and the US fully recognises this reality."

Meanwhile, disturbing reports of abuse of ethnic Georgians in captured parts of the disputed region emerged. A group of captive soldiers were paraded in the streets of the South Ossetian capital, Tskinvali, and the bodies of at least 40 dead troops rotted in the sun.

Teams of ethnic Georgians, some under armed guard, were forced to clean the streets. It was the first apparent evidence of humiliation or abuse of Georgians in the Russian-controlled breakaway republic.