A recent article in the New York Times highlights some of the problems the Allies face in dealing with the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan.

See http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/06/world/asia/06afghan.html

The Dutch regular army troops take a very different approach to pacification than the Americans, British, Canadians, and other allies.  The Dutch focus more on making personal contact with the locals, cultivating relationships, and, most unusual of all for combat troops, they avoid combat with the enemy. 

Many of history’s best counter-insurgency campaigns focused a great deal of energy, time, and resources, on denying the enemy forces the use, cover, and allegiances of the local population.  Some, campaigns, such as the British concentration camps for the Boer civilian population and the Spanish attempt to squelch the Cuban Revolution in the 1890s, used barbaric methods to achieve their aims.  (The British won, the Spanish managed to tick off the Americans so much that the U.S. intervened).  The Dutch method goes to the other end of the spectrum to an extreme.  Be friendly, polite, build schools and roads, and don’t kill anyone.  Even if they shoot at you.

Back in the 1990s, the Dutch participated in an Allied attempt to protect Bosnian Muslims (http://www.historyguy.com/balkan_war_third.htm) at a place called Srebernica.  The Dutch soldiers avoided combat, and allowed the Serbs to slaughter 8,000 Bosnian men and boys.  If I were an Afghan civilian making nice with the Allies in this war, and I have to depend on the Dutch Boys from the Gandhi School of Pacification to save my life from the Taliban or al-Qaida, I’d better have my funeral plot picked out in advance. 

In all the talk of the "Surge" of American troops into Baghdad, one facet of that increase of soldiers is that they are now supposed to be actively patrolling neighborhoods and making face-to-face contact with local civilians.  In this sense the American strategy in Iraq is similar to the Dutch ploy in Afghanistan.  The comparison ends here though, since we all know that the U.S. troops are going to defend themselves and shoot back.

Nuclear War is Bad for the
Environment…

…and for humans, dogs, cats,
cows, and just about everything else. Though it could end up solving global warming, at least for a
while. Seriously though, several recent
news stories point out the increasing dangers associated with the nearly
unchecked proliferation of nuclear weapons in an increasingly unstable
world. 

What exactly are the possible
scenarios for small-scale regional nuclear conflicts? Those are exactly the type of wars that the
scientists at the American Geophysical Union’s annual
meeting in

San Francisco

warned about.

Even a
Small Nuclear War Could Change the World: New Study Shows Distant and Minor
Nuclear Blasts Could Cause a Global ‘Nuclear Winter’—ABC News Dec. 12, 2006

Megacities, global warming
make nuclear war even more dangerousNow that
civilization has moved to cities, we are easier bombing targets, say experts. —By Michael
Kanellos
Staff Writer, CNET News.com, Dec. 11, 2006

The War and
Conflict Journal sees several realistic scenarios that could occur within the
next few years.

Scenario 1: Nuclear

North Korea

rolls the dice and makes a go at taking over

South Korea

. The President of South Korea does not appear
too worried though. He says that despite
the North’s nuclear weaponry, the South would still prevail. Is the man a fool, or has

South Korea

have a nuclear ace up its sleeve?

Roh says nuclear North
Korea no match in warfare to the South

Scenario 2: 

Iran

and

Israel

duke it out with nukes. Iran’s President is famous for periodically
threatening to wipe Israel off of the map, but Israel’s Prime Minister recently
all but admitted that Israel has nuclear weapons (a well-known fact, but Israel
consistently has not admitted such). These two nations could easily wipe out the entire Middle East and its
oil supplies (once

Iran

creates those weapons).

ISRAEL NUKE
COMMENT SPARKS CONTROVERSY

History Guy: Israel-Lebanon/Hezbollah War (2006)

Scenario 3: The

U.S.

(with or
without allies), tries to take out

Iran

’s nuclear processing
facilities. To take out the hardened
underground sites, the

U.S.

may resort to “mini-nukes,” or nuclear “bunker-busting” weapons. Messy.

Attack
on Iran: Pre-emptive Nuclear War

History Guy: Iran-U.S. Hostage Crisis (1979-1981)

Scenario 4: 

India

and

Pakistan

, who each possess at least
50 nuclear weapons, fight another war and go nuclear. The two old enemies have been talking peace
lately, but with an active Islamist insurgency in Indian-ruled

Kashmir

, and very important elements of the Pakistani
military and security forces backing the insurgency, the possibility of a
future war that could go nuclear is ever present.

India’s
Strategic Environment and the Role of Military Power—Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace, August 22, 2006

History Guy: Wars of India

History Guy:
Indo-Pakistani Wars

 Scenario 4.1: A coup topples
President Mushareff of

Pakistan

and the new government is openly pro-Taliban, pro-al-Qaida, and calls for holy
war to free Kashmir from

India

. The

U.S.

,

Britain

, and

India

decide to take out

Pakistan

’s
nuclear capability. 

U.S.

and British
special forces try to seize the Pakistani nuclear arsenal, but miss a few,
while the Indian military surges across the border to end the “Pakistani
problem” once and for all. Use your
imagination on how a pro-Taliban Pakistani government would react to such an
attack… NOTE: There supposedly WAS such an Anglo-American plan to seize

Pakistan

’s
nukes right after 9/11 when it was not clear which way Mushareff would go when
told to choose between continuing his support of the Taliban and aligning with the
West.

U.S.
Worries about Pakistan Nuclear Arms—

Washington

Post, Nov. 4, 2001

Bombing Pakistan Back
to the Stone Age by Eric
Margolis

 Scenario 4.2: 

India

and

China

re-fight their 1962 border war, except this time they both have nukes. Even though they have been talking nicely to
each other lately,

India

has
made no secret of its concern that

China

’s
recent military expansion is up to three times a large as publicly acknowledged
by

Beijing

.

Other scenarios
exist of course, but in terms of the most likely wars between nations, these
are the most likely. And you thought the
end of the Cold War made the world a safer place, didn’t you? 

This is a post I had on another blog in December, 2006:

A Look at

and
its Wars: 12.04.06

Africa

is home to several long-standing wars and conflicts,
some of which have smoldered on for years, and now threaten to erupt into
larger regional conflicts. Of particular concern is the arc of countries from

Chad

and the Central African Republic (CAR) in
north-central Africa through

Sudan

to the Horn of Africa nations of

Eritrea

,

Ethiopia

, and

Somalia

. As with many of the world’s conflicts in the
early years of the 21^st Century, the long shadow of the Global War
on Terror reaches into this bloody corner of this lost continent.

Sudan

:

In the

Sudan

, warfare
returned to the largely Black, Christian south for the first time since a peace
agreement was implemented in 2005. The
fighting took place between the former rebels, the Sudan
People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), and a northern (meaning Arab Muslim) militia
led by Major Gen Gabriel Tang. After the
SPLA trounced the militia, Tang’s men took refuge in a Sudanese Army base at
the

Nile

River

port

of

Malakal

. The following day, the Sudanese Army returned with heavy weapons (tanks
and artillery), and retook the town, inflicting severe damage. Several hundred soldiers and civilians
perished in the fighting. 

With the ongoing
war in

Darfur

,

Sudan

does not need a resurgence of
the southern war.

‘Hundreds killed’
in Sudan battle—BBC, Nov. 30, 2006

And speaking of

Darfur

, the fighting
there continues, as the Darfurian rebels attack the Sudanese Army and launch
raids on the country’s oil supply. This
war has already taken an estimated 400,000 lives. The UN seems helpless to act with any resolve;
meanwhile

Chad

is increasing
its aid to the Darfurians, even as

Sudan

aids Chadian rebels while setting the murderous Janjaweed militia upon refugee
camps and towns on the

Chad

side of the desert border. 

Sudan army
suffers Darfur defeats—BBC, Oct. 17, 2006

On the positive side, the

Sudan

government and the Eastern Front rebel group (made up of rebels from the Beja
and Rashidiya Arab groups) work to implement a new peace agreement signed in
October. This agreement ended 12 years
of rebellion in the Red Sea states near the border with

Eritrea

. 

Sudan

accused

Eritrea

of aiding these rebel groups. 

Sudan’s
Interlocking Wars—BBC, May 10, 2006

Army, former rebels
review eastern Sudan peace process—Sudan Tribune, Sunday Dec. 3 2006

Central African Republic

:

The
war in the Central African Republic (CAR), which began in 2003, grew to new
levels this month, with increased rebel attacks and victories, which in turn
prompted overt French military intervention. The CAR and

Chad

both
blame

Sudan

for aiding rebels against their governments.

French planes attack CAR
rebels: French fighter planes have fired at rebels in northern Central African
Republic (CAR) where thousands have fled fighting in recent weeks.—BBC,
Nov. 30, 2006

Eritrea

,

Ethiopia

,
and

Somalia

:

Muslim
Eritrea and mostly Christian Ethiopia are still facing off over their disputed
border, over which they fought a very bloody and not very conclusive war (1998-2000). Rumors and preparations for renewed war
deflect both nations from addressing their real issues of poverty and economic
problems. They also appear to be waging
a proxy war in

Somalia

,
where

Eritrea

is believed to
aid the United Islamic Courts (UIC) against the Baidoa government, which is
supported by

Ethiopia

. The situation in

Somalia

remains tense and quite
anarchic, as the Ethiopian government engages in direct talks with the
UIC. 

Overview: 

The
Horn of Africa (Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia) and the North-Central region of
Africa (Central African Republic, Chad, Sudan), are locked in bloody,
interconnected wars which could easily escalate into a regional war to rival
that Great Lakes War (Centered on the Congo, this war involved Chad, the CAR,
Rwanda, Burundi, Angola, Namibia, and Zimbabwe, and claimed several million
lives). If

Sudan

is indeed aiding the rebels in

Chad

and the CAR,

France

may be drawn further into the looming Sudan-Chad/CAR conflict. If the Sudanese government continues to
suffer major losses in

Darfur

, and/or its oil
industry, (which provides the money for the military as well as money to help
implement the peace deals in the South and East), the SPLA and the Eastern
Front rebels may be encouraged to take up arms in a major rebellion. Add to this scenario the possibility that

Ethiopia

could
be dragged further into the Somalia Civil War. This could tempt

Eritrea

to more aggressively aid the United Islamic Courts (UIC), prompting an Ethiopian
military response along the Eritrea-Ethiopia border. Given the strong belief in

Washington

and other Western capitals that al-Qaida has found new bases and new support in
the parts of

Somalia

controlled by the UIC, and the implied American support for

Ethiopia

’s
involvement, things could become very interesting, very soon.