by the meltingpot: The battleline and the coming faultline:would they become collinear?

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Indeed, what is at work in the recent return of realism is the revenge of geography in the most old-fashioned sense. In the 18th and 19th centuries, before the arrival of political science as an academic specialty, geography was an honored, if not always formalized, discipline in which politics, culture, and economics were often conceived of in reference to the relief map. Thus, in the Victorian and Edwardian eras, mountains and the men who grow out of them were the first order of reality; ideas, however uplifting, were only the second.
And yet, to embrace geography is not to accept it as an implacable force against which humankind is powerless. Rather, it serves to qualify human freedom and choice with a modest acceptance of fate. This is all the more important today, because rather than eliminating the relevance of geography, globalization is reinforcing it. Mass communications and economic integration are weakening many states, exposing a Hobbesian world of small, fractious regions. Within them, local, ethnic, and religious sources of identity are reasserting themselves, and because they are anchored to specific terrains, they are best explained by reference to geography. Like the faults that determine earthquakes, the political future will be defined by conflict and instability with a similar geographic logic. The upheaval spawned by the ongoing economic crisis is increasing the relevance of geography even further, by weakening social orders and other creations of humankind, leaving the natural frontiers of the globe as the only restraint.
So we, too, need to return to the map, and particularly to what I call the “shatter zones” of Eurasia. We need to reclaim those thinkers who knew the landscape best. And we need to update their theories for the revenge of geography in our time.
Here is the link for the whole write up.

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My view is that relations between countries in the coming decades are most likely to reflect their cultural commitments, their cultural ties and antagonism with other countries rather than other factors. Quite obviously, power will continue to play a central role in global politics, as it always does. But usually there is something else behind conflicts. In the 18th century in Europe, the issues to a large extent involved questions of monarchy versus the emerging republican movements, first in America and then in France. In the 19th century, it involved states identifying themselves through nationalism. In the 20th century, ideology came to the fore, largely, but not exclusively, as a result of the Russian Revolution. We had fascism, communism and liberal democracy competing with each other. Well, that’s pretty much over. Liberal democracy has come to be accepted, in theory at least, around the world, if not always in practice. So the question really is what will be the central focus of global politics in the coming decades? My argument remains that cultural identities, antagonisms and affiliations will not only play a role, but play a major role in relations between states. The full interview is here.

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Every citizen in the City of Richardson will be able to access 756 Kbps of internet connectivity for free, from anywhere in the city. They will be able to access the internet from their homes, schools, restaurants and parks using standard wi-fi connections which are now installed on almost every notebook computer. That is almost as fast as many so-called high speed broadband connections that one pays dearly for today, and several times faster than the various hotspots at your local coffee shops. And I should note that the tax-payers of the City of Richardson are not paying one penny for this, and in fact are going to see additional revenues as a benefit. ... At the beginning of this letter, I suggested that this would be one of the fastest worldwide rollouts of a technology ever seen. It was just 20 years ago that the first cellular systems were being built. The rollout for mesh wireless systems is going to make that look slow. There are several reasons I make this assertion. But they all center on the facts that installing mesh systems will be cheaper and easier than any previous system and the economics in both the developed and especially the developing world will be so radically compelling. Throw in the fact the any astute politician will want to be at the front of this parade (They will all want to say, "I was the man who helped bring free internet to everyone!") and the groundwork is laid for rapid deployment. In Richardson and elsewhere, MeshLinx is offering the basic infrastructure for free. This avoids all the time consuming, political budget battles in the cities. When a service is offered for free, much of the mandated competitive process is eliminated. Next is the low cost of installation of the system. As noted above, Richardson is a city of roughly 100,000 people living in 27.4 square miles. It will "only" cost about $2,000,000 today to lay the wireless blanket I mentioned above. It will cost a great deal less in the future, as MeshLinx is building the pods at a pace of 100 a month today. The maximum output of the US pilot assembly line is 500 a month. When the demand exceeds this (and it will in a very short time) discussions have been held to move volume production to China. Of course, the world will need tens of millions of pods. The cost for a pod will be a fraction of today's cost, with that installation number for a city like Richardson soon being half (or less) the cost of today. What does that $1 or 2 million get you? The infrastructure to be an internet connection, telephone, security, entertainment provider and a whole lot more company. As noted, it will get cheaper as the number of pods being made each month rises, thus lowering their costs dramatically. This technology does have scale. The cost of physically putting up a pod is not a large part of the equation, as you simply need to run a power line, attach a few bolts to a mount on the side of a building or light pole and then off to the next point. Think about the 40,000 homes and businesses in Richardson. If and (hopefully) over time when 10% decide to pay $50 a month for 10-20 Mbps high speed internet access you could see a revenue of $2.5 million a year just from internet access. Now add in all the other income possibilities (phone, entertainment, security and don't forget advertising revenue on the free service!). Think about your town or country. What would service like this be worth? If you are a small city that does not have high speed connections available, how many businesses that could bring jobs do not come your way because they need reliable communications for their work and their employees? If you are in a developing country, where internet access is difficult and expensive, it will open whole new vistas. Couple that with the various programs which want to give cheap laptops to kids in poor countries, and you could see significant social progress in a generation. Here is the link.

Saturday, February 07, 2015

The battleline and the coming faultline:would they become collinear?

Within a few days of the public declarartion of the battleline, India also publicly leaped up on the comfortable lap of the US of A.Remember how the India's prime minister breathlessly announced the coming the American president to the 26th Jan ceremony while the Chinese troops were still in Pune.

As the US president was landing in New Delhi,the Houthi inusrgents in Yemen surrounded the Presidential Palace,trapping the president himself inside,who is a close ally of the USA.The message was quite clear---"Even if both US And India have banded together,we are still more than ready for battle".

Another 'we are also ready for battle' came out in full public view in yet another state visit--this time,the just concluded State visit of India's foreign minsiter to China.This is discernible in four different ways--

1)The same morning when India's foreign minsiter was to leave for Beijing,there was the test fire of the cannisterized version of the Agni 5 ICBM.And even the most naive knows that Agni 5 is specially developed with China firmly in mind.

2)The next day when the Indian Foreign minister was settling down for business in Beijing,massive demonstrations mysteriously materialized in the streets of Hong Kong.

3)The sane day day,Maoists in Chhatisgarh suddenly attacked a police patrol party,killing two policemen.

4)We are still in the same day and this time around,a Lt Gen,commanding the 3rd Corp of India's military had had a narrow escape when his chopper crashed at his Corp headquarters at Dimapur.

To top it all,there was even a scenario of 'one crash' for 'another crash'!To avenge the chopper crash at Dimapur,there was a plane crash in Taiwan--a plane which had roughly 1/3 of its passengers as the Mainland Chinese.Incidentally,nearly 1/3 of the total passengers were also killed.(As the pilot of the plane was found killed still clutching the joystick,there is ground to believe that some malicious programs might have infected the onboard computers which,in turn,overided the manual commands of the pilot.This progam might be as stealthy and dangerous as Stuxnet,which was jointly written by US And Israeli governments,both thriving democracies in their respective regions!This time around,India,which is not only the largest democracy but also an IT powerhouse,might have contributed to the joint exercise of writing a plane killing computer virus!!).

Now,we come to the most intersting part.The plane crash was carefully timed to happen in the early hours of the 4th Feb '15.So,what's so special about the 4th of Feb?

It's the day on which there was a general strike in Manipur,which had taken everyone by surprise(because it was in support of a blockade of the Imphal-Moreh national highway and supporting a national highway blockade is unthinkable in the tortured political discourse of Manipur).More so,it was called by none other than one venerable organization which was born out of the massive protest against the then imminent territorial disintegrity of Manipur as the direct result of the Indo-Naga peace accord,more than a decade ago.

It's now clear that the plane crash in Taiwan was carefully timed to kill two birds with one stone--one,to avenge the chopper crash at Dimapur and,another,to serve as the symbolic counter-offensive to an offensive move happened on the 4th Feb ie the general strike.

So,the general strike on the 4th Feb was actually a very fine-grained offensive act.

The above statement is the embodiment of the enormous twist and turns inside the 'batteground Manipur',which most likely leaves everybody's head spinning.So,let's slow down a bit and re-started from the beginning.

1)The just concluded India's foreign minister's China visit was preambled by by the road blockade along the Imphal-Moreh national highway.The foreign minser was saying---"As I'm travelling towards the centre of the East,it's being graphically shown that Manipur's 'Nongpokthong' is at the mercy of New Delhi--we can shut it off completely or thrown it open ajar at the timing of our choosing".

2)But the Indian State achieved the blocading off the 'Nongpokthong' by letting the blockaders targetting one of its own arm--the Indian military.Isn't it the classic case of the spectacular execution of 'smudging the battleline' tactics?(my last post).

So,calling a general strike on the 4th Feb supporting the blockaders amounts to the acceptance of the principle of 'smudgign the battleline',isn't it? Really a queer case of organized valley groups supporting a hightway blockade in the hills,isn't it?

To unravel this seeming paradox we need to go back some week's timeline.There we will find out that one of the most easily overlooked news would make the most pronounced impact on the current state of the geo-political scenario.

Here is the most overlooked news.The students' wing of the most tortured agitation currrently active in Manipur gave a public demand for calling a special session of the State Legislative Assembly to discuss and enact a law tailored to their demands.New Delhi reacted almost immediately.It suddenly gave additional charge to the Manipur governor,which gave them the excuse for physical absence of the governor from Imphal for a prolonged duration.

What does it tell us? It tells us that New Delhi is expecting faultline to develop between the wishes of Manipuri people and the Constitution of India in the coming days.Seen in this light what had happened along the Imphal-Moreh national highway during Ms Sushma Swaraj visit to China is also a spadework by New Delhi--New Delhi is planning to nip the developing faultline by deploying various blocakades along the highways in the hills of Manipur.

Now comes the time to unravel the seeming paradox.Imagine someone trying to use both this spadework of New Delhi and genetic codes of the yet to be born faultline to creatre a scenario where the coming faultline would become collinaer with the already visble battleline.So,it's now clear that the seeming paradox contains a lot more deeper meanings in it.

Having come to this far,it's our duty to truthfully catalog of what have been unfolding in front of our own eyes.We are seeing the contours of a three-way fight.

1)One group is dreaming of casting a spell on the genetic codes of the yet to be born faultline so that it would not be inimical to the constitution of India.

2)The second group is fairly certain that any faultline would be inimical to the Constitution of India in due course of time and so,it should be nipped in the bud.

3)The third group is readying battleplans with both above two groups so that the coming faultline would become collinear with the already visible battleline.

by the meltingpot

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