Surely Parrikar doesn't believe there's a link between J&K 'peace' and demonitisation?

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has called him the brightest jewel of his court.But for us columnists, Union defence minister Manohar Parrikar's greatest value is that he regularly provides us with fodder for our copy.

And so it is with his latest comment that demonitisation has led to a reduction of stone pelting in Jammu and Kashmir.

There are two problems with this.

First, it is not factually correct. J&K government figures show that stone pelting incidents had been declining month on month since their height of 820 incidents in July; in August they came down to 747, in September to 119, 157 in October; and this month till November 14 there were 49 incidents, with 15 of them taking place between November 8 when demonitisation was announced.

Flaws in theory

The second is the flawed effort to put 'stone pelting' and 'terrorism' in the same box. 

By doing so, the government of India mixes apples and oranges and this has consequnces for its policy, or the lack of it, in J&K.

If Parrikar and the government think that the youngsters who come out to throw stones because they are paid in Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes, they are deluding themselves.

Consigning all protest and militancy in J&K to someone paying people to do something just does not fit with the facts on ground.

The same problem arises with militant attacks and terrorism. There have been several incidents after the Uri attack, but none of them were such that would have required some huge outlay of money to execute.

For example, the Al Qaeda raised hundreds of thousands of dollars because they had to send the 20-odd terrorists to live and train in the US to carry out the infamous 9/11 attack.

There is already an existing infrastructure of militants in the Valley, they are now not too many in numbers, but they are there and armed.

In the main, their strikes are against unarmed or poorly armed J&K police personnel. The attacks are so few that correlating them with demonitisation would be a tricky exercise.

Electoral dividends

There is one set of 'anti-nationals' who will be affected by the demonetisation. But Parrikar and co are not so bothered about them since attacking them will not give then the electoral dividends they seek by attacking Kashmiri militants and Pakistan.These are the Maoists of Central India, who have a core of 10,000 fighters with some 15,000-20,000 full-time supporters and a larger number of overground workers. 

These people have depended on money derived from extorting traders and mining companies to function.For obvious reasons, they hold their money in cash and they are the people who will now find it difficult to function.

They operate over a large area, have to buy food, medicine, weapons and equipment.

Besides, their overground workers have to be regularly paid. Almost in all such movements, be it the Chinese Communists in the 1920s and 1930s, or the Taliban of today, money has been a deciding factor in their success.

In the case of the Taliban, a great deal of it has been gathered through the drug trade, though Arab and ISI donations have been important. In the case of the CPC, without the support of the Soviet Union's money, often provided through Comintern agents, it is doubtful that they could have escaped Chiang Kai Shek's encirclement campaigns and made their famous Long March.

Red herring

Coming back to Kashmir, it is true that hawala money has played a role in the Kashmir uprising, but in the past.

Today that movement is a shadow of its past self. This was in the main in relation to the active militant groups like the Hizbul Mujahideen and the Pakistani groups.

When they operated in significant numbers in the Valley, they needed money to move around, as well as for living expenses for themselves and their families.

The Lashkar-e-Tayyeba even now regularly pays stipends to its militants and their families, especially if they die in action.Kashmiri political parties also need money, just like other parties in India. But many of them have built properties and markets and probably have enough 'legitimate' assets to keep them afloat.However, to extrapolate this to the so-called stone pelters would be an error.

Most of these are kids who live with their families and they throw stones because they are frustrated by the circumstances they are living in and are easily manipulated by their more savvy leaders.

It is important to, therefore, analyse the declining trend of stone pelting in an accurate fashion.Introducing redherrings like demonetisation will only serve to prevent the government from formulating policies that could help restore normality in the state.

Mail Today 20 Novmber 2016

Apprehensive World Leaders Need Not Worry Yet, the US’s Peculiar Political System Will Keep Trump in Check

Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential election has upended the conventional wisdom about political mobilisation and polling processes  in the country. It also threatens to upset the very world order that the US built, nurtured and currently dominates. The first question that comes to mind for other nations observing the outcome is: What are going to be the consequences of a Trump presidency ?
In many ways, they will be internal. In achieving his stunning upset, Trump first trampled on the Republican establishment’s leadership –House speaker Paul D. Ryan, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and John Kasich – and then took on a formidable Democratic candidate and bested her. Former President George W. Bush and 2012 presidential contender Mitt Romney refused to support Trump. Analysts will be working hard to decode his victory for a while, but the heart of his win lay in winning the key rust-belt states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan and Iowa which used to be the industrial heartland of the US and were won by outgoing US President Barack Obama in the 2012 elections.
Trump’s ‘Make America Great Again’ slogan resonated well with the working-class Americans who felt that ‘foreigners’ (read non-white people) were taking away their jobs and those who had grown disillusioned watching as the rich became richer and the middle class stagnated and America’s infrastructure crumbled, even as the country spent trillions of dollars in wars abroad. Trump’s resilience became apparent as he overcame negative ads, put out by Hillary Clinton’s campaign, depicting Trump as an unhinged, racist misogynist. In some ways he turned Obama’s strategy inside out by  positioning himself as the candidate of hope and an outsider battling the elite Washington DC establishment.
Trump disdained the orthodox approach to election organisation by focusing on holding large rallies instead of concentrating on analytics. He left the Republican Party organisation to run its own campaign and turned the conventional political style of contesting US elections upside down by rejecting the high road and taking the low one of outrageous remarks against Mexicans, women and Muslims. And in the process consolidated his appeal among blue-collar white Americans.
In some ways,  the US election represents a nationalist wave that is also rocking Europe and led to Brexit earlier this year. It has been successfully used by politicians as diverse as Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, Shinzu Abe and Narendra Modi to consolidate power.
Like all nationalists, Trump was propelled to power because he was seen as the best person to address the electorate’s feelings of helplessness and insecurity.
America’s peculiar political system
Across the world, people are experiencing disbelief and a touch of apprehension at Trump being elected the US president. But we need to understand that now that he is president, America’s peculiar political system – designed by its founding fathers to prevent Trump-like populists – will kick into action. The system is based on a separation of powers which provides for checks and balances against arbitrarily instituted policies. The US president is only the first among equals when it comes to the US parliament (aka Congress) – the Senate and House of Representatives which comprise the Congress are also vested with significant power. Having stepped on many a toe in the run-up to his election, Trump may find that the Congress may not readily do his bidding, even though many of the Republican Senate and House members have come to power riding on his coattails. The US system has been deliberately designed to slow down someone like Trump and it will surely succeed at doing so if Trump seeks to upend established treaties and agreements and strike out in unexpected directions.

Trade and immigration
There are two key issues that have marked Trump’s rise – trade and immigration. Clearly the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is now dead in the water and with it goes the grand American strategy of confronting China on the trade front. Countries like Mexico are, of course, worried about the future of the North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). But one thing is clear, the US stands to lose as much, if not more, by scrapping existing treaties than its interlocutors.
As for immigration, it will affect all countries, but some like India probably don’t have cause to worry because traditionally Indian migrants are highly educated and the demand for them is high in the US. It is the migrants from neighbouring countries, such as Mexico, who Trump has really targeted, people who his followers believe undercut the earning power of the blue-collar worker.
Unsurprisingly, Russian President Vladimir Putin has welcomed the election results considering Trump’s call for better ties with Russia.
But though his election was formally welcomed in a slew of countries like Germany, Japan, Turkey, Britain, Israel and India, no one seemed to have a clear idea about which direction the US is now headed in. China, for its part, mocked the election with its news agency Xinhua poking fun at the fact that the “most divisive and scandalous election in American history has eroded voters’ faith in the two party system. “
The big worry for American allies like Western European countries, Japan and Korea, is that Trump has repeatedly criticised them for not paying enough for their defence and sponging off the US.  Japan and South Korea have additional reasons to worry because they are big exporters and the president-elect’s attitude towards free trade is negative, to say the least.
Trump’s victory has given the right wing in Europe a boost and in Israel, the right-wing elements believe that they could well see the end of the American support for a two-state solution in relation to Palestine.

What about India?
What does a Trump victory mean for India ? Actually not much. The support by the Hindu right-wing in the US will definitely register in his mind, but India-US relations are not on Trump’s list of priorities. The message he has from those who elected him is to fix things internally and set right the terms of trade that have impoverished the US and to get free-loading allies to pay for their security.
There are worries about H1B visas, but these are minor compared to the scale of possibilities that exist in the realm of Indo-US relations today. In any case, Indian firms are or ought to, move out of the BPO sector and go in for higher end software solutions. Mollycoddling them at a low level is not benefitting anyone.
Those who expect Trump to come down on Pakistan may be disappointed. Whatever his personal predilections may be, he is unlikely to cut off a state as dangerous as Pakistan. As they say, hold your friends close, but hold your enemies closer. Having invested a lot of time, effort and money in Pakistan, Washington is not about to turn its back on Islamabad and let it become a hotbed for potential terrorists wanting to take a pot-shot at the US.
What will definitely benefit India is a possible Russian-American entente. This could reduce the fatal attraction of Beijing for Moscow. If that happens, India can breathe a bit easier, because by itself it lacks the geopolitical clout to prevent the rise of a new Sino-Russian alliance in Eurasia.
It is true that in the end, it is political interests rather than personal predilections that drive the foreign policies of mature countries. In that sense, both the US and India need each other – one to check China in larger Asia and the other to moderate the Sino-Pak axis in South Asia. As of now, both have a congruence of interests in Asia and the Indian Ocean which are not likely to change in a hurry, and many of those interests have to do with the rise of China.
At the end of the day, Trump’s foreign and security policies will depend on the team that executes them, and, as of now, no one has a clue as to what this will be. Will it have any South Asian hands and Indian-Americans as the Obama Administration had? Who will be Trump’s sub-cabinet appointees and advisers ?
Trump, a showy, and possibly shady, businessman before his new job, could well be like Ronald Reagan, content to lay out the broad contours of his vision and letting a trusted team implement them. That, however, would require not just The Gipper’s fabled luck, but also a team of individuals like Jim Baker, George Schultz , Caspar Weinberger, Frank Carlucci and Donald T. Regan. But, unlike Reagan who had been an active politician for at least two decades before he became president, Trump is starting from scratch.
thewire.in November 9, 2016

To be 'great' or 'stronger together'?

The American Presidential Election of 2016 is likely to be the most acrimonious in recent history as well as a peculiar contest where the outcome depended on who was less unpopular. But what would the outcome mean for India? Nothing dramatic, for the simple reason that India does not figure too high in the US scheme of things.
The elections have focused American attention on how bad things are at home — crumbling infrastructure, unworkable health insurance system, racism, sexism, no jobs for many people and so on. But, whoever is elected will very soon have to confront a world where American power and authority are being assailed. In some measure this is because of the continuing travails of its great ally — the European Union. But also because of the rise of China, and Beijing's choices, whether in building an alliance with Russia, or in challenging US power in the South China Sea.
President Obama understood some of this and tried to take the US away from its unrewarding external commitments such as Afghanistan and Iraq. But the missteps of the Europeans, primarily Britain and France, have created new quagmires in Libya and Syria, even though the Americans have, in the main, have tried to stay away from them. With all this happening, a stable India, which is comfortable with American power is a boon for Washington. India remains a regional power and has no problem creating potential like China and Russia.
Besides, India needs America more than the other way round and all this will be true regardless of who becomes the US President. Indian diplomacy is making little headway with Pakistan and China — its two problem-making neighbours. India needs the US to push back against both. India will be happy with whoever is the President because it understands that there is likely to be little change in the Washington-New Delhi dynamics. As it is the trend line in Indo-US relations is positive. Their strategic coordination is slowly solidifying into a strategic alliance and the more China and Pakistan misbehave, the more Washington will come to rely on New Delhi providing some leverage in the region.
But of course, the situation is not that simple. The emerging Russia-China axis poses challenges in different dimensions to both India and the US. From India's point of view, it distracts the Americans from their Asian pivot where New Delhi plays a larger role. In addition, it undermines the India-Russia relationship which has been one of the constants of the last fifty years. India's feeble domestic defence production capabilities compel it to seek Russian options because the US still remains niggardly in offering up cutting-edge weapons systems.
Then, viewed from another angle, the Sino-US relationship remains substantial and even close, the $659 billion in trade in goods and services between them says so. There is substantive economic interdependence and many suspect that what the Chinese seek is not to supplant the US as the global hegemon, but to be accepted as a partner of sorts. The Chinese relationship is simply too im­p­ortant for either the US or EU to disdain and they have a major stake in its stability and success.
A great of deal of the nature of the Indo-US relationship, under a new American president, will depend on how New Delhi pitches itself to the US. We will be wasting precious capital if we made our membership to the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) as a major touchstone. New Delhi's obsession with the NSG membership is a bit of a mystery, considering we already have the waiver we need on nuclear trade, and the NSG itself has passed a key rule that would limit that trade.
Even more, it would be folly to do as the Modi government is doing — making terrorism the be all and end all of our foreign policy. In the last six months, almost every event, the most recent being the BRICS Summit hosted by us in Goa, has seen New Delhi focus on terrorism. This despite the fact that there has been no major mass-casualty attack targeting civilians (the common definition of terrorism) in the country since the Mumbai attack of 2008.
A new US President, even if it is Trump, is not likely to humour New Delhi on this issue. Pakistan remains important in the US calculus because of Afghanistan, sure, but Islamabad is intrinsically important to the US because it has nuclear weapons and it is close to China. The US is not about to turn its back on Islamabad because India says so.
At the end of the day, the quality of the relationship between India and the US under a new President will depend on the real substance of that relationship — trade, diplomatic give and take, military-to-military ties.
Mid Day November 8, 2016

Modi stirs the hornet’s nest with NDTV media gag

The Modi government has stirred a hornet’s nest in imposing a one-day ban on NDTV India on clearly specious grounds.There is nothing in the report in question that justifies the application of Rule (6)(p) of the Programme Code of Cable TV Network Rules, 1994 which bans the “live coverage of any anti-terrorist operation by security forces”.

Indeed, an Indian Express report says that the specific information that the NDTV report allegedly revealed was itself flawed and even more sensitive information had been given out by other channels.

Free press

The government has carefully chosen to make an example out of a channel which is renowned for its sharp reports and goes out of its way to avoid sensational coverage. 

It would seem that in today’s environment where the world is divided into “nationalists” and “anti-nationals,” there is no space for reporting that questions the official narrative as NDTV India routinely does.

No country provides for the absolute freedom of speech or complete freedom to its media. The American Constitution’s 1st Amendment has exceptions relating to obscenity, defamation, incitement and so on.

NDTV faced a day-long 'black-out' broadcasting banned 'live coverage of any anti-terrorist operation by security forces'

 

In India’s case, the freedom is further restricted on issues relating to the integrity of the country and even friendly relations with foreign states.

But all democratic countries treasure a free media for the role it plays in stabilising the governmental system - informing people about government actions or warning of their errors and omissions.

In independent India, the free press has been seen as the custodian of its right of free speech.

That is why the Indira Gandhi government was roundly attacked for imposing censorship during the Emergency.

An attempt by the Rajiv Gandhi government to restrict free speech via a new anti-defamation law came a cropper in 1988.

However, in the case of the electronic media, which was, in any case, the exclusive preserve of the government till the 1990s, the bureaucracy found an alternative route to censorship via the Cable TV Network Rules, just as they have done in the case of the Internet.

The background of the NDTV India ban lies in the Mumbai terror strike of November 2008.

It is well known that the terrorist handlers were following Indian media coverage and using it to direct the terrorists holed up in various locales in Mumbai.

But the primary reason for this was the abject failure of the Maharashtra government and the Mumbai Police to establish an effective cordon around the area of the operation.

Common good

Such a responsibility lies with every state and local administration where a terrorist incident may occur.

It is only in the event that a media wantonly breaks the rules that action should be initiated against them.

But what should media do when the authorities do not do their job and then claim that the media broke the rules?

The idea of the freedom of the media evolved with democracy.

As societies became more complex, the need for accurate and timely information was felt.

This was not only for business activities, but governance. Democracy rose with the partisan political parties competing in periodic elections to govern society.

To assist people in making informed choices, there arose a need for a media that could report without fear or favour.

All of society, government and opposition have seen it as a common good. Governments need a free media to alert them to missteps and emerging problems, their challengers need it so that to make their case against an incumbent government.

Official cocoon

In 1977 Mrs Indira Gandhi lost every Lok Sabha seat in an arc from Gujarat to Orissa. She had no clue that things were so bad for the Congress. The reason was that there was no free media to report what was really happening around her.

We are nowhere near that situation today. But the Modi government’s disdain for people who have different views on issues ranging from terrorism, foreign policy o some dietary preferences does not bode well.

Modi himself largely distances himself from the media, preferring to use the one-way communication of Twitter. Eventually, he may end up paying the price.

Power isolates, and absolute power isolates absolutely. One of the most powerful prime ministers of the country, he lives in an official cocoon, dependent on others for information.

Since our babus and ministers are not the most courageous people, they tend to keep negative information away from the boss or massage it to meaninglessness.

A free media, with all its biases and faults remains the best means of keeping a hand on the pulse of the country, something every public man ought to cherish.

Mail Today November 6, 2016

Merging dreams with acquisitions

Chinese economic developments are of great interest to everyone. Whether it is growing fast, or undergoing a slowdown, it impacts the world economy like no other. China has declared its intention of moving its economy from one based on investment and exports, to one relying on consumption. They have made it clear that in the coming years, China will occupy a higher and higher position in global value chains and become, like the US, Europe or Japan, a producer of high-end components. The process is now underway and is being watched with great interest because it has implications for the entire global economy.
Beyond the macro picture, there are smaller signs of structural shifts and new trends in the Chinese economy. In the past, China was often an element in the supply chain, where higher value and high-tech items came from other suppliers, say, Germany, Taiwan or Japan. The famous case was that of the iPhone 6 which retailed for $600 in the US in 2012, of which Apple made $250, the Japanese makers of the touch systems and screens made $70 and smaller amo­unts were made by the Korean and Taiwanese suppliers of the batteries, flash memory, cameras etc. The Chinese made just about $8, mainly in terms of labour cost, to assemble it. But the Chinese are determined to move up in the value chain. The government is working systematically to build high-end capabilities and intends to raise the domestic content of core components and key materials to 40 per cent by 2020 and 70 per cent by 2025. This goes along with higher R&D expenditures of some $213 billion in 2015, equivalent to 2.1 per cent of the GDP.
One indicator of this are the Chinese acquisitions in high-tech industries in Europe and the US, which have accelerated in the past year. This July, Zhongwang, a state supported enterprise, bought Aleris, a US company specialising in making roll­ed aluminium products for aerospace and automotive industries. Earlier this year, Kuka, a German company specialising in making robots for automobile plants, was bought by Midea Group — China’s largest home appliance maker.
More recently, Aixtron, a German company with a long history of making advanced tools required for making sophisticated semiconductors, was bought by the Chinese. The Aixtron case could well point to the problem. Last year, the German company’s share prices tumbled when a Chinese buyer San’an Optronics cancelled a large order at the last minute. As a result, the company went up for sale and a Chinese investment group, Fujian Grand Chip offered to buy it in May, this year. Mercator Institute of Chinese Studies, which tracked the issue, found that San’an and Fujian had a common principal investor in Liu Zhendong. Further, there was a great deal of funding through local and national investment funds for both companies from the Chinese government that has set aside funds to encourage a Chinese semiconductor industry.
China has an eye on US firms too, though the latter keeps a more wary eye on them through the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US (CIFUS) which has shot down big-ticket investments like the one for Fairchild Semiconductors. Likewise, Beijing’s Unisplendour Co­rp withdrew from a deal to buy a stake in Western Digital due to regulatory pressure.
One major area to watch is the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI). A White House assessment of AI research indicates that today China with 350 publications leads the field with the US at number two, with a little over 250. All other players — UK, Australia, Canada, Japan, Germany, Singapore, South Korea or France — produce a little above 50 or a little less than that. This is not just an absolute lead — looked at through their citations by other scholars (a measure of their influence) indicates Chi­na remains number one. Baidu, China’s equivalent of Google, runs a huge centre for AI research in San Jose, where its chief scientist, Andrew Ng is also an associate professor at the Stanford University’s co­m­puter science department. This centre employs some of the topmost American AI researchers.
All developing countries want technology for national developm­ent. But China has made it into a fine art. Reverse-engineered Soviet technology kept China going till 1990s. Thereafter, as it opened up, China made strategic acquisitions in areas like railways, power, aerospace and automotives with a view to establish its own industries. In this drive, China has not hesitated to undertake industrial espionage and cyber-theft. Then, using opaque rules and regulations, the Chinese have systematically encouraged their champions and fobbed off the western companies and in many instances now, they have emerged as their competitors — railways and nuclear power reactors are two prominent examples.
But this is only the beginning, China has now taken aim in a range of high-end fields like AI, robotics, aerospace, renewable energy, pharmaceuticals and biotechnology and intends to be the world leader in all of them by the time of their twin centenary — 2049, the anniversary of the revolution.
Mid Day October 25, 2016

Modi's limited Pakistan policy at BRICS

The Modi government’s recent policy towards Pakistan - which has included a combination of surgical strikes, naming and shaming Islamabad, and using international events to isolate and sanction it - has been described as a "game changer".

Certainly the government has expended a vast deal of diplomatic capital in trying to get Pakistan to modify its behavior and principally end the sanctuary and support it offers to a slew of anti-India and anti-Afghanistan jihadis.

Limitations

However, the game will have changed, only after Islamabad does what's needed.

As of now there are no indications that it will do so.

In other words, it would be wise to declare victory when victory indeed occurs, not prematurely.

The limitation of New Delhi’s policies was apparent in the recent BRICS summit.

Host India’s primary focus was to get this powerful grouping to chastise Pakistan. 

Few will deny that despite paragraphs generally criticising terrorism, the body failed to depict Pakistan as that unique fountainhead of global terrorism that India had been talking about.

Pakistan has brought a lot of this on its own head.

Prime Minister Modi had put out a lot of capital in trying to befriend his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif.

However, the attack on Pathankot, shortly after his surprise descent in Islamabad, forced Modi to shift to a tough line.

Now, following the Uri attack, the government has hardened that line into a new policy that indicates that New Delhi will not simply seek to shield its territory, but retaliate against any attack whose footprints lead to Pakistan.

The insistent question confronting Prime Ministers since Chandrashekhar, who was the PM when J&K blew up in 1990, even as Punjab was burning, is: 'Should we seek to “manage” Pakistan, or to change it'. 

Many Indian liberals, who say that our common culture unites South Asia, believe that once the baleful influence of the military is removed, Pakistan will be like any other country in the region.

On the other hand, hard-headed pragmatists say that this may or may not happen but anyway - A: It is not the responsibility of India to bring it change Pakistan and - B: It requires so much time and effort that it will distract New Delhi from its other larger economic and diplomatic goals.

Leaders stand for a group photo wearing traditional Indian vests during a informal dinner at the start of the BRICS Summit at the Taj Exotica Hotel

 

Policy

So Indian policy alternates between reaching out to the civilian governments and the business community, to blocking and, on occasion, hitting back at the military- backed jihadis who attack India.

We are now at a unique conjuncture where a government, which can hardly be called liberal, is moving along the path of trying to change Pakistan.

It is seeking to do this through tough love - calling for the international community to isolate and sanction Islamabad.

The problem is that the international community is simply not buying this. There are various reasons for this.

Firstly, is the infirmity in New Delhi’s case in refusing to recognise that it has a problem in Jammu and Kashmir and it needs to do something about it, other than blaming Pakistan.

Secondly, many recognise that the repeated references to terrorism by Modi are also occasioned by domestic electoral considerations, especially to coming Uttar Pradesh elections.

Thirdly, Islamabad remains an important player in the Afghanistan game, an issue of considerable interest to the United States, China and Russia.

Rhetoric

The recent effort to restart the Taliban-Afghan government talks in Doha is an indicator that Pakistan remains the key player there.

Finally, India offers little or nothing to Beijing to moderate, leave alone abandon, support to Islamabad.

At least it has given Russia a multi-billion dollar arms deal, and even then, Moscow has been grudging with its support.

International relations are a ruthless affair where nations pursue their interests and modify their behaviour when threatened with the stick, or offered some carrots.

All India has on offer to China is high rhetoric and a pathetic boycott of Chinese firecrackers, and yet it wants Beijing to fall in line behind India in South Asia.

The simple fact that it is we who need something from China, not the other way round, hasn’t sunk into the minds of the powers that be and their supporters.

It is certainly true that India should play hardball in international politics.

But to do so you also need the wherewithal, not just in terms of dollars which are important, or guns to export, but also in a clear headed understanding of where our national interests lie, how to further them and how not to allow any considerations, especially domestic political ones, like a desire to win elections to over-ride them. 

Mail Today October 23, 2016