Forget about Beijing, Doha (and the rest of the Gulf) follows D.C.'s drumbeat

While my last post examined the growing economic relationship between China and Qatar, the reality is that the U.S. is still a dominant influence in the emirate, especially on matters of security.  Recent revelations about a proposed U.S. "missile shield" to be housed in Qatar, the UAE, and Kuwait are the latest example of the Pentagon's total militarization of the Gulf littoral.  To quote the New York Times on the hellish blitzkrieg of missiles the U.S. and its allies can now "defensively" launch across one of the world's most vital and heavily trafficked waterways:

Three weeks ago the Pentagon announced the newest addition to Persian Gulf missile defense systems, informing Congress of a plan to sell Kuwait $4.2 billion in weaponry, including 60 Patriot Advanced Capability missiles, 20 launching platforms and 4 radars. This will be in addition to Kuwait’s arsenal of 350 Patriot missiles bought between 2007 and 2010.

 The United Arab Emirates acquired more than $12 billion in missile defense systems in the past four years, documents show. In December, the Pentagon announced a contract to provide the Emirates with two advanced missile defense launchers for a system called the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, valued at about $2 billion, including radars and command systems. An accompanying contract to supply an arsenal of interceptor missiles for the system was valued at another $2 billion, according to Pentagon documents.Saudi Arabia also has bought a significant arsenal of Patriot systems, the latest being $1.7 billion in upgrades last year.

The United States’ own military forces provide a core capability for ballistic missile defenses in the Persian Gulf, in particular the American Navy vessels with advanced tracking radars and interceptor missiles. According to Navy officials, these Aegis missile defense systems, carried aboard both cruisers and destroyers, are in the region on continuous deployments.

And the United States has deployed a number of land-based missile defense systems to defend specific American military facilities located around the gulf.

Qatar's role in the new missile defense proposal is to host an X-band radar station, similar to U.S. controlled radars established at Mount Keren, in Israel's Negev Desert, and at Turkey's southeastern city of Malatya.

It is hard not to smirk when one hears the phrase "missile defense," as it has been a Pentagon buzzword for going on thirty years now.  The idea of shooting missiles down with other missiles is compelling--note the fantastical original nickname of "Star-Wars"--so much so that the United States has spent over $200 billion investing in the program over the last 30 years.  Does it work?  The official answer is who knows? (but probably not).  The U.S. system has never been tested under combat conditions.  And "combat conditions" have never occurred because the whole theory was based on defending an attack by the Soviet's that never came.

So why are the Gulf kingdoms now so gung-ho about buying their own missile shield?  The answer is hard to tease out.  A "an attack from Iran" is the official answer, the sheiks quaking in their sandals theory.  But both Iran and the Arab states have too much invested in the Gulf oil trade for this theory to hold much water.  One would think that any conflict that arose in the Gulf would not reach the point where hundreds of interceptor missiles are needed to prevent bombs raining on Dubai and Riyahd.  The Arab families ruling the Gulf care far to much about preserving their power and wealth for total war to break out in the area (war in other Arab states, however, is a different question).

A better answer may be the all-powerful military industrial complex.  Donald Rumsfeld chairing a blue-ribbon committee on a subject, as he did on Missile Defense in the 1990's, is about as close to President Eisenhower's definition of "the acquisition of unwarranted influence" as you can get.  That is how $200 billion gets spent on an experiment, and no one really calls bullshit.  Not mentioned in the New York Times quote above is that Lockheed-Martin produces the Patriot Missile System, and Raytheon the X-band radar.  The oil rich Gulf states have always been the best customer for these mega weapons manufacturers, and the latest purchases could just be a continuation down this path.  And I am sure Lockheed appreciates the continuing business, as the U.S. is currently broke and hoping to reduce its defense budget (either through a managed snipping, or "sequestration"-a top down haircut of many billions that will take effect if a congressional compromise can't be reached).  

China in the Arabian Gulf: Qatar

Introduction: China in the Persian Gulf, the past twenty years

The last decade has seen a major growth in China’s relationship with the oil rich Arab kingdoms west of the Persian Gulf.  On China’s part, this relationship is no doubt born out of their insatiable need for energy supplies.  Starting in 1993, when China became a net importer of energy, the Beijing government has adopted a “go out” strategy in its foreign policy, aiming to secure reliable energy and other resources abroad.  In an April 2011 study for the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Christina Lin writes this has turned “historical routes into a modern grid of pipelines, roads, and railways for its energy supplies.” Lin continues:

This approach stems in part from Beijing’s fears of a U.S. blockade on maritime supplies in the event of hos­tilities over Taiwan. It also reflects the reality of rapidly growing Chinese energy demand.  An August 2010 report showed that China had become the world’s number-one energy consumer, surpassing the United States. In addition, the coun­try has enjoyed double-digit annual growth for most of the past decade, fueled not by consumer demand, but by energy-intensive heavy industry and infra­structure construction as well as growing demand in the transportation sector.[i]

In 1994, the Persian Gulf region supplied barely a quarter of China’s oil imports, all from Oman, with a majority of Chinese oil coming from Indonesia or from domestic productions.  However, by 2001 added oil from Saudi Arabia and Iran began to bring the gulf’s share of Chinese oil deliveries up to 50% of total imports, with Saudi Arabia being China’s largest supplier. [ii]  Since that time, China has become the Gulf’s largest energy customer, and a very important one as recessions slow the west and North America has begun to develop its own domestic shale gas production (replacing imports).  A report by Chris Zambellis lays out the stark new reality of China’s energy appetite in the Gulf:

In 2009, Saudi oil exports to the United States - for the first time in over 20 years - dropped below the 1 million barrels per day (bpd) mark. In contrast, Saudi oil exports to China during the same time frame surpassed 1 million bpd, almost twice the amount of oil exported by Saudi Arabia to China in 2008.  In June 2008, China surpassed Japan as Kuwait's top destination for oil exports. The UAE is another important source of oil for China, which has been the top importer of Omani oil for six years running. With around 10% of its LNG exports heading to China, Qatar has also emerged as an important source of Beijing's growing LNG needs amid stagnant demand in the United States.[iii]

One interesting facet of these energy relationships is that China now runs a trading deficit with the Gulf States, an unusual position for export-giant Beijing to be in.  Except for in the UAE, China is buying more Arab oil and gas than it is exporting goods and services to the Gulf, leaving a large surplus of Chinese payments in Dubai and Doha.    For Beijing, their most recent strategy, which will be explored below, is to make sure that those payments are made in the Chinese national currency, the Renminbi, also known as the Yuan.

Qatar

During this time, the state of Qatar has emerged as in important player in the Gulf across a multitude of matters. Ruled since independence in 1971 by the al-Thani monarchy, Qatar’s capital of Doha now has international heft on matters of Middle East diplomacy, the petrochemical trade, U.S. military posture, international media, and Western intellectual influence in the Arab world.  And in terms of energy reserves, ever important for determining pecking order in the region, Qatar has the world’s third largest supply of natural gas, sharing with Iran territorial rights to a giant offshore deposit, known as North Field in Qatar’s portion and South Pars in Iran’s.  The North Field has turned Qatar’s small population of 800,000 into the wealthiest citizens on earth per capita.

Historically, Qatar has always been under the domain and guidance of the West, whether that be the London Colonial Office or Washington D.C.  Since the 1991 Gulf War, the al-Thanis have eagerly worked with the Pentagon to establishing military bases on the Gulf peninsula. Starting in 1996 the al-Udied airbase was constructed for a Qatari airforce that did not exist, and upon completion was leased out to the Pentagon.  In 2001, the U.S. very quietly began building up al-Udied as a U.S. base, prepositioning materials and handing out construction contracts.  In a March 2001 Department of Defense report to Congress titled “Allied Contributions to the Common Defense,” it was written:

Since November 1995, Bahrain and Qatar have both hosted several Air Expeditionary Force deployments in support of Operation SOUTHERN WATCH, and the United States Air Force recently established a limited prepositioning facility at Qatar’s Al-Udeid Airbase and is investigating moving to the airfield. Qatar also hosts prepositioned U.S. Army assets at As-Saliyah.[iv]

It is important to note the date of this statement, as al-Udeid airbase is often described as being opened as a result of post 9/11 U.S. policy, with the first soldiers flying into a dusty desert airstrip in late September.  However, the above statement and a number of contracts handed out before the September terrorist attacks make clear that the Bush administration was planning a U.S. base at Al-Udeid (and regime change in Iraq) from the moment it took office.[v]  Al-Udeid remained a “secret” base until its buildup became too big to hide in the spring of 2002, when Vice President Cheney made a well-publicized visit to the base.  

Wikileaks: Syria and BrownLoydJames

A few months back, I wrote a post titled K Street and the Arab Spring, looking at a variety of western consulting firms that were helping to craft PR strategies for both entrenched dictators (Gadaffi, the al-Kalifah monarchy in Bahrain), as well as opposition governments (The Libyan NTC that replaced Gadaffi.  That post was far from definitive, as the overall thesis turned out to be that if there is a government in crisis somewhere on the globe, there is a good chance a snazzy D.C. suit is assisting them via blackberry.

The first batch of Syria emails leaked to Wikileaks, and disseminated through the internet and Wikileaks'  media publishing partners, has exposed another high-powered PR firm, BrownLoydJames (BLJ), as being in communication with the Syrian government as recently as May 19th, 2011.  In an email, BLJ provided a three and a half page media strategy to Assad, where they advocated for the Syrian First Lady, Asma Al Assad, to "get in the game" in order to show "strength and sympathy," as well as the creation of a 24 hour news monitoring office to combat "the daily torrent of criticism and lies" from Syrian opposition figures living abroad.

BrownLoydJames is a major international communicates firm, based in London and New York, that specializes in high-level public diplomacy.  Founded by former Beatles manager_______, their biggest star and current President is Mike Holtzman, whose work at BLJ include China's successful 2008 Olympic bid and Qatar's 2022 World Cup bid.  Before joining the firm, Holtzman worked as a special assistant to the State Department's Policy Planning Staff during the Bush Administration, and in the office of trade representative Charlene Barlefsky during the Clinton Administration.  He also served as FEMA's on the ground media liaison for both the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the 2001 World Trade Center attack.

According to research done by Josh Rogin, a reporter for Foreign Policy magazine, BrownLoydJames:

was officially employed by the Office of the First Lady of the Syrian Arab Republic Asma al-Assad in Nov. 2010 for $5,000 per month to help arrange and execute the article, which appeared in the March 2011 edition of Vogue. The fawning piece, entitled, "Rose of the Desert," was actually scrubbed from the Vogue website out of embarrassment when Assad began a brutal crackdown on non-violent protests that month. But you can still read it here.

BLJ's contract with the Assad regime, signed by BLJ partner Mike Holtzman and Syrian government official Fares Kallas, expired in March of last year, according to documents posted on the Foreign Agents Registration Act website. The firm had claimed its work on behalf of the Assads ended in Dec. 2010.

The May 2011 media strategy is obviously past this date, and is the first sign that relations are closer than they appear between BLJ and the Syrian government.  In fact, the connections between BLJ and the Assad government go even deeper than contractual work, as a former employee of the firm Sheherazad Jaafari, who is mentioned as working for BLJ in a wikileaks emails from February 2011, was by December 2011 an employee of the Syrian government.  Moreover, another set of Syrian government emails leaked to the London Guardian earlier this year show that Jaafari remained in cordial contact with BLJ president Holtzman through January 2012.  

The Wikileaks email in question is from February 2nd 2011, sent by BLJ official Rachel Walsh to the Syrian Ministry of Presidential Affairs.  Walsh describes the planning for the following weeks "Open Hands Initiative" event, part of a youth disability advocacy program in Damascus.  In the email, Walsh refers to Jaafari as her "colleauge," and one prominent enough to gain access to the event's VIP section along with Holtzman and Open Hands founder Jay Synder.

In fact, the "Open Hands Initiative" itself seems to be largely a product of BLJ's PR strategy, as it is a Washington D.C. creation, with Holtzman sitting on the advisory board, along with former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk and media mogul Tina Brown.  The operation was founded in 2009 by Jay Snyder, a U.S. philanthropist who sits on the advisory board of the Brooking Institutions Saban Center for Middle East Policy, where Indyk is currently Vice President.  The "Open Hands Initiative" began operating in Syria in August 2010, hosting a major youth disability summit and a music exchange program.  The summit produced a collaborative, multi-cultural comic book The Silver Scorpion, which was honored by the Clinton Global Initiative in 2010.

The Syrian emails leaked by London's Guardian newspaper earlier this year shows that Jaafari soon left BLJ and went to work for the Syrian government's media office, headed by Hadeel al Ali.  But this did not mean that she stayed out of contact with her former firm, as a quite chummy email conversation between her and Holtzman took place on January 11th, 2012.  Holtzman congratulated Jaafari on organizing a speech by President Assad and his wife at a pro-government demonstration, stating "I'm proud of you, wish I were there to help."  Other emails concerning Jaafari's actions with the Syrian government are also contained in the Guardian's email set, including this, and this.

This is not the first time that BrownLoydJames has had their work with authoritarian governments exposed, although the first time was out of their own error.  When working on behalf of a Chinese lobbying group, the China-United States Exchange Foundation, BLJ mistakenly included their lobbying strategy when they filed their Foreign Agent Registration Act forms (h/t Janet Rubin, Washington Post).  BLJ's work (pdf here) included placing articles and op-eds in newspapers and arranging meetings in the U.S. for Chinese officials.  They also, more sinisterly, conducted a "textbook analysis" for four popular American high school text books, pertaining to coverage of the Tibet issue.

Samizdat deaths and births: Antiwar Radio has been cancelled, Wikileaks announces secret Syria cables

In a bad mark on the celebration of America's 246 years of Independence, Antiwar.com took the occasion of the fourth of July to cancel its daily radio program, Antiwar Radio with Scott Horton.  This hit me hard, as I have been a fan of the show for a number of years, and Horton has developed an incomparable roster of guests and sources.  I will deeply miss his interviews.

For those unfamiliar with the show, its archives are a treasure trove of Samizdat on current events and modern history, as well as economics, political science, and libertarian thought.  Horton has spent the past seven years interviewing top investigative journalists and historians, often speaking from foreign capitals and conflict zones.  Voices like Patrick Cockburn, Eric Margolis, Jim Lobe, Gareth Porter, Pepe Escobar, Greg Palast, Juan Cole, Gabriel Kolko, Robert Parry, and the late, great Chalmers Johnson are some of my favorites to have repeatedly graced Horton's show, as have hundreds of other minds of great worth.  If someone has penned a critical thought on American foreign policy in the past decade, there is a good chance Antiwar Radio has interviewed them.  In fact, it was Chalmers Johnson himself who turned me (and I'm sure many others) on to the radio show, when he mentioned in a lecture that it is not the New York Times that is his internet homepage, but Antiwar.com.

Random highlights that spring to mind from the show's history include an hour long conversation with investigative journalist Robert Parry about the history of U.S. support for Saddam Hussein, his many hours of interviews with National Security State whistle-blowers Sibel Edmonds and Karen Kwiatkowski, and his recent series of interviews on Egypt with Cairo-based IPS news reporter Adam Morrow.  But besides the distinguished guests, it was Horton's libertarian, everyman viewpoint that provided a refreshing coat of facts to the jargon and rhetoric-filled nature of modern political discussion.  Debunking the lies of the war party and advocating for peaceful freedom worldwide was Horton's m.o. As he put it in a farewell blog post, "Doesn't look like we stopped any wars, but at least we told people the truth about them."

But now, no more!  As Horton explained it the next day, his editor at Antiwar.com, Eric Garris, told him "I've got to cut 20% of the budget, and you are 20% of the budget."  Speaking on the phone to Hong Kong is an expensive business, especially when you hold 45 minute conversations that provide all the nuance that is absent from mainstream TV and Radio news.  And while Horton is hoping to keep up his work independently, he has little optimism that funding will emerge.  Horton's farewell blog post, and his further plans, are below:

Well, Antiwar.com is making budget cuts and so my gig doing Antiwar Radio and assorted assistant editor type jobs around the site is over.

My thanks to Eric Garris and the rest of the crew for having me these past 7 years. Doesn’t look like we’ve stopped any wars, but at least we told people the truth about them.

Also thanks very much to all the readers, listeners and volunteers who’ve helped me all this time.

I’ll be trying to keep the show going on the Liberty Radio Network and my own websites, but I’m going to need your help.

So, announcing the new Save the Scott Horton Show Donation/Sponsorship drive:

Have a company? Sponsor the show or advertise on the site.

You can PayPal scott@scotthorton.org, or stop by my blog Stress or email me scott@scotthorton.org for more information. I can also accept snail mail checks at 612 W. 34th St Austin, TX 78705.

I’m also open to suggestions.

And sign up for the show archive podcasts, interviews and the rest too at ScottHortonShow.com. My blog Stress, Facebook page, Twitter.

Thanks yall, very much

In other media related news, Wikileaks has announced that it will soon be releasing a batch of 2 million private emails from Syrian political figures, ministries, and associated companies.  According to Julian Assange, the embattled Wikileaks leaders, the material is damaging to both the Syrian government and opponents of the Syrian government.  Worth noting is the changing media partners of Wikileaks.  While Wikileaks initial high-profile releases, the collections of Iraq and Afghanistan war logs and State Department Diplomatic Cables, were privately analyzed and published by major world news outlets like the Guardian, New York Times, and Der Speigel, Wikileaks new media partners are a bit less globally prominent.  According to the Lebanese newspaper al-Akhbar, which is once again one of Wikileaks "co-publishing partners" (having worked on the "Global Intelligence Files" made up of leaked Stratfor emails), the full lineup of media outlets also includes Egypt's Al Masry Al Youm, Germany's ARD, Italy's L'Espresso, France's Owni, Spain's Publico.es, and the Associated Press.  


What is striking about this list is that it lacks any major Anglo-American press outlet besides the AP, which is a wire service.  While many papers heavily rely on the AP dispatches, they are able to selectively choose which articles to publish, and which to ignore.  My guess is that this will lead to little sustained interest in Wikileak's Syria emails in the U.S, even if they contain sensational information.  The Times and the Post do not have much incentive to continually splash AP scoops across their front pages, and only three of the "publishing partners" listed above have english language websites: al-Akhbar, Al Masry Al Youm, and Owni.  While the Syria emails will certainly be covered, one can be sure that the conversation will die off soon.   


As for the rest of the world, it is harder to say.  ARD, a German television station, is the second largest public television broadcaster in the world after the BBC, and L'Espresso is a leading weekly magazine in Italy.  However Publico, the left-leaning, Madrid based paper, was forced to cancel its print edition last year and now only maintains a website, France's Owni also operates only a website, and both the Arabic language papers sacrifice mass market popularity to maintain integrity and independence (a difficult task for Middle Eastern media).  Does this mean that the most recent Wikileaks files will be a preeminent talking point in Europe and the Middle East?  Probably not.  


Interestingly, RT, the English language, Russian owned news network formally known as Russia Today, is not a "publishing-partner" of Wikileaks, even though Julian Assange has his own interview show on the network.  RT's researchers are more than adept at uncovering malfeasance in governments, and considering that Russia has current and historical ties to Syria, it is odd that they are not grabbing hold of this major scoop.  Perhaps they are striving for DC "credibility" and as such are warming of the beltway opinion that Wikileaks and Assange are evil, criminal scum.  If this is true it would be a sad state of affairs, as RT has so far remained apart from the PR game of "respectable" and "unrespectable" American Media Opinion.  In the same vein, they may be staying away from the cables because of Russia's current support of the Asad government, knowing that the secret emails can only embarrass the Syrian ruler.  This would be an equally sorry state of affairs.

Uzbekistan leaves Moscow's CSTO (again)

Uzbekistan, one of the founding members of Russia's post-USSR "Collective Security Treaty Organization," just announced that it is leaving the organization, greatly diminishing bilateral ties between Tashkent and Moscow.

The CSTO has been Russia's main vehicle over the past twenty years to rebuild a sphere of influence over the geography of the former Soviet Union.  It is primarily a political alliance with an added military component, aimed at protecting the territorial integrity and sovereignty of its members, while withholding judgement on "internal affairs."  Its current membership roll, however, is looking haggard.  Russia is joined by Belarus and Armenia as well as the Central Asian states of Kazakhstan, Kyrgzstan, and, until now, Uzbekistan.  Not quite even coalition of the willing, to put it bluntly.  And without Uzbekistan, the CSTO will lack a physical border with Afghanistan, where Moscow hopes to build significant post-war influence through the CSTO.

However, this is not the first time in Uzebkistan's 20 years of independence that dictatorial president Islam Karimov has decided to remove himself from the belly of the Russian bear, as he first did this in 1999.  The main similarity between then and now?  A period of intense courtship with Washington D.C.  In the 1990's, Uzbekistan took part in NATO's "Partnership for Peace" (PFP) military training program, which was joined by nearly all of the newly independent states of Eastern Europe and Central Asia.  The PFP, which was formally created in the fall of 1993, was part of a larger Washington and London scheme to turn NATO from a defensive collective security alliance into a expanding, globetrotting political alliance, a scheme that begun immediately after the collapse of the USSR.  It is clear that there was never to be a peace dividend planned for on the Potomac.

In July 1990, NATO leaders met it London, where they began the project of transforming themselves from a military alliance "into a political alliance building East-West structures of peace," according to diplomats quoted by the New York Times (NYT, 7/5/90). Following the meeting, NATO released what is known as the "London Declaration" a document celebrated as "historic" and "the Birth of a New NATO" by Brussels.  It read:

Our Alliance must be even more an agent of change. It can help build the structures of a more united continent, supporting security and stability with the strength of our shared faith in democracy, the rights of the individual, and the peaceful resolution of disputes...The Atlantic Community must reach out to the countries of the East which were our adversaries in the Cold War, and extend to them the hand of friendship.

It took barely a year for a new political group to be proposed by NATO, the "North Atlantic Co-operation Council," designed to include the states of the Warsaw Pact and Soviet Union (Economist, 10/12/91). In November 1991, NATO ministers assembled for an historic meeting in Rome, where they released for the first time ever a public document, a new "Strategic Concept." Within its dry and exhaustive prose is confirmation that NATO had already begun moving eastward:

The new situation in Europe has multiplied the opportunities for dialogue on the part of the Alliance with the Soviet Union and the other countries of Central and Eastern Europe. The Alliance has established regular diplomatic liaison and military contacts with the countries of Central and Eastern Europe as provided for in the London Declaration. The Alliance will further promote dialogue through regular diplomatic liaison, including an intensified exchange of views and information on security policy issues. (Paragraph 28)

By the middle of the 1990's, an "intensified exchange of views and information" had transformed into large scale military exercises with former Soviet states. The first major exercise was Cooperative Nugget 95, held in August 1995 at Fort Polk, Louisiana, where 1,100 soldiers from 14 different countries came for a month of training from U.S. and British officers.  Uzebekistan participated in these exercises, as did their fellow Central Asian Republic Kyrgyzstan and a slew of Eastern European states.  Within months of these exercises, Kyrgystan, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan formed a "Central Asian Battalion" at the behest of NATO.

The 82nd Airborne Drops into Kazakhstan (Source: DoD, more pics at link)

In 1997, the Central Asian Battalion held their largest NATO exercises yet, this time in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.  Known as Centrazbat 97, the exercises begun with the longest flight in human history, a potent expression of the hinterlands U.S. foreign policy was now engaged in.   500 pararoopers from the 82nd airborne packed their bags in Fort Bragg N.C. and flew 8,000 miles (with two in-air refueling hook ups) to the deserts of Kazakhstan, eventually leaping out of the plane for the assembled Central Asian soldiers and press.  They then led a week of training exercises alongside Turkish and Russian troops, both air exercises in Kazakhstan and ground and logistic exercises in Uzebekistan.  When Kazakh President Nazerbayev and his defense minister visited Washington two months later, he signed an official Defense Cooperation Agreement with the Pentagon, calling for over 40 similar exercises and drills to take place over the following year.

****************

This was the context in which Uzbekistan first broke with Moscow's CSTO in 1999.  President Karimov had read the geopolitical tea-leaves and decided that Washington was a better security partner than Moscow, and accordingly signed on full tilt to the Pentagon consensus.  After the 9/11 attacks and the subsequent invasion of Afghanistan, Uzbekistan allowed the U.S. to base its soldiers there, heavily upgrading the old Soviet Khanabad-Karshi airbase, known as K2 in Pentagon parlance.  The U.S. maintained this base, as well as a tenuous alliance with Uzbek President Karimov for five years, until Karimov's human-rights conduct became too extreme even for the State Department.  And accordingly, Karimov moved back towards cooperation with Moscow, and rejoined the CSTO.

But now, Washington D.C. has once again been courting Uzbekistan hard, throwing all sorts of political concessions to Tashkent in the hopes of bettering their position in Afghanistan and the rest of Central Asia.  The galvanizing development is the Northern Distribution Network, the logistical supply chain that has come into vogue as U.S.-Pakistan relations have deteriorated.  The NDN consists of two routes--one running through Russia, and one through the Caucasus--both meeting in Termez, Uzbekistan, which shares a border with Afghanistan across the great Amu Darya river, also known as the Oxus.  This has made Uzbekistan (along with the rest of Central Asia) the key to the Pentagon's Afghan strategy, and as such Washington has spent the last three years establishing more ties with the area.  Most recently, U.S. officials have promised Uzbekistan, Kyrgzstan, and Tajikistan a wide swath of U.S. military armaments used in the Afghan War.  Leaks describing these secret negotiations have been ongoing for half a year.  Most recently a leading Russian newspaper, Kommersant: 

Cited “well informed sources” as saying the three Central Asian states – all of them members of the Kremlin-led Collective Security Treaty Organization – would be given armored vehicles, tank transporters, prime movers, tank trucks, special-purpose graders, bulldozers and water trucks after US and NATO forces pull out of Afghanistan in 2014. Some of this equipment would reportedly be stored at local installations. In addition, the Pentagon plans to provide Afghanistan’s neighbors with medical equipment, communications systems, fire extinguishing equipment and even mobile gyms and other housing-related facilities.

The World Bank has also just guaranteed its first ever loan for Uzbekistan energy developments, especially important at a time when many Western multinational corporations are leaving Uzbekistan due to the repressive, centralized government.  In a tellingly hypocritical move, Uzbekistan has also managed to stay off of the State Department's tier three category for human trafficking, a major problem in the Uzbek cotton industry, staying on the tier two watchlist for a fifth consecutive year.  As the Central Asia expert Nathan Hamm wrote at his website Registan.net:

In 2011, Uzbekistan declared its intent to police itself to reduce forced child labor. In 2012, Uzbekistan has declared its intent to police itself to reduce forced child labor. It is hard to identify anything in State’s narrative for Uzbekistan that illustrates how Tashkent is devoting “sufficient” resources to implementing its written plan. Sure, UNICEF poked around, but even they say Uzbekistan’s government will not change. And some say they are going to probably be worse this year.

Perhaps hoping to extort as many concessions like this as possible from the NATO capitals, Tashkent has once again formally removed itself from Moscow's orbit, as well as distancing itself from the military aspects of the Chinese led Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), of which it is a member.  Uzbekistan did not participate in the SCO's 2012 "Peace Mission" military exercises, held in Tajikistan.  This itself was not that surprising, as Uzbekistan has only taken part in the annual exercise once, in 2007, however this year Karimov went as far as to prohibit Kazakh troops from transiting through Uzbekistan on their way to the exercise.

Washington wants its own "String of Pearls" back: Part II

Yesterday's Washington Post covers the recent effort by the Pentagon to establishing new military basing agreements in the Philippines, Vietnam, and Thailand, in line with the U.S.'s recent push to remilitarize the Indian Ocean and South China Sea.  Most interesting is the fact that all of the bases the Pentagon wishes to utilize were at one time bastions of American Cold War Power, which over the past 30 years the U.S. had been kicked out of.

Part II: Vietnam
Although it may be hard for the casual observer to believe, Communist Vietnam is slowly turning into an ally of the U.S. military.  While Hanoi has been "open" to the U.S. (economically, tourism) for nearly two decades now, it is only in the past few years that the Pentagon has been pushing for an increased military relationship, including basing rights.  Most recently, after attending the Shagri-La military conference in Singapore, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta visited Cam Ranh Bay, home to a massive Naval facility and deep-water port constructed by the U.S.  during the Vietnam War.  After the war, the Soviet Navy's Pacific Fleet had docked at Cam Ranh until Hanoi stopped all military use of the port ten years ago.  Panetta's visit, the latest high-level trip (and the first for a U.S. defense secretary to the strategic port since the end of the war) signifies that the Pentagon is hoping to ramp up U.S.-Vietnamese military cooperation, and once again have Naval access to Cam Ranh Bay.

Vietnam's reembrace of the Pentagon can be traced back to 2003, when Hanoi began allowing once a year naval visits from the U.S.  By 2006, Navy Admiral William Fallon and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld were visiting Vietnam, and the bilateral military relationship had expanded to include training of Vietnamese officers through the IMET program, as well as counter-narcotics and counter-terrorism joint military exercises.  In December 2009, Hanoi's Defense Minister, General Phung Quang Thanh, became just the second Vietnamese Defense minister to visit Washington since the end of the war.  This was shortly  followed in March 2010 by an unnannounced 16 day docking by a U.S. Naval Supply Ship at Cam Ranh's Van Phong port.  Panetta, now, is hoping that this relationship can be upgraded to allow permanent U.S. access to the strategic port.

There is, however, great trepidation on Hanoi's part to this new alliance with the U.S..  As the historian Gabriel Kolko (whose Anatomy of a War is one of the best scholarly accounts of the Vietnam War) recently wrote in an article for Counterpunch:

So much can go wrong with the Administration’s ambitious not-so-new, strategy. Not the least are divisions that exist within the Vietnamese military leadership, and perhaps the political leadership also, about making any kind of alliance—even informally—with the country that rained so much death and destruction on it for almost two decades; memories in Vietnam–among the people as well as political and military leaders–are an enemy of making some sort of arrangement with the Americans.

Washington wants its own "String of Pearls" back: Part I

Today's Washington Post covers the recent effort by the Pentagon to establishing new military basing agreements in the Philippines, Vietnam, and Thailand, in line with the U.S.'s recent push to remilitarize the Indian Ocean and South China Sea.  Most interesting is the fact that all of the bases the Pentagon wishes to utilize were at one time bastions of American Cold War Power, which over the past 30 years the U.S. had been kicked out of.

Source: Washington Post

Part I: Thailand
Most recently, U.S. military officials, led by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey visited Thailand, where the major point of discussion was building a U.S. designed "regional disaster hub" at the U-Tapao Air Field, located 90 miles south of Bangkok.  NASA also has its eye on U-Tapao, as a headquarters of a proposed "Southeast Asia Composition, Cloud, Climate Coupling Regional Study," which will take place in August and September.  NASA has given Thailand a deadline of June 26th to allow or disallow the NASA project.

U-Tapao, which is currently run by the Royal Thai Navy, was constructed in 1965 by the U.S. military as a staging ground for the Vietnam War.  During the war, U Tapao's two-mile long runway served as a launching point for squadrons of B-52 bombers, which then flew north to drop ungodly tonnages of firepower on Vietnam (both North and South), Cambodia, and Laos.  In 1976, the U.S. withdrew its military from the base on request from the Thai government, however by the 1980's the Pentagon's access had begun to creep back.  Starting in 1981, the Cobra Gold military exercises between the U.S., Singapore and Thailand were held annually at the base.   After 9/11, Thailand was deemed a "major non-NATO ally" of the U.S. "war on terror," and sent 423 soldiers to Iraq between 2003-2004.  The Thai government also allowed U.S. military aircraft to stop at Thai airfields, including U-Tapao, on their way to the Middle East.  These developments, however, were kept quiet at the request of the Thai government, which wished to put forward a purportedly "neutral" stance on the U.S. invasion.

The most controversial part of this new alliance was the CIA's use of Thailand to host "black site" prisons and interrogation centers.  Although the location of these sites with Thailand is still contested, U-Tapao is thought to be a possible location.  As early as 2003, the New York Times reported that

Utapao is also probably where Qaeda operatives have been interrogated, retired American intelligence officials said, explaining that the base had facilities for sophisticated interrogations.  Last year, according to other American officials, at least two senior Qaeda operatives were brought here for interrogation -- Abu Zubaydah, thought to have been Al Qaeda's operations chief, and Ramzi bin al- Shibh, a planner of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The Washington Post's famous article on the CIA Black Sites, written in 2005 by Dana Priest, elaborated on the details:

By mid-2002, the CIA had worked out secret black-site deals with two countries, including Thailand and one Eastern European nation, current and former officials said. An estimated $100 million was tucked inside the classified annex of the first supplemental Afghanistan appropriation. 

Many reports, including Priest's, indicate that the Thai black sites were closed at the end of 2002, replaced by similar sites in Poland.  Recently, however, evidence has come to light that this was not the case, as one man has testified that in 2004 both he and his pregnant wife were detained and tortured by the U.S. at Bangkok's Don Muang airport.  The man in question, Abdel Hakim Belhaj, was a veteran terrorist , an original participant in the anti-Soviet Afghan Jihad and subsequently a leader in the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group.  In 2004, at the time of Belhaj's capture, Libya was a new ally in the "War on Terror," and Anglo-American leaders were quick to help Gaddafi with security policies, and as such renditioned Belhaj and his wife back to Libya (stopping on the way at UK sovereign territory at Diego Garcia), where he was imprisoned and tortured for a further six years.

When the Anglo-American alliance pulled an about face and overthrew Gaddafi in 2011, Bellhaj became one of the main commanders of the rebel forces that took Tripoli.  Concurrently, Human Rights Watch discovered documents at the abandoned Libyan Intelligence Headquarters that implicated the UK as having been central to Belhaj's torture and renditions.  As it was put by the Guardian Newspaper, Belhaj was "a gift" to Gaddafi, one that was given at a fortuitous time:

Two weeks after the couple were rendered to Libya, Tony Blair paid his first visit to the country, embracing Gaddafi and declaring that Libya had recognised "a common cause, with us, in the fight against al-Qaida extremism and terrorism". At the same time, in London, the Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell announced that it had signed a £110m deal for gas exploration rights off the Libyan coast

Seeing these new documents, and taking advantage of his new position of power, Belhaj subsequently sued the UK government over his rendition.

One of the most troubling repercussions that sprung from the Thailand Black Sites is the use of the CIA's infamous "enhanced interrogation" method's by the Thai military against Southern Muslim dissidents.  An article from Asia Times Online explains that, "Thai security officials have recently used torture techniques ranging from sleep deprivation, forced nudity, exposure to extreme temperatures and even the threat to release German Shepherd guard dogs on detainees during interrogations."  The first thing that comes to mind at the mention of these practices are the infamous Abu Ghraib photos.

World Bank guarantees $100 million energy deal in Uzbekistan

As they often do, goodies from "International Finance" have gone hand in hand with goodies from the Pentagon, as the World Bank has just provided a $100 million guarantee for a natural gas deal in Uzbekistan, according to an article by Robert C. Murphy in Asia Times Online.  This is the first major such financing provided to Uzbekistan by the World Bank, under its "Multilateral Investment and Guarantee Agency" (MIGA), as well as the first major example of the World Bank's 7-month old "Country Partnership Strategy 2011-2015 (PDF)" with Uzbekistan taking hold.  Of note, the Partnership Strategy was agreed to at the same time (December 2011) that reports first began to come out about the Pentagon's "military transfers" to Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgzistan.

According to Murphy, a senior research fellow at Canada's Carleton University and a longtime commericial analyst, the new MIGA financing amounts to:

US$100 million loan from a consortium of commercial banks having BNP Paribas Suisse as agent, for development of natural gas deposits in the Kandym Field group and the Khauzak-Shady bloc, of which the latter is already a producing reservoir, in the Bukhara-Khiva region of southwestern Uzbekistan.

Moreover, the World Bank's political backing was "a necessary condition" for the gas developments to receive so much attention from commercial banks.

Interestingly enough, the Anglo-American oil giants do not seem to be on the receiving end of any of this World Bank largesse.  Instead, the financing is being used mostly by Russia's Lukoil (through its subsidiary Lukoil Overseas Uzbekistan), as well as a South Korean company that plans to build a gas and chemical complex at Uzbekistan's Surgil field.  As I have discussed before, China is also heavily invested in the Uzbek energy sector, most directly with its ever-expanding Central Asia-China gas pipeline, which passes through Uzbekistan. In 2010, Uzbekistan agreed to export 10 bcm of gas a year to China through the pipeline, with a planned start date of earlier this year.  Although legal issues have mired this process, Uzbek officials say that they expect to export 2-4 bcm of gas to China this year.

Taking all this in, it seems that the World Bank financing, and perhaps entire 5 year "Partnership Strategy," is simply a Washington grab for political influence in Tashkent, and is not deeply rooted in the national interest of the U.S.  While previously Western multi-national corporations always had the upper hand, and were thus able to benefit from International Finance loans, now it is Russian and Asian multinationals that are on the ground.  As Washington hopes to greatly reduce its military footprint in Afghanistan, it still wants to assume its facsimile  of "control" over the region.  The political and economic reality on the ground, however, is currently much more rooted in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization bloc, which has its own postwar strategy for Afghanistan.  This means that states like Uzbekistan will continue to happily take Washington's guns and dollars, but are feeling no obligation to consider this a trade for U.S. long-standing influence in the region.

 

Karzai has a point to make

Following the dropping of a bomb on a wedding party in Afghanistan's Logar Province, killing 18 civilians, including nine children, earlier this month:

"An agreement has been reached clearly with NATO that no bombardment of civilian homes for any reason is allowed," Karzai said at a news conference at the presidential palace in Kabul. "This is an absolute disproportionate use of force."

"Even when they are under attack, they cannot use an airplane to bomb Afghan homes - even when they are under attack," he said to underscore his point.

Karzai said that at a meeting after the incident in Logar province, he asked U.S. Marine Gen. John Allen, the top commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan: "Do you do this in the United States? There is police action every day in the United States. ... They don't call in airplanes to bomb the place."

-h/t the indispensable Tom Englehardt

Read more here: http://www.bradenton.com/2012/06/12/4074260/afghan-leader-no-airstrikes-on.html#storylink=cpy

Update: U.S. military transfers to Central Asia

The Pentagon is finalizing the details of a major arms gift to Uzbekistan, Kyrgzstan, and Tajikistan, the states involved with the Northern Distribution Network.  A leading Russian newspaper, Kommersant:

Cited “well informed sources” as saying the three Central Asian states – all of them members of the Kremlin-led Collective Security Treaty Organization – would be given armored vehicles, tank transporters, prime movers, tank trucks, special-purpose graders, bulldozers and water trucks after US and NATO forces pull out of Afghanistan in 2014. Some of this equipment would reportedly be stored at local installations. In addition, the Pentagon plans to provide Afghanistan’s neighbors with medical equipment, communications systems, fire extinguishing equipment and even mobile gyms and other housing-related facilities.

In the short term, these weapon transfers are designed to secure better transit rates for the Northern Distribution Network, especially as U.S. supplies are increasingly reverse running the route.  As 2014 approaches ever closer (or if that date gets pushed up by political considerations or disasters on the ground) the Pentagon will need to move more and more supplies out of Afghanistan.  By giving the Uzbeks and others a small treasure chest of armaments, Washington hopes to grease the wheels of this process.

However, in the long term this is merely a continuation of U.S. policy to gain military influence in Central Asia, which began as soon as the states gained independence from the USSR in 1992.  Throughout the 1990's, this process slowly hummed along, with Central Asian states participating in NATO's "Partnership for Peace" military training program.  After 9/11, the Pentagon's ties to the region saw an immediate uptick, as within months of the attack and the subsequent Afghanistan invasion  military bases were opened in Kyrgzstan and Uzbekistan.  The 2003 invasion of Iraq distracted U.S. strategists, however by 2007 their attention was back on Central Asia.

Source: "Central Asia and the Transition in Afghanistan," Senate Foreign Relation Committee Report, 12/19/11

The main opposition to U.S. influence in the region comes from Russia, and to a lesser extent China, both of which see Central Asia as within their Sphere of Influence.  Through institutions like the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), Beijing and Moscow are working to make sure that Central Asian leaders don't grow to close to Washington.  Notice that none of the region's leaders accepted their invitations to the recent NATO summit in Chicago.  The SCO position seems to be to facilitate the U.S. withdrawal in Afghanistan, and then to step in and gain control over the postwar environment.

Syria's "Four Seas" Strategy and China

What has gone unmentioned in the current year of Syria-bashing is the regional economic strategy proposed by Bashar al-Assad in 2009.  Known as the 'Four Seas" strategy, it called for Syria, Turkey, Iraq, and Iran to unite in a bloc that would serve as a global crossroads for trade, connecting the Mediterranean Sea, the Black Sea, the Caspian Sea, and the Persian Gulf.  Assad announced this ambitious plan with Turkish President Gul in a joint press conference in Ankara in May 2009, stating "Once we link these four seas, we become the compulsory intersection of the whole world in investment, transport and more.”

Between that time and the beginning of the Syrian protests in Spring 2011, Assad made a number of initial moves to reify his new strategy.  At the heart of the arrangement is the Syria-Turkey relationship, and energy links like the Arab Gas Pipeline (AGP).  The AGP connects Egypt to Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria, but in 2009 Syria and Turkey agreed to a 62 km pipeline extension to reach Turkey, to be completed by 2011, as well as an integration of their respective electricity grids.  In the short term, this would supply much needed energy to northern Syria, but in the long term (especially as more of the Iraqi energy sector comes back online) the pipeline would allow for Middle Eastern supplies to be exported overland through Turkey to Europe.  In the same vein, Assad visited Azerbaijan in 2009, the first visit to Baku from a Syrian President since the Azeris received independence from the Soviets in 1991.  On his visit, Assad signed 19 economic and political agreements with Azerbaijan, most importantly a deal to import one billion cubic meters of Azeri gas every year.

Perhaps the biggest supporter of Assad's regional strategy was Beijing, where the Communist Party called Syria "ning jiu li" or cohesive force.  Beijing saw a possible cooperation in their foreign policy, increasingly looking west towards Europe, and Syria's "four seas" mindset.  Starting with Assad's visit to Beijing in July 2004, the Chinese-Syria economic relationship began to blossom, and by 2008 China was Syria's largest supplier of imported goods.  Chinese energy companies have also invested hundreds of millions of dollars to upgrade Syria's energy infrastructure, and have entered into joint exploration deals with Syrian oil exploration companies.  Another large development is "China City", a large, popular industrial center in the Adra Free Trade Zone, located 25 km northeast of Damascus.  China City was established by wealthy entrepreneurs, and its products--everything from office to factory equipment--are increasingly popular with Middle East Businessmen, especially from Iraq.

Anatolian Eagle

In October 2010, Chinese Premier Wen Jaibao visited Ankara, his first visit to Turkey in eight years, and his warm reception was of great political significance.  After long discussions on trade and investment, China and Turkey declared that they had upgraded their bilateral ties to “Strategic Cooperation.”  Anybody in doubt as to what this turn of diplomatic parlance meant only had to witness the unprecedented two-week long Air Force exercises between Turkey and China that had directly preceded Jaibao’s visit.  The exercises, known as “Anatolian Eagle,” were an annual Turkish affair usually held between Turkey, the U.S, other NATO members, and Israel.  But in 2010 the drill was exclusively held between the Turkish air force and the People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF), with Israel being disinvited and the U.S. choosing not to attend due to the lack of an Israeli presence.  For Chinese airmen, this was the first time they had trained in a NATO country, staging a mock dog-fight alongside Turkish pilots flying American-built planes, but according to Turkish and Chinese officials, it won’t be the last.  One Turkish analyst in London noted that Anatolian Eagle should be though of as a “debut,” and that “there is every indication to believe that the two militaries will engage in future cooperation wherever applicable.”[1]

 In a sign of the emerging geography of power, on their journey to Turkey the fleet of PLAAF SU-27 and MIG 29 fighter aircraft overflew Pakistan and stopped to refuel at the Gayem al-Muhammad air base near the town of Birjand, Iran, situated opposite the large American base near the Afghan-Iranian border town of Herat.[2]  The “Anatolian Eagle” exercises also overlapped the Shanghai Cooperation Organizations annual “Peace Mission” exercises in Kazakhstan, featuring China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgzstan, and Tajikistan.  These were only two of the 14 military-to-military training exercises that the People’s Liberation Army participated in that year, mostly with Asian or Oceanic countries, but also with Turkey, Romania, and Peru.[3]

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[1] “Turkey, China in Exercises: NATO blanches as Ankara looks east,” Defense News, 10/17/10. (http://www.defensenews.com/article/20101017/DEFFEAT04/10170302/Turkey-China-In-Exercises)

[2] “The New Silk Road: China’s Energy Strategy in the Greater Middle East,” Christine Lin, Washington Institute for Near East Policy: Policy Focus #109, April 2011, Pg. 10

[3] “2012 Annual Report to Congress: Military and Security Developments Regarding the People’s Republic of China,” Office of the Secretary of Defense, pg. 33

China's Indian Ocean Strategy: A String of Pearls

For China, the Indian Ocean is of vital national interest.  A vast amount of the energy and natural resources China imports from the Middle East, Africa, and Australia travel over the Ocean’s waters, as do the goods produced in China’s “workshop of the world” factory base.  Moreover, the Eurasian states littoral to the Ocean’s northern reaches, the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal, are booming economies with huge resource and population bases, as well as dangerous military powers (with nuclear weapons in the case of Pakistan and India). 

Historically, the seaborne shipping journey has had two chokepoints—the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf and the Straits of Malacca between Indonesia and Malaysia.  For China, the route between these points is known as its Sea Lane of Communication (SLOC) in the parlance of U.S. military planners.  As it stands today, and as it has stood since the days of the British Empire, the Anglo-American alliance has put great effort into militarily securing these chokepoints, and forming security agreements with the large powers of the region.  The U.S.-India military relationship grew very close after 9/11, and Washington even de facto recognized India’s nuclear weapons capability, which India had flouted the nuclear non-proliferation treaty to achieve.  Australia and Indonesia have both been longtime partners in U.S. post-World War II foreign policy (and hosts to U.S. military bases), as has Pakistan, although that relationship in beginning to sour.  Thailand, which was a vital American ally during the Vietnam War, has also once again grown close to U.S. planners.  The military nerve center of this operation is the secretive Diego Garcia Naval Station, a colonial leftover in Britain’s “Indian Ocean Territory” located at the southern tip of the Chagos Archipelago.

In the face of this militarization, China has embarked on its own strategy, of constructing highly developed ports in key strategic locations along the Ocean’s littoral.  This strategy was referred to as building a “String of Pearls” in a 2004 Pentagon commissioned report by military contractor Booz Allen Hamilton, and the name has stuck.[1]  One such “pearl” is a major port located in Gwadahar, in Pakistan’s Baluch region on the Arabian Sea.  Traveling southeast along the shipping route, the next strategic pearl is located at Hambantota, on the island of Sri Lanka.  Another, a container shipping facility, is located at Chittagong, Bangladesh’s main port.  Over the past decade, Myanmar has also moved very close to Beijing, and key Chinese energy, military, and shipping facilities are located all along Myanmar’s dangling coastline.  These include a deepwater port at Sitwe, a large oil facility at the offshore Shwe fields, and a base at Coco Island supposedly used for electronic espionage.  The Myanmar infrastructure projects are supplemented by China’s Irawaddy transportation corridor, currently under construction which features duel oil and gas pipelines and a high-speed rail line running North to China’s Yunann province.  Perhaps China’s most audacious proposal is to build the Kra canal across Thailand’s southern isthmus, connecting the Indian Ocean to the South China Sea and bypassing the Straits of Malacca all together.[2]  A string of ports and airstrips has also been developed in the South China Sea, all the way up to Hong Kong.

Ostensibly, these ports are purely for civilian use, as the Chinese military has no overt foreign bases, but states like Myanmar have large military-to-military programs with the Chinese.  This has led China’s geopolitical rivals, namely the U.S. and India, to fear that the Chinese pearls will be militarized and turned into bases for the growing Chinese Navy.  Chinese high-speed rail tracks also pose a threat in this regard, as it is easy to imagine them being used for troop transport in a crisis.  This militarization, however is not yet a reality and is far from becoming one, as pointed out in a report by Foreign Policy in Focus.[3] 

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[1] “China Builds Up Strategic Sea Lanes,” The Washington Times, 1/17/05. (http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2005/jan/17/20050117-115550-1929r/?page=all#pagebreak)

[2] “The New Silk Road: China’s Energy Strategy in the Greater Middle East,” Christine Lin, Washington Institute for Near East Policy: Policy Focus #109, April 2011, pg. 11.

[3] “Is China’s String of Pearls Real?,” Vivian Yang, Foreign Policy in Focus, 7/18/11. (http://www.fpif.org/articles/is_chinas_string_of_pearls_real)