Global Trends 2015:
MMA is teaming up with PML-Q. The Q League is in league with President Musharraf. Our Commander-in-Chief, in return, is currently America’s most allied of allies. In essence, all the holy MMA men who won on an anti-American platform are now getting wedded into the ‘unholy’ American-led alliance. So much for their holiness.
Now on to the topic of the week. America’s intelligence community is the largest, the most diverse and the most resourceful that there is on the face of the planet. At the very top is the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) as an independent agency. Then there’s the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the National Security Agency (NSA), Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA), National Reconnaissance Office, National Imagery and Mapping Agency, Marine Corps Intelligence, Air Force Intelligence, Navy Intelligence and Army Intelligence.
Embedded deep within the CIA is the National Intelligence Council (NIC) which is CIA’s centre for “mid-term and long-term strategic thinking.” NIC’s primary function is to support George J Tenet who is the current Director of the CIA. George Tenet, as DCI, not only heads the CIA but also directs the entire US Intelligence Community. John McLaughlin who used to be NIC’s chairman is now the Deputy Director of CIA while Stuart A Cohen has been named as NIC’s Acting Chairman.
Traditionally, NIC’s work has been classified strictly for government’s internal use. More recently, NIC was allowed to produce a limited number of unclassified publications. One of these is the Global Trends 2015.
Global Trends 2015 is a comprehensive analysis, collective work of NIC staff, US Government specialists, academia and private sector area experts. It is a study of “demographics to developments in science and technology, from the global arms markets to implication for the United States.” Global Trends 2015 was approved for publication by the National Foreign Intelligence Board under the authority of the Director of CIA.
Here are excerpts relating to Pakistan, India and Kashmir:
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India will be the unrivalled regional power with a large military - including naval and nuclear capabilities - and a dynamic and growing economy.
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Pakistan in 2015 … will not recover easily from decades of political and economic mismanagement, divisive politics, lawlessness, corruption and ethnic friction.
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In a climate of continuing domestic turmoil, the central government’s control probably will be reduced to the Punjabi heartland and the economic hub of Karachi.
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The widening India-Pakistan gap - destabilising in its own right - will be accompanied by deep political, economic, and social disparities within both states.
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Pakistan will be more fractious, isolated, and dependent on international financial assistance.
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Continued turmoil in Afghanistan and Pakistan will spill over into Kashmir and other areas of the subcontinent, prompting Indian leaders to take more aggressive pre-emptive and retaliatory actions.
• Other South Asian states - Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Nepal - will be drawn closer to and more dependent on India and its economy. Afghanistan will likely remain weak and a destabilising force in the region and the world.
• Further domestic decline in Pakistan would benefit Islamic political activists, who may significantly increase their role in national politics and alter the makeup and cohesion of the military.
• India’s population will grow … to more than 1.2 billion by 2015; Pakistan’s probably will swell from 140 million now to about 195 million.
• The risk of war among developed countries will be low. The international community will continue, however, to face conflicts around the world, ranging from relatively frequent small-scale internal upheavals to less frequent regional interstate wars. The potential for conflict will arise from rivalries in Asia, ranging from India-Pakistan to China-Taiwan, as well as among the antagonists in the Middle East.
• India’s conventional military advantage over Pakistan will widen as a result of New Delhi’s superior economic position.
• India will also continue to build up its ocean-going navy to dominate the Indian Ocean transit routes used for delivery of Persian Gulf oil to Asia.
• The decisive shift in conventional military power in India’s favour over the coming years potentially will make the region more volatile and unstable.
• Both India and Pakistan will see weapons of mass destruction as a strategic imperative and will continue to amass nuclear warheads and build a variety of missile delivery systems.
• The size of India’s population - 1.2 billion by 2015 - and its technologically driven economic growth virtually dictate that India will be a rising regional power.
• Whatever India’s degree of power, her rising ambition will further strain its relations with China, as well as complicate its ties with Russia, Japan, and the West - and continue its nuclear standoff with Pakistan.
• In South Asia, the risk of war will remain fairly high over the next 15 years. India and Pakistan are both prone to miscalculation. Both will continue to build up their nuclear and missile forces.
• In the event of war, urban fighting will be typical and consequently, civilian casualties will be high relative to those among combatants.
• Instability in Russia and Central Asia, and the nuclear standoff between India and Pakistan will be peripheral but still important in East Asian security calculations. The Middle East will become increasingly important as a primary source of energy.
• The widening strategic and economic gaps between the two principal powers, India and Pakistan - and the dynamic interplay between their mutual hostility and the instability in Central Asia - will define the South Asia region in 2015.
• Wary of China, India will look increasingly to the West, but its need for oil and desire to balance Arab ties to Pakistan will lead to strengthened ties to Persian Gulf states as well.
• Pakistan’s projected growth from 140 million to about 195 million in 2015 will put a major strain on an economy already unable to meet the basic needs of the current population.
• The percentage of urban dwellers will climb steadily from the current 25-30 percent of the population to between 40-50 percent, leading to continued deterioration in the overall quality of urban life.
• Differential population growth patterns in Pakistan will exacerbate inequalities in wealth. Ties between provincial and central governments throughout the region will be strained.
• Prospects for Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka in 2015 appear bleak.
• The threat of major conflict between India and Pakistan will overshadow all other regional issues during the next 15 years.
If we really wanted to we can prove CIA wrong. For that we would first have to change direction and then work really hard in that new direction.
So South Asia is set for Indian domination and Pakistan’s gradual collapse as a state, with Govt control dwindling to 2 parts of the nation. Doesnt look pretty does it?
Perhaps its time we drop out of the Kashmir race, cap our conventional arms (we cant win here) and JUST develop WMD’s-meaning ANY war would be non-con of the bat.
We cant keep up with India, but we must act now to minize the disparity in power and wealth, both in their favour.
What can we do?