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08/31/2005
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WITI Strategist: The Power of the Human Touch
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08/29/2005
Stratfor Red Alert - Breaking Intelligence
Hurricane Katrina: Crunch Time
Hurricane Katrina continues to rage over southern Louisiana. The stormalready has left the primary oil and natural gas production regions and is
assaulting the mainland itself.
First, the good news. An 11th hour
burst of relatively dry air succeeded in taking (a touch of) the wind out of
Katrina's sails. In technical terms, this means the storm has been downgraded
to a Category 3 hurricane; however, as of 10 a.m. local time, 100
mile-per-hour winds are still hitting New Orleans.
Another small bit
of good information is that the storm did shift course to the east in the
early hours of Aug. 29 and is traveling due north. Though parts of New
Orleans will still be in the "eyewall" -- the most dangerous part of the
storm -- the city itself seems posed to just barely avoid a direct hit. As
of 9:30 a.m. local time, Katrina's eye was even with New Orleans on an
east-west axis
Very soon, the focus will shift from stunned awe at
Mother Nature's raw power to the dreary and painstaking work of damage
assessment and repair. The storm passed directly over the Mississippi
River's mouth, raising the prospect that the main channel has shifted. Such
a development would delay the reopening of the river until the channel could
be resurveyed and likely dredged. Depending on the silting, that could take a
few hours -- or a few weeks. Add in damage to critical energy infrastructure
and initial damage estimates, before a single assessor has put foot on soggy
Louisianan ground, are at a floor of $30 billion.
It is difficult to predict the
damage -- and impossible to underestimate the significance -- of what the
United States faces. The city of New Orleans, the Port of South Louisiana
and Port Fourchon combined serve as the hub of trade and energy collection
and distribution for the middle third of the country. All have been hit --
and hit badly. But, for a few hours, we will not know specifically how
badly.
Which means that we are now in the realm of logistics, and if
what few scattered reports out of New Orleans are correct, there will be few
people available to do the work necessary to repair the damage.
The
northwest quadrant of the hurricane is currently whipping waves south and
southwest across Lake Pontchartrain. With storm surges expected to hit as
high as 20 feet -- before the waves are taken into account -- the
expectations are that water is already gushing across the northern levees
protecting New Orleans from the Mississippi. Needless to say, no one is
standing on said levees reporting live. The world will have to wait a couple
of hours until winds drop back into the double digits before a few brave
souls can venture out and assess how bad a shape the city is in --
particularly whether the levees held at all.
That remains the
question. In addition to the humanitarian disaster -- there are scattered
reports that several evacuation centers have sustained heavy damage -- there
is at least one report of a barge breaking free of its moorings. Should it
strike the levee in the current conditions, the rupture would put the
viability of the city in doubt. At present, there is at least one report
that one levee has been breached already, although it is not clear if the
barge caused the breach.
Assuming that all were well in the world
and that the New Orleans pump system were safe above water (it is not),
operating at full capacity the city could drain itself in three weeks. A
more likely figure is six months. If New Orleans is out of the equation,
then repair efforts will need to be based from further inland at a slow pace
and higher cost. The next few days will be a race against time to get
everything in working order again. What is not clear at this point is
whether there will even be a city from which to base the effort.
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10:51 Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
08/28/2005
Stratfor Red Alert - Breaking Intelligence
The Geopolitics of Katrina
A Category 5 hurricane, the most severe type measured, Katrina has beenreported heading directly toward the city of New Orleans. This would be a
human catastrophe, since New Orleans sits in a bowl below sea level.
However, Katrina is not only moving on New Orleans. It also is moving on the
Port of Southern Louisiana. Were it to strike directly and furiously, Katrina
would not only take a massive human toll, but also an enormous geopolitical
one.
The Port of Southern Louisiana is the fifth-largest port in the
world in terms of tonnage, and the largest port in the United States. The
only global ports larger are Singapore, Rotterdam, Shanghai and Hong Kong.
It is bigger than Houston, Chiba and Nagoya, Antwerp and New York/New
Jersey. It is a key link in U.S. imports and exports and critical to the
global economy.
The Port of Southern Louisiana stretches up and down
the Mississippi River for about 50 miles, running north and south of New
Orleans from St. James to St. Charles Parish. It is the key port for the
export of grains to the rest of the world -- corn, soybeans, wheat and
animal feed. Midwestern farmers and global consumers depend on those
exports. The United States imports crude oil, petrochemicals, steel,
fertilizers and ores through the port. Fifteen percent of all U.S. exports
by value go through the port. Nearly half of the exports go to
Europe.
The Port of Southern Louisiana is a river port. It depends on
the navigability of the Mississippi River. The Mississippi is notorious for
changing its course, and in southern Louisiana -- indeed along much of its
length -- levees both protect the land from its water and maintain its
course and navigability. Dredging and other maintenance are constant and
necessary to maintain its navigability. It is fragile.
If New Orleans
is hit, the Port of Southern Louisiana, by definition, also will be hit. No
one can predict the precise course of the storm or its consequences.
However, if we speculate on worse-case scenarios the following consequences
jump out:
levees burst. If the damage to the river and port facilities could not be
repaired within 30 days when the U.S. harvests are at their peak, the effect
on global agricultural prices could be substantial.
refinery at Belle Chasse. It is the only refinery that is seriously
threatened by the storm, but if it were to be inundated, 250,000 barrels per
day would go off line. Moreover, the threat of environmental danger would be
substantial.
percent of U.S.-produced crude comes from the Gulf of Mexico and already is
affected by Katrina. Platforms in the path of Katrina have been evacuated
but others continue pumping. If this follows normal patterns, most
production will be back on line within hours or days. However, if a Category
5 hurricane (of which there have only been three others in history) has a
different effect, the damage could be longer lasting. Depending on the
effect on the Port of Southern Louisiana, the ability to ship could be
affected.
10,000 vehicles a day, is used for transport of cargo and petroleum products
and provides port access for thousands of employees is threatened with
closure. A closure of as long as two weeks could rapidly push gasoline
prices higher.
At a time when oil prices are in the mid-60-dollar
range and starting to hurt, the hurricane has an obvious effect. However, it
must be borne in mind that the Mississippi remains a key American shipping
route, particularly for the export and import of a variety of primary
commodities from grain to oil, as well as steel and rubber. Andrew Jackson
fought hard to keep the British from taking New Orleans because he knew it
was the main artery for U.S. trade with the world. He was right and its role
has not changed since then.
This is not a prediction. We do not know
the path of the storm and we cannot predict its effects. It is a warning
that if a Category 5 hurricane hits the Port of Southern Louisiana and
causes the damage that is merely at the outer reach of the probable, the
effect on the global system will be substantial.
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only. This publication may not be distributed or reproduced in any form
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08/26/2005
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08/24/2005
Stratfor Geopolitical Intelligence Report
The Crisis in U.S.-Pakistani Relations
By George Friedman and Kamran BokhariThough the governments of
the United States and Pakistan appear to be in sync with one another on the
hunt for Osama bin Laden and militant Islamists, a crisis of relations is
brewing just beneath the surface. Despite expressions of unity in the war
against al Qaeda, cooperation at the operational and tactical levels is
nearly nonexistent -- and calculated interference by Pakistani intelligence
and security elements is hindering U.S. operations in the country.
This situation is further complicated by ongoing rivalries between
government agencies, poor communications and general lack of cooperation by
U.S. intelligence and security agencies. All of which leaves
counterterrorism operations in Pakistan -- or, more precisely, U.S. efforts
to capture or kill bin Laden and other top al Qaeda leaders -- stagnant.
At the broad political level, Washington and Islamabad are
presenting a relatively unified front in the battle. Pakistani President
Gen. Pervez Musharraf, who must balance his domestic political concerns
against U.S. pressure, continues to walk a fine line -- between cooperation
with Washington (or with opposition forces within Pakistan), and
capitulation.
On the surface, Musharraf and U.S. President George W.
Bush are in a state of cautious compromise -- with Washington continuing to
express confidence in Musharraf's government and offering increased military
assistance to Pakistan. For its part, Islamabad has been paying lip service
to counterterrorism cooperation with the United States, while still
professing its ability to carry out sweeps and all other anti-jihadist
operations on its own. The Musharraf government's attitude has been that it
is doing all it can to get rid of terrorist sanctuaries, but it will not
allow foreign forces to conduct operations on Pakistani soil. As Musharraf
told U.S. media earlier this year, "We are capable of" capturing bin Laden,
and "if we get intelligence, we will do it ourselves."
Islamabad
recognizes that U.S. forces will operate in Pakistani territory -- with or
without government permission -- and thus has struck a compromise so that
U.S. operations will be kept as low-key as possible by both sides. The
Pakistanis have acknowledged the involvement of foreign forces in the
counterterrorism offensive but claim joint efforts are limited to
intelligence-sharing and logistics cooperation. In this way, Islamabad seeks
to defuse both U.S. pressure to act -- and domestic pressure to avoid
acting.
But despite the political niceties, two key issues continue
to impede efforts to dismantle al Qaeda's structure in Pakistan. The first
is the professional rivalry between the CIA, Department of Defense and FBI,
as well as other security and intelligence agencies, which continues to dog
the post-Sept. 11 efforts to streamline intelligence-sharing. The second is
the dismal performance by the Pakistani security and intelligence
organizations.
It is true that a number of key al Qaeda operatives
and leaders have been arrested by Pakistani authorities since their exodus
from Afghanistan in late 2001. In March 2002, Abu Zubaydah, a senior al
Qaeda member, was captured in Faisalabad. Ramzi bin al-Shibh, a deputy
leader of the task force that coordinated the Sept. 11 attacks, was captured
in Karachi in September 2002. And in March 2003, another task force leader,
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, was picked up in Rawalpindi. Other prominent
captures include those of communications expert Naeem Noor Khan, Ahmed
Khalfan Ghailani (linked to the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Africa), and
Abu Farj al-Libi, believed to be the head of al Qaeda operations in
Pakistan.
Nevertheless, the progress made against the core
leadership of al Qaeda remains an open question. First, how is it that al
Qaeda's mostly Arab leadership is able to evade detection in a country with
very few Arabs? More important, how can a foreign non-state actor evade
detection -- when he is known to be in a certain region, with massive global
search-and-destroy operations hunting him -- unless he is granted succor or
protection from some members of the local security and intelligence
organizations closest to the front?
While those at the topmost
levels of U.S. authority have been praising the Musharraf government as a
crucial ally in the war against al Qaeda, certain U.S. officials lately have
been making a public issue of Islamabad's non-cooperation. Among these is CIA
Director Porter Goss, who insinuated a few months ago that bin Laden is known
to be in Pakistan and said outright that in order for him to be captured,
certain "weak links" -- i.e., Pakistan -- must be strengthened.
Goss's comments are clearly echoed by U.S. intelligence and defense
officials now active in Pakistan and working with Islamabad. There is an
ingrained distrust of U.S. and other foreign services within Pakistan's
intelligence community -- stemming from nationalistic instincts, a desire to
hide links between intelligence services and jihadists and their supporters,
and sympathies on multiple levels with the jihadists.
One very
senior Pakistani intelligence source engaged in a frank discussion about
this atmosphere of distrust -- which is pervasive throughout the country's
security organizations, even though most of Pakistan's law enforcement
personnel are not personally Islamists. Some simply don't like the idea of
U.S. pressure against their government, while others dislike being told how
to do their jobs. Still others see the United States as arrogantly pursuing
its own interests at Pakistan's expense. We are told there is a great deal
of resentment -- from the highest echelons down through the rank-and-file --
over what the Pakistanis perceive as Washington's failure to recognize the
efforts, sacrifices, and cooperation they are providing.
And, not
insignificantly, there are some who perceive that the jihadists Washington
is now pursuing were created by the United States' proxy war in 1980s
Afghanistan -- and who believe that the U.S. government, having abandoned
Afghanistan after meeting its objectives there, will abandon Pakistan in
similar fashion.
Resistance to U.S. influence, therefore, has been
both passive and active, with intelligence operatives telling local police
and village chiefs directly not to cooperate with U.S. operations on the
ground. Sources in Pakistan tell us that the Inter-Services Intelligence and
Military Intelligence agencies debrief all private Pakistani citizens who
come into contact with U.S. government, media and think tanks -- both before
and after the interface -- in attempts to restrict contact between the two
countries to official channels. Additionally, certain high-level leaders of
Pakistani militant Islamist movements have been declared off-limits as
targets for security forces, thus leaving key segments of the international
militant network unmolested. The United States is providing large amounts of
supplies, money and training for Pakistani forces, but with few results.
Clearly, cooperation from the country's intelligence and security
apparatus -- a major cog in the machine built to hunt down al Qaeda in
Pakistan -- is not happening. There are four reasons for this:
1. The
insistence by top leadership that U.S. forces cannot operate any more
prominently on Pakistani soil than they already are. Though there are many
reasons behind this, as mentioned earlier, they boil down for some key
government officials to mere survival: Islamist militants have made several
attempts on Musharraf's life and others within the regime, at al Qaeda's
behest. Nationalist sentiments and political opposition to Musharraf's
government are considerations as well.
2. Calculated moves by
influential figures at the middle and lower levels of Pakistan's
intelligence and security apparatus to thwart offensives against the
militants. Some of this reflects countermoves by Islamabad against American
attempts to push the limits of tacit security agreements with the
Pakistanis. However, it is also a sign that the Musharraf regime does not
have tight control over its own intelligence and security services -- and of
this, Islamabad is keenly and nervously aware.
3. The Pakistani
military's desire to hide its past links with the militants and its current
ties to certain Islamist groups -- which it views as assets of the state to
be used in pursuit of Islamabad's geopolitical goals. For Islamabad, the
jihadists have long been both an internal threat to military/civilian rule
and a useful form of leverage in its geopolitical maneuvers -- for example,
gaining strategic depth with regard to Afghanistan and waging its proxy war
against India in Kashmir. Pakistan is not willing to surrender this leverage
lightly -- and, because the lines between those "useful" militant groups and
al Qaeda members can be blurry, many on Islamabad's preservation list fall
into both categories.
4. Recognition within Islamabad that Pakistan's
importance as a U.S. ally likely will dissolve if bin Laden is captured or
killed. Washington has been attempting to strengthen its ties with India and
is even attempting tentative negotiations with Iran, with the eventual goal
of warmer relations. Should these efforts bear fruit, the Musharraf regime's
geopolitical importance to the United States will diminish -- leaving
Islamabad as a potential member of the "outposts of tyranny" rather than a
close anti-terrorism ally.
Given these factors -- coupled with the
potential for ineptitude and rivalries among the Pakistani and U.S. security
and intelligence agencies -- there is a crisis that has brought the search
for al Qaeda leaders in Pakistan to a virtual halt. This situation cannot
last indefinitely -- the breaking point will come either with a misstep by
Musharraf that destroys the political balance he has tried to maintain
within Pakistan, or a decision by Washington that delay, obfuscation and
overt obstructionism will no longer be tolerated. If Islamabad doesn't act
-- and it is questionable whether another pre-packaged capture of a
mid-level al Qaeda operative by Pakistani forces will satisfy the Bush
administration -- Washington will be left with little choice but to move on
its own.
Islamabad's response to the pressure is predicated on one
unanswered question: Is Musharraf lying to the United States, or is he being
lied to by his own people? In other words, is he in control of the
obstructionism, or is he a victim of it? We believe the reality is somewhere
in the middle. Nevertheless, the outlook is troubling.
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14:23 Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
08/22/2005
8/24 Executive Teleconference: Implications of a New Iraq Constitution
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22:51 Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
08/16/2005
Stratfor Geopolitical Intelligence Report
The Gaza Withdrawal and Israel's Permanent Dilemma
By George FriedmanIsrael has begun its withdrawal from Gaza.
As with all other territorial withdrawals by Israel, such as that from the
Sinai or from Lebanon, the decision is controversial within the Jewish
state. It represents the second withdrawal from land occupied in the 1967
war, and the second from land that houses significant numbers of
anti-Israeli fighters. Since these fighters will not be placated by the
Israeli withdrawal -- given that there is no obvious agreement of land for
an enforceable peace -- the decision by the Israelis to withdraw from Gaza
would appear odd.
In order to understand what is driving Israeli
policy, it is necessary to consider Israeli geopolitical reality in some
detail.
Israel's founders, taken together, had four motives for
founding the state.
1. To protect the Jews from a hostile world by
creating a Jewish homeland.
2. To create a socialist (not communist)
Jewish state.
3. To resurrect the Jewish nation in order to re-assert
Jewish identity in history.
4. To create a nation based on Jewish
religiosity and law rather than Jewish nationality alone.
The idea of
safety, socialism, identity and religiosity overlapped to some extent and
were mutually exclusive in other ways. But each of these tendencies became a
fault line in Israeli life. Did Israel exist simply so that Jews would be
safe -- was Israel simply another nation among many? Was Israel to be a
socialist nation, as the Labor Party once envisioned? Was it to be a vehicle
for resurrecting Jewish identity, as the Revisionists wanted? Was it to be a
land governed by the Rabbinate? It could not be all of these things. Thus,
these were ultimately contradictory visions tied together by a single
certainty: none of these visions were possible without a Jewish state. All
arguments in Israel devolve to these principles, but all share a common
reality -- the need for the physical protection of Israel.
In order
for there to be a Jewish state, it must be governed by Jews. If it is also
to be a democratic state, as was envisioned by all but a few of the fourth
(religiosity) strand of logic, then it must be a state that is
demographically Jewish.
This poses the first geopolitical dilemma
for Israel: Whatever the historical, moral or religious arguments, the fact
was that at the beginning of the 20th century, the land identified as the
Jewish homeland -- Palestine -- was inhabited overwhelmingly by Arabs. A
Jewish and democratic state could be achieved only by a demographic
transformation. Either more Jews would have to come to Palestine, or Arabs
would have to leave, or a combination of the two would have to occur. The
Holocaust caused Jews who otherwise would have stayed in Europe to come to
Palestine. The subsequent creation of the state of Israel caused Arabs to
leave, and Jews living in Arab countries to come to Israel.
However,
this demographic shift was incomplete, leaving Israel with two strategic
problems. First, a large number of Arabs, albeit a minority, continued to
live in Israel. Second, the Arab states surrounding Israel -- which
perceived the state as an alien entity thrust into their midst -- viewed
themselves as being in a state of war with Israel. Ultimately, Israel's
problem was that dealing with the external threat inevitably compounded the
internal threat.
Israel's Strategic Disadvantage
Israel was
at a tremendous strategic disadvantage. First, it was vastly outnumbered in
the simplest sense: There were many more Arabs who regarded themselves as
being in a state of war with Israel than there were Jews in Israel. Second,
Israel had extremely long borders that were difficult to protect. Third, the
Israelis lacked strategic depth. If all of their neighbors -- Egypt, Jordan,
Syria and Lebanon -- were joined by the forces of more distant Arab and
Islamic states, Israel would find it difficult to resist. And if all of
these forces attacked simultaneously in a coordinated strike, Israel would
find it impossible to resist.
Even if the Arabs did not carry out a
brilliant stroke, cutting Israel in half on a Jerusalem-Tel Aviv line (a
distance of perhaps 20 miles), Israel would still lose an extended war with
the Arabs. If the Arabs could force a war of attrition on Israel, in which
they could impose an attrition rate of perhaps 1 percent per day of forces
on the forward edge of the battle area, Israel would not be able to hold for
more than a few months at best. In the 20th century, an attrition rate of
that level, in a battle space the size of Israel, would be modest. Israel's
effective forces rarely numbered more than 250,000 men -- the other 250,000
were older reserves with inferior equipment. Extended attritional warfare
was not an option for Israel.
Thus, in order for Israel to survive,
three conditions were necessary:
1. The Arabs must never unite into a
single, effective force.
2. Israel must choose the time, place and
sequence of any war.
3. Israel must never face both a war and an internal
uprising of Arabs simultaneously.
Israel's strategy was to use
diplomacy to prevent the three main adversaries -- Egypt, Jordan and Syria
-- from simultaneously choosing to launch a war. From its founding, Israel
always maintained a policy of splitting the front-line states. This was not
particularly difficult, given the deep animosities among the Arabs. For
example, Israel always maintained a special relationship with Jordan, which
had unsatisfactory relations with its own neighbors. Early on, Israel worked
to serve as the guarantor of the Jordanian regime's survival. Later, after
the Camp David Accords split Egypt off from the Arab coalition, Israel had
neutralized two out of three of its potential adversaries. The dynamics of
Arab geopolitics and the skill of Israeli diplomacy achieved an outcome that
is rarely appreciated. From its founding, Israel managed to prevent
simultaneous warfare with its neighbors except at a time and place of its
own choosing. It had to maintain a military force capable of taking the
initiative in order to have a diplomatic strategy.
But throughout
most of its history, Israel had a fundamental challenge in achieving this
preeminence.
Israel's Geopolitical Problem
The state's
military preeminence had to be measured against the possibility of
diplomatic failure. Israel had to assume that all front-line states would
become hostile to it, and that it would have to launch a preemptive strike
against them all. If this were the case, Israel had this dilemma: Its
national industrial base was insufficient to provide it with the
technological wherewithal to maintain its military superiority. It was not
simply a question of money --all the money in the world could not change the
demographics -- but also that Israel lacked the manpower to produce all of
the weapons it needed to have and also to field an army. Therefore, Israel
could survive only if it had a patron that possessed such an industrial
base. Israel had to make itself useful to another country.
Israel's
first patron was the Soviet Union, through its European satellites. Its
second patron was France, which saw Israel as an ally during a time when
Paris was trying to hold onto its interests in an increasingly hostile Arab
world. Its third patron -- but not until 1967 -- was the United States,
which saw Israel as a counterweight to pro-Soviet Egypt and Syria, as well
as a useful base of operations in the eastern Mediterranean.
In
1967, Israel -- fearing a coordinated strike by the Arabs and also seeking
to rationalize its defensive lines and create strategic depth -- launched an
air and land attack against its neighbors. Rather than risk a coordinated
attack, Israel launched a sequential attack -- first against Egypt, then
Jordan, then Syria.
The success of the 1967 war gave rise to
Israel's current geopolitical crisis.
Following the war, Israel had
to balance three interests:
1. It now occupied the West Bank and Gaza
Strip, which contained large, hostile populations of Arabs. A full,
peripheral war combined with an uprising in these regions would cut Israeli
lines of supply and communication and risk Israel's defeat.
2. Israel was
now dependent on the United States for its industrial base. But American
interests and Israeli interests were not identical. The United States had
interests in the Arab world, and had no interest in Israel crushing
Palestinian opposition or expelling Palestinians from Israel. Retaining the
industrial base and ruthlessly dealing with the Palestinians became
incompatible needs.
3. Israel had to continue manipulating the balance of
power among Arab states in order to prevent a full peripheral war. That, in
turn, meant that it was further constrained in dealing with the Palestinian
question by force.
Israeli geopolitics created the worst condition of
all: Given the second and third considerations, Israel could not crush the
Palestinians; but given its need for strategic depth and coherent borders,
it could not abandon the occupied territories. It therefore had to
continually constrain the Palestinians without any possibility of final
victory. It had to be ruthless, which would enflame the