Paper: Japan's Geothermal Energy

The Japanese archipelago is situated at the northwest edge of the Pacific rim ring of fire, a region of high seismic and volcanic activity. As would be expected, the nation is dotted with hot springs(onsen), ceilinged by volcanic mountains and frequently rocked by earthquakes. It would seem that the seismic activity in Japan would signal an opportunity to develop geothermal power sources for civil use. This paper discusses the current energy paradigm of Japan, gives examples of other nations which use geothermal energy for a large portion of their energy needs, and examines the past efforts of producing and future potential of Japan to produce geothermal energy. The inspiration for this paper comes from my time in Hokkaido, Japan, when I used onsen on a daily basis in the wintertime and had my apartment thoroughly disorganized by the Tokachi Oki earthquake of 2003, subsequent to which I evacuated due to a tsunami warning. Certainly, I thought, geothermal activity of such intensity in Japan could also be used to run turbines, as I saw in Italy, a country which has a lower level of geothermal activity but a comparatively higher level of geothermal energy use.

JAPAN’S ENERGY USE
According to the International Energy Agency (the IEA), in 2006, Japan produced only 3077 Gigawatt-hours (gwh) of electricity from geothermal sources, and no direct-use heat whatsoever. Rather than taking advantage of locally available sources, Japan currently imports most of its energy. The Japanese energy paradigm currently has a bifurcated structure, with the largest amount of electric power being produced by nuclear energy, and the rest of nuclear power as well as transportation being run on fossil fuels. For example, in 2006, Japan had nuclear energy production of 303426 gwh, 298,899 gwh of electricity from coal, and 120736 gwh of electricity from oil--- geothermal electricity production was around 1% of nuclear electricity production. Regarding Japan’s energy imports, Japan depended on imported oil for 49% of its total national annual energy consumption in 2005, importing 90% of that amount from the Gulf States, particularly the UAE and Saudi Arabia, as well as Qatar, Kuwait, Iraq and Iran. Among oil, Japan mainly imports light and medium distillates, with each of the two occupying over 30 percent of the nation’s oil mix in 2008. Due to its lack of domestic supply, Japan tops many global categories of energy imports, including hard coal, of which it imported 186 million tons in 2008, almost double the amount delivered to the next highest importer. Additionally, Japan is the world’s top importer of natural gas, importing 95 billion cubic meters of gas in 2008. Apart from fossil fuels, Japan also produced the third highest amount of nuclear energy in the world in 2007, with its 264 terawatt-hours occupying almost 10% of the world’s total nuclear power production in that year.

NUCLEAR’S PROBLEMS
Of course, nuclear power in Japan has often met with stiff resistance from local groups due to its perceived possible harmful effects as well as 20th century history. However, on the other hand, scholars have also documented the fact that many local governments in Japan are not averse to having power plants due to the jobs created by the building and operation of such power stations. Therefore, a delicate balance exists in siting issues in Japan, dependent often on the strength of local unions and the ideological background of a city’s local politicians.

PROBLEMS OF FOSSIL FUELS
Fossil fuels cause several problems for Japan, both on a security basis and on an environmental basis. First of all, Japan does not have a navy of sufficient size to protect shipping routes from oil suppliers in the Persian Gulf, so it is forced to depend on the force capabilities of other countries, thereby constricting national foreign policy. Secondly, any long-term constriction of fossil fuel supply would have disastrous effects on the Japanese economy, a fact which adds increasing weight to Japan’s dependence on fossil fuels. Furthermore, burning of coal in power plants causes air pollution and acid rain. Finally, the use of coal and oil to produce power increases the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The preceding security problems are nearly unavoidable, although improved waste gas scrubbers and carbon capture and sequestration techniques may be able to alleviate environmental problems.

ATTRACTIVE CHARACTERISTICS OF GEOTHERMAL
Geothermal power, on the other hand, does not face the same siting problems as nuclear power does, due to geothermal power’s relatively low environmental profile and level of hazardousness. Geothermal power can produce base-load power in a similar manner to nuclear power, with the added possibility of suitability for producing direct heating. In contrast to both nuclear power and fossil fuels, geothermal power also compares favorably in that it does not leave a hazardous residue after power production has occurred. Additionally, energy sources such as geothermal, wind power, and solar power have the added effect of being readily available anywhere on earth. A nation that increases its usage of such energy resources gains the added benefit of greater energy security due to a decrease in reliance on fossil fuels. However, the scale of geothermal projects in Japan has remained small overall, with national production capacity basically frozen for the past ten years. Australian scholar Hayden Lesbirel has discussed a ‘reverse NIMBY syndrome’, which states that once a community has begun to add nuclear power stations, it may actually add more than are needed to power the local area, thereby developing an unhealthy relationship between the locality and the power plants. Such additions, he notes, do not entail dealing with the inevitable frictions caused by creation of new green-field nuclear power sites. In the extreme case, Lesbirel highlights the Tokyo Electric Power site at Kashiwazaki-Kariwa in Niigata prefecture, the world’s largest nuclear site, as an example of overcapitalization: there are seven nuclear power plants located there, although they have been mostly shut since an earthquake struck nearby in 2007. On the other hand, for a geothermal plant, the relative sacrifices may be smaller, but so are benefits. Without government support of investment in geothermal programs, geothermal programs do not hold the same economic benefit for communities as nuclear plants do.
Nevertheless, in the face of overwhelming reliance on imported energy sources for most of the 20th century as well as the present, Japan has been uncannily slow to develop large amounts of renewable energy supplies, including solar, wind, and wave power, and particularly another energy resource that the archipelago possesses abundantly: geothermal energy. Although the first experiments in geothermal power in Japan were actually performed in the early 20th century and the first functional geothermal power plant brought online in 1966, somehow geothermal power has not caught on in Japan. Geothermal potential certainly exists, but somehow manages to stay out of the public eye. A recent example is that 2008’s Cool-Earth Energy Innovative Technology Program, a prominent new government energy program, made no mention of deep earth power sources. The lack of emphasis on geothermal energy contrasts with other seismically active island nations, including Iceland and the Philippines.

REFERENCE 1 ICELAND
Like Japan, Iceland is a volcanic island nation with high levels of geothermal activity. However, unlike Japan, Iceland has managed to develop its geothermal resources to a level high enough to power much of the country. Naturally, Iceland has a population of only around 320,000, leading to a population density less than 1/100th of Japan. Still, the success of Iceland in utilizing its geothermal assets can serve as an example for any nation or region with similar geothermal resources. A part of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge System, the entire island was created by volcanic activity. In fact, the island has been “classified into high temperature areas and low temperature areas”. High temperature areas have geothermal fluids heated by magma to temperatures around 300 degrees Celsius, whereas lower temperature areas have fluids heated to a temperature between 65 and 120 degrees Celsius4 Iceland uses geothermal energy for nearly 90% of its heating needs, with an installed capacity of approximately 800 MW In terms of electric power, Iceland obtained around 26% of its power from geothermal energy in 2006, with most of the remainder being produced through hydroelectric processes.

REFERENCE 2 PHILIPPINES
The Philippine archipelago abuts Japan to the south. Like the Japanese archipelago, the Philippines have arisen due to volcanic activity under the Pacific rim. Also similar to Japan, the Philippines do not possess a large domestic supply of fossil fuels. In the case of the Philippines, the government began to encourage the use of geothermal energy in industry from the time of the oil shocks of the 1970s, resulting in the fact that the Philippines gained approximately 20% of national electric power from geothermal energy in 2006.The Philippines’ use of geothermal energy is the result of a long-term comprehensive energy policy launched after the first oil crisis, which also included exploration of domestic fossil fuel energy sources and development of hydroelectric power. Although the initial impetus for the development came from the Philippine government, which gave tax breaks and exemptions to companies investing in geothermal energy, private firms performed a large portion of the actual work, either on a contractual or an individually subsidized basis. It is a heartening case that shows that if a nation devotes itself to using geothermal energy, it can be possible to change the energy mix on a wide scale. Additionally, the Philippines’ population density, at 307 per square km, is quite close to that of Japan, showing that high population density does not necessarily deter the development of geothermal energy sources.

THE MITI SUNSHINE PROGRAM
Although Japan currently does not rely on renewable or alternative energy for the vast majority of national energy demand, there have been efforts in the past to improve energy independence. One of the main contemporary beginnings of Japan’s efforts to change its energy mix began in 1974, during the oil crises of the 1970s. The erstwhile Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) began the project in an effort `to `alleviate the energy crisis` The Sunshine Program mainly focused on wind, ocean, and solar power, as well as other new energy technologies. Subsequently, the government merged the Sunshine Program with other programs covering efficiency to form the New Sunshine Program in 1993.
Several different government agencies have had responsibility for promoting geothermal power in Japan. One main agency is the Agency for Natural Resources and Energy (ANRE), headquartered at Kasumigaseki in Tokyo. ANRE reports directly to the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI). Within ANRE, the Energy Conservation and Renewable Energy Department’s New and Renewable Energy Division works on geothermal power. ANRE also has jurisdiction over the New Energy Foundation, which organizes an industrial forum and a database covering geothermal energy. Additionally, ANRE established the Geothermal Research Society of Japan in December of 2008.

THE ROLE OF NEDO
Organized in 1980, the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization(NEDO) was a MITI-funded organization responsible for researching alternative energy technologies. In 2003, it was reorganized as an Incorporated Administrative Agency. For the fiscal year 2009 it had a budget of 234.7 billion yen. Headquartered in Kawasaki City in Kanagawa Prefecture, it is currently using multiple avenues to promote geothermal energy in Japan. NEDO has the status of an independent administrative agency, rather than as a direct-sub agency of METI (the name of MITI since its reorganization in 2001). The ANRE website lists ANRE as an affiliated organization. However, it seems that ANRE’s responsibilities are not entirely superficial: the Project for Geothermal Power Development, begun in 1980, transferred to NEDO in 1993. In the fiscal year 2007, the project had a budget of 580 million yen which could provide subsidies of 50% for drilling costs of exploratory wells and up to 20% of installation costs for pure geothermal power generating facilities. In addition, NEDO carried out a series of large-scale survey of geothermal sites from 1980 to 2010, called the ‘Geothermal Development Promotion Surveys’ . This survey had a budget of 1.85 billion yen in 2008, according to the NEDO website. The survey had three main phases: locating high-temperature zones, verifying geothermal reservoirs, and pre-feasibility studies for geothermal power stations.
The survey identified three promising sites in Hokkaido, seven sites in Honshu, and four sites in Kyushu. According to the 2009 report issued by NEDO, four sites total are being developed, in Aomori, Niigata, Nagano, and Kagoshima prefectures. The report discusses the mechanisms for structuring the projects, which are as follows:
After bidding requests are issued by NEDO, interested parties will submit a geothermal power production business plan and a geothermal resource inspection plan to NEDO. NEDO then determines the feasibility of the power production business plan, and NEDO’s contract assessment committee will decide the area to be inspected and the authorized inspector.,
Subsequently, an “inspection authorization contract” will be concluded, and a new phase of the project will be entered. With the aid of a third-party assessor, NEDO will evaluate the project, and decide whether or not to continue the project at the end of the first year. Meanwhile, a geothermal development promotion inspection, including plan inspection and environmental impact inspection will be conducted by the acting party, who will fix any problems. If the project passes NEDO inspection at the end of the first year, then the project will be implemented.
In the different phases of the project, different entities will act to further the project. For example, in the case of the Aomori project, the prefectural government will assess the feasibility and liase with local groups, Mitsubishi Material Co. will value the resource, and Mitsubishi Material Techno will inspect the resource. A sample inspection report from the Otani site shows regular monthly or bi-monthly temperature survey data from five different locations on the Otani site. The survey data also notes the water pressure, amount of water extracted, sediment, conductivity and pH of the water surveyed. Similar sites will also be surveyed at two locations in Hokkaido and one location in Iwate prefecture.

THE ONSEN PARADOX
Oddly enough, while Japan has negligible levels of geothermal power use, Japanese research into hot water emitting from the ground is actually quite high due to the popularity of onsen. However, the 2008 IEA report from the IEA’s Geothermal Implementing Agreement (the GIA report) suggests that the heavy amount of use of the hot spring waters for baths may actually have caused a detrimental effect on the use of geothermal energy for power, due to a perceived competition between onsen and geothermal power stations for the same heated water energy. Early in 2009, the UK’s Guardian Newspaper carried a report of tensions between the resort town of Kusatsu and the neighboring town of Tsumagoi, which proposes to construct a geothermal plant. On the public side, the GIA report goes on to state that during the second half of the 1990s, the government withdrew funding for geothermal energy, leading to stagnation of projects in the geothermal sector. As of 2003, the government considered geothermal and hydro power to be ‘mature technologies’ not deserving of incentivization. The slump in geothermal energy in Japan did not end until 2006, when the government designated geothermal energy as part of its ‘New Energy’ plan. However, the plan explicitly denies subsidies to binary plants, and had a budget of only 580 million yen in 2007. The GIA report states that METI feels that the promotion of geothermal energy is ‘extremely important', hence, from April 2008, the New Energy Law once again includes geothermal energy in the category of ‘New Energy’. But, according to the GIA report, there are currently a paucity of laws in Japan dealing directly with geothermal power. Many parts of geothermal energy, such as approval for projects and drilling, are still governed by the onsen committees of local governments. Additionally, the government has no concrete targets to expand national power production capacity beyond the current 535 MW.
Moreover, since a plateau between 1980 and 1995, research money for geothermal energy has dwindled to around 2 billion yen per year. Without government incentives, private interest in geothermal energy in Japan also has languished. It may be that geothermal energy in Japan will take a great amount of time to recover given the neglect that it received over the past ten years. However, although research spending on geothermal energy has dwindled, it cannot be said that Japan does not have adequate levels of spending on public works: in fact, the average level of spending on public works in Japan is around 5% of GDP, far higher than that of the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, or France.

THE NEW NATIONAL ENERGY STRATEGY
In 2006, METI announced its ‘New National Energy Strategy’, which called for increases in alternative and renewable energy contributions to the nation’s overall energy mix. This policy could provide improved support to the development of geothermal energy in Japan. Aimed to improve Japan’s energy security, the strategy arose mainly as a response to elevated oil prices. The plan took particular aim at three specific tasks: creation of energy security measures, a holistic approach to energy and environmental issues, and international cooperation with Asian and world nations on energy security issues. Naturally, the second goal has particular pertinence to the development of Japan’s geothermal potential. However, the strategy only mentioned geothermal energy in passing, rather than detailing any specific projects that METI planned to pursue towards developing higher levels of geothermal power generation. Additionally, the summary of renewable energy sources posted on the Federation of Electric Power Companies of Japan makes no mention of geothermal power. Japan has signed the 1997 IEA Implementing Agreement on Geothermal Energy, which has research goals such as provision of advanced geothermal systems, enhanced drilling techniques, and improved direct use of geothermal energy.

ONSEN REVISITED
However, one area where Japan makes great use of geothermal activity is in its 15,000 commercial onsen. In 2006, the New Energy Foundation carried out a study, which showed that bathing use comprised almost 90% of direct use of geothermal energy at that time; however, the report stated that there still exist many places where direct use could replace fossil fuels for functions such as home heating and hot water- right now such uses make up less than 1% of direct heat use in Japan, in contrast to Iceland. As previously mentioned, there is a possible competition that may ensue between onsen operators and geothermal plants; however, this need not be the case, as many onsen actually pre-cool their water by allowing heat to conduct into the atmosphere or the ground before using the water. A medium-based thermal exchanger could easily replace this cooling section, thereby replacing heat waste and creating a net savings.

CONTRIBUTION OF PRIVATE FIRMS
Notwithstanding the low level of geothermal use in Japan, Japanese turbines and generators still have a dominant share in world geothermal equipment markets, with Toshiba-manufactured equipment 34% of world geothermal energy capacity. This fact would seem to indicate that a strong and clear policy message could effect drastic changes in Japan’s energy mix. In fact, this change may have gotten underway already. In January 2009, a Nikkei report detailed plans by Mitsubishi Materials Corp., J-Power, Nittetsu Mining Co. Ltd. and Kyushu Electric Power Co. to develop new geothermal sites. Together, Nittetsu Mining and J-Power would invest approximately 40 billion yen to build a geothermal plant in Yuzawa in Akita prefecture. The plant was expected to produce up to 60,000 kW of power and to open in 2016, the report said. No further reports have been made on the subject on the websites of either company or in Nikkei. Currently, the Japanese government’s new policy has a strong interest in developing geothermal power. In order to achieve that interest, the government has introduced an incentive system giving compensation for bank interest for developers. This incentive is a remedy to the simple fact that many developers are put off from starting new projects due to the high level of up-front investment required. The government has decided to subsidize both power plant development and exploration well drilling at a rate of 50%, as well as subsidizing production/reinjection wells and above-ground facilities at a rate of 20%.

NO NATIONAL RESEARCH PROJECTS SINCE 2003
Although Tohoku University, Hokkaido University, Kyushu University and the Advanced Institute of Science and Technology all have research programs. None of the programs were heavily funded as of 2007, however, with Kyushu University receiving 60 million yen, Tohoku University receiving 30 million yen and AIST receiving a total of around 20 million Yen. These are relatively small amounts of money in light of the fact that Japan had the highest energy R&D budget of the IEA member countries in 2003. Still, several innovative techniques may aid geothermal energy production in Japan if introduced.

KALINA CYCLE
The Kalina cycle is a relatively new technique for geothermal energy production that has relatively higher efficiency compared to previous methods of converting geothermal energy into a usable form. The innovative aspect of the Kalina cycle is that it uses an ammonia-water mix medium fluid to transfer heat. As the fluid is effective at relatively lower temperatures (i.e. less than 100 degrees Celsius), the technology has a potentially wide-range application. Furthermore, after the power production phase of the process the heated medium fluid remains at a temperature of 80 degrees Celsius, meaning that it can still be used for building heating purposes. As of 2009, the Kalina system has been implemented at a demonstration plant in Iceland and a power station in Germany. The Iceland power station, located at Husavik, provided 2 MW of power in addition to supplying 75% of local community heat demand, according to the web site of Icelandic engineering firm Mannvit.
Additionally, according to the IEA, the new 2010 Renewable Energy targets which superseded the New Renewable Energy target in 2008 makes no special provision for geothermal energy specifically, although it is possible that geothermal heat could be used in the category of Other renewable heat, which is expected to rise tenfold from 7.1 million kl of oil equivalent in 2006.

ENHANCED GEOTHERMAL SYSTEMS
Unlike previous geothermal techniques, which mainly capitalized on readily available surface heat sources, the new technique known as ‘enhanced geothermal systems’ (EGS)gains access to geothermal energy sources through deep drilling, making the resources available anywhere. Currently France, Australia, Germany, the United States, and Switzerland have all been working on the development of enhanced geothermal systems. EGS makes use of advanced drilling technology to bore 4-6 km into the earth’s crust, where so-called ‘hot dry rock’ is found. A 2006 Massachusetts Institute of Technology Study commissioned for the United States government stated that EGS would be able to provide‘cost-competitive generating capacity’ However, this technique does have the potential to cause seismic activity. Therefore, care is needed in site choice and implementation of safety techniques. For example, the city of Basel, Switzerland, which had several small earthquakes possibly caused by a test site located there, eventually canceled their experimental EGS project. Previously, the city had been destroyed by an earthquake in the 14th century, so residents were loath to risk a re-occurrence of such a cataclysmic event On the other hand, techniques for using supercritical carbon dioxide as an exchange medium may make EGS techniques increasingly viable for power and heat production.

In conclusion, it may be helpful to note that while Japan currently does not gain a high percentage of its energy from geothermal sources, it has both the technology and the physical resources required for large-scale geothermal energy production. As can be seen from the examples of Iceland and the Philippines, geothermal energy used for both building heating and electrical power can serve as a useful component of a nation’s energy mix. Japan has high spending on public works and on research and development. At this point, the country only lacks the political momentum that would allow a shift of the national energy paradigm towards more geothermal energy. However, recent developments, including announcements by METI and private businesses indicate that this shift may be beginning to occur.

Paper (short) - A Consideration of Operations Driving Policy in Afghanistan in the 1980s and 1990s

The United States’ involvement in Afghanistan escalated after the USSR’s invasion in 1979. At that time, the original concept governing covert action in Afghanistan was to ‘bleed’ the USSR, thereby causing preoccupation and diverting resources from the USSR’s actions in Europe. However, during the 1980s, the operation escalated from a simple preoccupation for the USSR to a military snafu that would eventually kill or wound thousands of Soviet soldiers and beggar the Soviet Union before the eventual withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989. It is important to note that the United States’ initial covert policy towards Afghanistan did not involve a rollback of the Soviet army from Afghanistan, but rather a holding operation. However, as operators began to involve themselves in policy decisions in Afghanistan, the goals of the operation changed to pushing the Soviet forces out of Afghanistan, using progressively more and more overt means. The way in which operators effectively altered policy towards Afghanistan had two main sources: circumvention of the chain of command and over-reliance on regional allies such as Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.
Generally, principles dictate that the chain of command in covert operations is fixed, with operators acting on orders given by their superiors, who in turn receive directives from policymakers. However, in the case of Afghanistan, policymakers established direct contact with operators in the field, thereby creating a bridge through which operators in Afghanistan could leap the boundaries of their mission and decide policy in their own right. In a sense, the contact from the policymakers had an anomalous root, in that Congressman Charles Wilson of Texas had unilaterally expressed interest in the actions of the mujahideen fighting against the USSR. Wilson’s interest eventually led him to meetings with mujahideen leaders, as well as field operatives. Congressman Wilson then used his influence as a member of the Defense Appropriations subcommittee of the United States House Appropriations Committee to secure funding for the ideas of CIA agents who wished to push harder against the Soviet troops in Afghanistan. In particular, the funding arranged by Congressman Wilson allowed the CIA to covertly supply anti-Soviet forces in Afghanistan with a weapons mix including AK-47 rifles, Dashika machine guns, heavier 14.5 millimeter machine guns, and long range mortars.
A second way in which operations began to drive policy was through the feedback loop established when Pakistan’s government, a partner of the CIA in the field, began to lobby the United States for more funding for its cross-border efforts in Afghanistan. In particular, Pakistan’s erstwhile prime minister, Mohammed Zia Ul-Haq, and the Pakistani intelligence chief, General Akhtar Abdul Rahman had close relationships with US policymakers. As a result of the relationship between the CIA and Pakistan, Afghani fighters who might have proven both useful and safe allies to the United States did not gain US support. Chief among those who remained in the cold was Ahmad Shah Massoud, an ethnic Tajik, whose forces had long denied the Soviets control over the Panjshir valley in northeastern Afghanistan. While the relationship between the United States and Pakistan originally helped to preserve a strong layer of plausible deniability for the CIA, reliance on Pakistan left the United States without a strong independent intelligence network in the Af-Pak region, which would eventually produce consequences long after the Soviets had gone.
Initially however, the CIA considered Operation Cyclone, the anti-Soviet operation in Afghanistan, to be a signal victory. After such a victory, policymakers had little interest in continuing with large amounts of expenditure in the Af-Pak region, so the CIA’s resource budgets in the region largely came to an end, and operatives were withdrawn or abandoned. The withdrawal of US resources from Afghanistan subsequently left US policymakers blind regarding the country. Instead of investing more time and effort to shore up the inadequacy, they chose to ignore Afghanistan for much of the following decade. During the 1990s, Afghanistan remained turbulent, but the problems largely did not spill over into other countries. However, after the leaders of the terrorist unit Al-Qaeda relocated to Afghanistan from the Sudan, the area proved to be an effective hiding place from which to stage terrorist attacks, chief among which were the airplane attacks on September 11th, 2001.

Paper - the CIA's (non)Observance of Plausible Deniability in Indonesia

The case of the United States’ covert involvement in revolutionary actions in Indonesia in the 1950s provides an example of an action in which the premise of plausible deniability was ostensibly maintained; however, several key details of the operation show that although the United States’ involvement never became brazenly apparent, the operation could be said to have a veneer of secrecy at best. The United States, as detailed in ‘Feet to the Fire’ by Kenneth Conboy and James Morrison, provided several types of covert support to guerrilla and revolutionary troops rebelling against the regime of President Sukarno of Indonesia. Although the United States eventually lost its cover of secrecy, the fact that Indonesia did not have exceedingly close ties to the Soviet Union led to limited short-term adverse consequences for the USA. Additionally, swift remedial action through public diplomacy actually led to an improvement of relations between the United States and Suharto. Thus, although the operation in Indonesia did not achieve a high level of tactical success, it nevertheless can be considered a mid-term strategic victory for the United States, with the significant caveat that the covert action and subsequent support of Suharto created ‘palpable’ long-term animosity towards the United States from the general populace of Indonesia.

The CIA’s covert action in Indonesia during the 1950s used many of the different covert action tools that serve as staples of US covert foreign policy in Asia. First of all, the United States supplied significant material aid to rebels in Sumatra and in Sulawesi, including arms, vehicles, ammunition, and money. Additionally, the CIA supplied logistical assistance and advisors to the Indonesian rebellion. Finally, the CIA directly provided covert paramilitary air support to the rebellion.

Naturally,the CIA meant to keep their aid to the rebellions in Indonesia secret; however, examples abounded of deliveries which were intended to be kept secret being revealed in quite public manner. For example, an arms delivery of two barges full of weapons to Sumatra gathered a crowd ‘like a circus’. Clearly, the cloak of secrecy on the operation had a few holes from the very beginning.

In some instances, meetings between the leaders of the rebellion and the CIA were openly observable. For example, the resident officer at the US consulate in Medan, located in North Sumatra, observed minimal security precautions as he drove alone across Sumatra for a day with a bag containing the Indonesian-currency equivalent of US$50,000 sitting in the front seat next to him. Eventually, the agent pulled into a house in the city of Bukittinggi and met directly with Colonel Maludin Simbolon, the leader of the Sumatran rebellion. The agent did not describe how he planned to guard the money in the event that he had been stopped at any of the armed checkpoints along the Medan-Bukittinggi road.

In the case of the use of the pilot group code-named ‘Ostiary’ the CIA could maintain plausible deniability, because all of the pilots in the group did not come from the United States. Unfortunately, an unexpected fatal crash killed two of the four pilots in the group. Subsequently, the remaining two pilots decided that they wanted to leave Indonesia. In their place came two pilots from the CIA’s proprietary airline, Civil Air Transport. The new pilots had a different background than the Polish pilots who had preceded them at the Ostiary group- the new pilots were American. For a time, the new pilots operated with relative ease in the Sulawesi region of Indonesia. To hide the American origins of the pilots and planes, the planes and pilots flew ‘sterile’, which is to say they had no markings or documentation that could be used to identify them in the event that they were shot down. However, when one of the CAT pilots was shot down and captured close to Ambon island in May 1958, he carried a variety of identifying documents with him. The capture of the American airman thoroughly removed the tool of plausible deniability from the United States’ tool shed. The Indonesian government held a public trial of the airman, causing embarrassment to the United States. Eventually the airman received a death sentence, which caused him to languish in an Indonesian jail until his release in 1972. In order to mitigate the unmasked international incident, the United States was forced to engage in emergency public diplomacy, with the ultimate consequence that the United States would send a token amount of military aid to the government of President Sukarno in Jakarta. However, it is difficult to say whether the aid sent by the United States actually drew Sukarno closer to the United States or pushed him closer to the Soviet Union. Therefore, at least in the medium term, the CIA operation in Indonesia detailed in ‘Feet to the Fire’ cannot be considered a total disaster- the overt goal of the United States was an anti-Soviet client state in Indonesia, and the eventual unmasking of the operation actually did not cripple that goal. However, ties between Indonesia and the United States did not warm particularly for the duration of the Eisenhower administration. Rather, they improved under the following administration of John F. Kennedy. After considering the case of the CIA’s operations in India, it is interesting that the Indonesian government did not draw closer to the Soviet Union even after the revelation of CIA involvement. One might even be tempted to think that a Manichean view towards nations as either for or against communism might have produced an imperfect interaction of covert and overt policy towards Indonesia in the late 1950s. In this case, the damage done did not reach critical levels, but still the case of Indonesia provides a strong object lesson of the need to have a clearly defined objective in place when conducting a covert action.

Paper - Lansdale in the Phillipines

Edward Lansdale’s covert campaign against the communist-affiliated Philippine Hukbalahap guerrillas in the early 1950s serves as an example of a successful anti-communist action in the early Cold War. The conflict between the Huk guerrillas and the government of the Philippines flared up when remnants of the anti-Japanese WWII resistance took arms against the government due to frustrations stemming from the disintegration of traditional tenant-landlord relationships and corruption. Due to the simultaneous US campaign in the Korean peninsula, Lansdale was not able to enjoy the provenance of a large budget; however, his use of appropriate covert tactics allowed the Philippine government to turn the tide against the guerrilla insurgency using a minimum of material input.
Lansdale was assigned by the US government to advise Ramon Magsaysay, who had assumed the post of Minister of National Defense. Magsaysay had experience as a guerrilla fighter from the Japanese occupation before and during WWII, but he faced the twin problems of the Huk revolt and a highly demoralized citizenry that collaborated to protect and conceal the Huk fighters from the government’s forces. If anything, the problem of the citizenry represented a greater challenge for the government forces than the actual military action by the Huk revolt. In his book The Huk Rebellion: A Study of Peasant Revolt in the Philippines, Southeast Asia scholar Benedict Kerkvliet analyzed the reasons for peasant support for the Huk revolt. Kerkvliet found that adverse consequences of changes in the social structure of the Philippines had led ultimately to peasants’ support of revolt against the government. In main, the the Philippine peasants had two complaints: firstly, the deterioration of the traditional tenant-landlord relationship had deprived the peasants of their livelihoods; secondly, a flawed and corrupted political system had left the peasants without means to ask the government for aid or protect themselves from strongmen hired by Philippine landlords. When channels such as strikes, petitioning, marches, court action, and political candidacy failed to secure an amelioration of living conditions, the Philippine peasantry unsurprisingly chose to collaborate with the Huk rebels.
The Huks organized themselves into a compartmentalized cell structure at the barrio level. Partially, the Huks derived their organization and tactics from lessons learned from members of the communist Chinese 8th route army. The main lesson learned was the method of concealment among a friendly populace. However, through efforts to improve the transparency of government and alleviate financial hardship for peasants, the tide rapidly turned in the government’s favor during the year leading up to the Philippine elections of 1951, during which the American advisor Captain1 Edward Lansdale utilized one of his most effective covert tactics: the forgery of an message from the Huks to boycott the 1951 election.
In order to see why the forged message proved so useful, we should note the historical background against which the Huk revolt occurred. After the end of WWII, the majority of the local population felt that national elections in the Philippines had been rigged in favor of the urban wealthy and rural landowners. In response to the perceived corruption, the Huks popularized a slogan: “bullets not ballots.’ The meaning of this slogan is obvious: anti-government violence would succeed where a rigged political system had failed. Initially, the revolt succeeded in controlling opinions and discourse, and gained widespread popular support in central Luzon, a region of the main north island of the Philippine chain.
However, advice provided to the Philippine government by Edward Lansdale and the Joint United States Military Advisory Group (JUSMAG) served to quickly turn the tide of the battle between the Huks and the government. As popular support for the Huks waned in 1950 and 1951, one method of shoring up losses and preserving the existence of the movement would have been to participate in the elections of 1951. Through the election process, the Huks might have been able to gain political legitimacy and end their armed battle with government forces.
Unfortunately for the Huks, a loss of political cohesion in their forces led to widespread defections and high levels of government infiltration of the Huk forces. In the run-up to the 1951 elections, Lansdale used procured documents to forge a message to the populace from ‘the Hukbulahap’, instructing a boycott of the elections in accordance with the previously stated ‘bullets not ballots’ policy. However, according to Lansdale, the 1951 election had a key difference from the preceding election: its fairness was monitored by the army. Due to the forged instructions, the Huk’s supporters failed to vote in what eventually was thought to be the fairly administered elections of 1951. Thus, using this tactic, Lansdale effectively isolated the Huks from both their political base and destroyed the basis of their previous moral superiority. The use of the forgery, in this case, proved to be a finishing blow against the Huk revolt.

Paper: Short Thinking Piece on June 09 Discover Article

One major advantage of the energy sources that are currently prevalently used in the world is their inert nature. We can store coal and biomass in open room-temperature air, or gas and petroleum products in tanks. Even plutonium, while radioactive, can be stored in special containers. However, it is quite obvious that mankind has not yet perfected techniques for storing energy from the sun or the wind. The June 2009 Discover Magazine article ‘Lightning in a Bottle’ examines several new energy storage techniques, some of which may help to mitigate the storage problems inherent in solar and wind energy generation.

The new technologies take varying approaches:

One type of technology uses energy to pump compressed air into a sealed cavern. The compressed air can be released to turn a turbine at will, thereby generating power; however, dependence on outside power in order to pump the turbine system decreases the overall efficiency of this system. Furthermore, the compressed air system has the inherent problem of leakage, as well as the perquisite of an extremely large cavernous space to store compressed air in. Currently both of the two examples of the compressed-air energy storage utilize rare natural salt dome formations. Developers have proposed that other large underground spaces, including an abandoned limestone mine and an empty aquifer, could be used. Also Georgianne Peek, an advocate of sealed-air energy storage, speculated that oil wells and natural gas reservoirs could store compressed air as well, the article said. One might also wonder if other rock quarries, for example granite or marble quarries, could serve a similar purpose- based on simple hardness, such rock would seem to be to be less porous than limestone.

The article also looks at molten salt technology, which can be used in combination with a large solar power plant. Some questions regarding the nature of the salts occurred in my mind immediately: seeing that the salts are mixed with nitric acid, they would presumably be corrosive? Furthermore, are the salts toxic? In the article, a US Department of Energy official said that the use of molten salt-based storage technology can increase the amount of time that a plant is fully operational in a year ‘from 25 percent to up to 70 percent’, thereby nearly tripling the amount of time that such a plant would be active. Naturally the power generation system would need to rely on other power sources for the other ~30% of the time, but implementation of such storage techniques on a large scale could greatly increase the viability of solar power generation.

The article also examines sodium-sulfur batteries, which may be a good method of storing wind energy due to the relatively higher energy density and longevity of such batteries compared to traditional lead-acid batteries. Other developers are working on batteries which would use zinc bromide or vanadium oxide. Such technologies may prove extemely useful due to their relatively small size, because they could be combined with small-scale wind farms in order to increase the overall efficiency of the wind power generation. A new hydrogen ion generation system developed at MIT could prove to be the key to allowing hydrogen to perform similar energy storage functions, with the added benefit that the materials required are cheaper, the article said.

Finally, the article discusses the issues surrounding implementation of battery powered cars, including battery life range and charger infrastructure. After finishing the article, I had the further thought that one other consideration for new power sources would be benefits that could be had by implementing either a superconducting electric grid or effective measures for miniaturizing some or all of these power storage systems. Either of these two technologies would lead to great gains in efficiency of energy use due to lower transport costs. Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute has written extensively on ‘micropower’, which uses mainly small-scale energy generation equipment. Micropower equipment would give a great amount of flexibility in energy production if it could be properly implemented and does not require government-level capital projects in order to be implemented. On the other hand, a nuanced approach involving a superconducting smart grid would also help alleviate the problem of new energy storage and transmission. Suppose a future when, through the use of computers, a utility company can track a car’s energy usage so that when it parks, through the use of computer-linked charging systems, which would refill the car’s battery while it is parked and bill the driver for the refill automatically through a debit or credit payment.

Essay: China and Technology Development

When a nation sets out on the path of development, it must find ways to develop its economy in order to improve the living standards of its citizens, or at very least, to increase its total production of goods and services. Economics teaches us that the key components of economic output are capital, labor, and technology. Capital provides the raw materials, labor uses the materials to create products, and technology provides the configuration of methods for labor’s use of capital. Developing countries generally begin their development by producing resources or by producing labor-intensive goods, whereas a developed country such as the United States has a highly capitalized and highly technologically-advanced economy overall.

All other things being equal, the level of technology clearly determines the level of a country’s output. Therefore, if a country wishes to improve its output, it must raise its level of technology. A country may raise its level of technology either by research and development or through acquisition. Naturally, countries may employ differing strategies for acquisition, either coercive, commercial, or illegitimate. Once a country has acquired a new technology, it must also determine an optimal method to implement and use the technology. As technology implementation often depends strongly on the domestic environment of the country where it was created, implementation of a given technology in another country may raise problems, the alleviation of which costs time and energy. Factors such as poor infrastructure, lack of sufficiently educated human talent, and weak intellectual property rights protection all contribute to slower implementation of imported technology in developing nations.

China, being a large developing nation, gives many examples of how technology has been adapted as well as the problems associated with adapting technologies from abroad. Although the government has ostensibly pursued a modernization program, results have been mixed. Examples abound of technology theft by companies in China. Also, some companies in China may want technology, or China’s society may need technology, but in actuality the need for a technology is not met with either the will, the incentive, or the ability to pay for such a technology. Also, in many cases, China’s government holds up the release of imported technologies for dubious reasons.

China’s original technology acquisition model after the 1979 included attracting international cooperators through using the export-led growth model that had helped the Asian Tiger nations achieve the so called ‘Asian Economic Miracle’. International companies would be able to come to China and enjoy lower taxes, and inexpensive labor. In exchange, international investors would share technology and expertise with their local business partner. This model assumed that a sort of long-term spin-off effect would be achieved through such Sino-foreign partnerships. However, the model has not been totally effective for several reasons as detailed below.

Poor intellectual property protection enforcement and an ineffectual court system in China has greatly slowed the country’s technological growth. For example, if an American company goes to China and invests in a joint venture with a local Chinese firm, the joint venture partner may steal the US firm’s technology and either sell it domestically, or, more likely, utilize it in other locations where the joint venture partner has no facilities, thereby gaining the full amount of any revenue gained from selling the project. Even if the joint venture is honest and credible, there is nothing to stop competitors from copying a product and then attempting to sell it. While legal standards have improved, it is still very difficult to get a fair trial if the court is in a rural area or if the counterparty possesses significant political clout, so investors must beware when moving their operations to China.

In China, where labor is cheap and materials are cheap, engineering and design skills are still fairly hard to come by. However, as IP protection is weak, in many cases, any item that can be easily copied will be copied, from simple items such as American movies, all the way to something complex such as an automobile. A famous example of such copycat behavior occurred in 2005, when China’s Chery Automobile unveiled a compact car, the ‘QQ’, that was virtually identical in design to GM’s Chevrolet ‘Spark’--- with the extra benefit that Chery’s copy version sold for as much as $1,000 less than the Chevrolet. GM attempted to take the company to court, but failed to close the case at a Chinese court despite obvious similarities. In the end, GM dropped the suit after coming under pressure from China’s government. Naturally, the government of China has a vested interest in protecting its domestic market for its own domestic companies, particularly a national champion such as Chery, which is the largest independent Chinese automaker. Lost market share for a domestic company can cause public sentiment to tilt against the government due to a perceived government failure to protect domestic firms. Such a phenomenon of market protection occurs not only in a developing market such as China’s but also in the United States, among other countries.

However, while the Chinese government sometimes engages in protectionist behavior on behalf of domestic companies, at other times it holds the companies back from moving their services forward. One key example is the manner in which China’s government slowed the domestic rollout of the 3G mobile telephone standard. Currently, China has a large mobile phone market with hundreds of millions of subscribers. Using the 3G phone standard would allow for better spectral efficiency, thereby allowing video calls, broadband wireless data, and wireless voice telephony to be used by mobile phone customers. However, for many years, the Chinese government’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology delayed issuing 3G phone licenses to China’s wireless service providers, mainly because the government wanted to develop a domestic 3G standard, known as TD-SCDMA. Having such a domestically-controlled standard would confer several key advantages, most importantly allowing Chinese telephone providers to circumvent patent licensing fees for use of technology invented outside of China. On Wednesday, January 7, 2009, the government finally issued licenses for domestic 3G phone services , 8 years after 3G phones were launched in Japan. It is expected that the government pushed the release of the systems at this time because China’s economic growth is slowing, as cellular phone carriers are expected to invest $41 billion in order to implement 3G services.

The issue of control comes up not only in such areas as cellular phone standards, but also in the IT sector, in such areas as web portal services and search engines. The government of the PRC, anxious to have a stranglehold on sources of information, has encouraged local internet companies, including web portals like Sina.com (a copy of yahoo), and search engines like Baidu.com (a copy of Google). Beyond simple searching and portals, China also has its own web messenger (Tencent QQ , a copy of the formerly-popular internet chat program ICQ) the world’s third-largest instant messenger service, and Taobao.com, which famously defeated the USA’s Ebay in a battle for China’s online auction market. The main methods used for this sort of protectionism involve blocks of foreign companies through use of the Great Firewall of China- to this day, Google runs more slowly inside China than Baidu and has occasional service outages, thereby rendering it less competitive. It should also be noted that China’s internet favoritism extends to cover even free information sources such as wikipedia, which has been blocked in China in the past and usage of which trails the China-based Baidu-pedia inside China. This sort of protectionism reflects a type of thinking which has become popular among China’s leadership in recent years, the idea that China’s government should create ‘national champions’ in all industries, running counter to the previous model of collaboration in order to gain expertise. The idea of having ‘national champions’ potentially extends into all areas of the economy, and is a danger both to free trade and to international collaboration on science and technology.

From the opposite perspective concern often raised when discussing transfers of technology from the United States to China is an external issue: the issue of military security and military application of technology. Technologies such as aircraft engines, navigations systems, telecommunications equipment, and sophisticated materials all have possible military uses. Therefore, transfers of such technologies to a nation such as China must be carefully vetted. If not, they can allow nations such as China to build weapons possibly detrimental to the safety of the United States. In the case of the Chinese economy, the state collaborates highly in economic activities, so most companies will have some type of government ties. This interconnectedness makes determining whether or not a given business partner can be considered safe extremely problematic.

A final issue that heavily influences technology transfer to a developing nation such as China is price. With a population of 1.3 billion people and a per capita GDP of only around $2000, China’s government is often ill-equipped to bring in technologies that may benefit society. In particular, the concept of externalities has not been thoroughly disseminated in China, meaning that if the economy grows at a pace of 10% per year, then obviously the country is doing excellently, regardless of the fact that pollution-related lung conditions and birth defects have risen sharply. Such shortsighted thinking also leads Chinese buyers to discount a long-term investment in environmental technology as being wasteful, as it does not maximize profits in the short run. Although the Chinese government is working towards promoting better environmental standards, implementation of perfect environmental controls will not happen overnight.

However, examples do exist for successful transfers of technology: recently, the Chinese government has agreed to receive magnetic levitation train technology from Germany. On 29 January 2009, Germany’s Thyssen Krupp Technologies signed a memorandum of understanding to transfer the core technologies for the magnetic levitation train to China’s Shanghai Magnetic Transportation Development Co. at a meeting of the German and Chinese governments in Berlin. Currently China has a single monorail line in operation in Shanghai, with plans to extend the line further and possibly create a Shanghai-Beijing maglev link in the future.

One final thought: with regard to the learning curve involved for China to move up the production chain. Ideally, initial economic prosperity would lead to higher investment in education, which would then trigger a virtuous circle of development. However, the government has been lax in enacting this virtuous circle, without which, the country is only able to compete on cost. Overall, China needs to focus more on developing its labor resources and technology in the future if it hopes to conquer its problems in development.

Paper: Iran’s Kurds, the Shah, and the Islamic Republic

This paper examines Kurdish political movements in Iran during the 20th century. Through the study of political movements among Kurds in Iran, a country that, while peripheral to the Middle East geographically and culturally in some senses, we can nevertheless gain further insights about how political movements and democratic development have happened in the region. While the mainstream Iranian Kurdish political movement evolved into a secular democracy-seeking movement during the middle and later 20th century, the movement has faced consistent political repression from whatever leader held power in Tehran.

The events surrounding the Iranian Kurds merit note for several reasons. First of all, study of the Kurds’ situation allows us to learn about the behavior of a Sunni minority in a mainly Shia nation- a situation which is rarely repeated elsewhere in the Muslim world. Furthermore, by a happy circumstance of geography, Iran is physically removed from the Levant, nor does it have problems that the central fact of the existence of a numerous Jewish minority has brought to certain Arab nations in the Middle East, making it possible to examine politics in Iran in relative isolation from the events that have taken place between Israel and its periphery. Finally, the environment of Iran differs in that there has been relatively little physical military encroachment by either NATO countries or the USSR in the post-WWII years.

The story of the political development of Iranian Kurdistan involves elements most likely familiar to scholars of Islamist movements in the Middle East and North Africa during the 20th century: namely, the threads of dictatorship, religion, tribalism, anti-communism, as well as overall failure by moderate actors to achieve results through the political process. Generally in the greater Middle East region, recent political struggles have taken place as Islamist elements of society, discouraged by the failure of Westernization efforts to create society-wide benefits, have struggled against paternalistic dictatorships. Notably, such Islamist movements occurred in Egypt, in Saudi Arabia, and in Iran itself, in the form of the Islamic Revolution of 1979.

On the other hand, the history of the Iranian Kurds in the 20th century differs from the norm: recent political movements began as an self-determination and autonomy movement during the WWII years, became a simple revolutionary party during the early reign of the Shah, and then developed into a more complicated entity possessing strong views on its ethnic identity, and secular nature. In the end, it is instructive to note the failure of moderate Kurds to secure even modest gains and also the level of violent tactics employed by the Tehran government in order to keep control of the Kurdish minority people in Iran.

In studying the politics of Iran, we should not yield to the temptation to dismiss Kurdish conflict as simply a type of Islamic internecine violence cloaked by ethnic overtones: in Iran, as originally little importance was given either to the Kurds’ varying ethnicity or to their adherence to Sunni Islam. Even after the founding of the Islamic Republic, which had an overwhelming presence of Shia clerics in its government, little mention was made of minority issues in Iran. Rather, the government of the Islamic Republic stressed unity. In the words of Ayatollah Khomeini, whose interpretation of matters was final:

There is no difference between Muslims who speak different languages… It is very probable that such problems have been created by those who do not wish the Muslim countries to be united… They create the issues of nationalism, of pan-Iranianism, pan-Turkism, and such isms, which are contrary to Islamic doctrines.

Claims such as the one above have prompted some Kurds to accuse the government of the Islamic Republic of co-opting the signs of Islam to support their dictatorship, as did Kurdish religious and political leader Shaikh Izzedin Husaini: “What we have [in Iran] is not religious government, but a dictatorship under the name of Islam.” Nevertheless, regardless of whether or not the government of Iran recognizes the existence of minorities, the Kurds have continued to agitate for autonomy, and repeatedly protested or boycotted participation in government activities to protest violence in Iranian Kurdistan. However, the situation of the Kurds in Iran is not mere sectarianism: otherwise, it would be expected that Sunni Kurds might have allied with members of Iran’s Sunni Arab community, who ostensibly share the same religion.
One final point is that, after considering the information available, one would think that Kurdish movements in Iran, who campaign for government by secular socialist democracy, would be natural allies for the United States, as has turned out to be the case in Iraq, where Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, currently holds the office of president. Historically speaking, it is interesting to consider why this has not happened in Iran as well.


Background: Geography of Iran and Ethnic Makeup of Iran’s Population

Before talking about specific issues of Kurdish politics in Iran, we should note the physical and cultural backdrop against which such issues have been illuminated.
Physically, the nation of Iran is situated on a huge dish-shaped plateau surrounded by rugged mountain ranges. Within Iran, a great portion of the center of the country is dominated by two barren deserts: the Dasht-e Kavir and the Dasht-e Lut. Without, Iran borders Turkey, Armenia, and Azerbaijan in the northwest, Iraq in the west, Turkmenistan in the north, and Afghanistan and Pakistan in the east. Iran has almost 2,500 km. of coastline on the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman, and also over 700 km. of coastline on the Caspian Sea in the north. Although Iran is geographically expansive, due to the mountainous nature of the country and low levels of rainfall in most areas, only 10% of the country’s land is arable. For natural hardships, the people of Iran face dust storms, sand storms, and earthquakes in seismically active regions. Moreover, Iran also lacks major rivers, and, apart from the Caspian Sea, has only one major lake, Lake Urmia, the second-largest saltwater lake on earth. At a glance, Iran could be considered “a barren land hardly fit for habitation,” although it has been inhabited for thousands of years.

Iran’s various large ethnic groups live in concentrations in certain geographic regions of the country, with Persians concentrated in north-central Iran, Azeri living in the northwest in an area roughly bounded by Turkey, the Caspian Sea, and the Republic of Azerbaijan, the Gilaki and Mazandarani at the southern edge of the Caspian Sea, Baluchis in the Southeast, Arabs in the Southwest, and Kurds in the west near Iraq and Turkey and also in the northeast near Turkmenistan. Among the smaller groups of people living in Iran include Turkmens, Armenians, Jews, and Assyrians.

Numerically speaking, Iran’s population has a 51% Persian majority; however, Azeri occupy a further quarter of the country’s population, the Gilaki and Mazandarani together amount to 8% of Iran’s population, and the Kurds also comprise 7% of Iran’s total population of 65 million. Although the country is ethnically diverse, most people in Iran are united by “Persian culture” and also by adherence to Islam. In particular, approximately 89% of the population of Iran are followers of Shia Islam, while another 9% of Iranians are followers of Sunni Islam. The remaining 2% of Iranian citizens are followers of diverse religions including the Baha’I faith, Zoroastrianism, Judaism, and Christianity. In contemporary Iranian history, we can find several major figures that came from non-Persian ethnic groups, chief among them Reza Shah, ruler of Iran from 1924 to 1941 and a Mazandarani, and current Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and vice-president Parviz Davoodi, who are Azeri. For that matter, the current mayor of Tehran, Mohammed Bagher Ghalibaf, is a Shia Kurd. Therefore, it cannot be said that simple status as a non-Persian automatically excludes a person from politics in Iran. The fact of the matter is, ethnicity in Iran means different things to different people, as one scholar discovered:

I asked a young man with whom I had been talking in a coffee house in a small town in north-west Iran, whether he was a Kurd or an Azeri. Kurds and Turkish-speaking Azeris are the major ethnic groups living in that district. His answer baffled me: “I am both a Kurd and an Azeri, and I am a Persian as well.” I thought he was being sophistic and went on questioning him to find out what he really was. What language did he speak at home? That depended; his mother spoke only Kurdish well, but with his father he conversed in both Kurdish and Turkish, and sometimes in Persian. So his father was an Azeri and his mother a Kurd, I ventured, glad to have understood his reaction. No, he objected, his father was also a Kurd and an Azeri and a Persian. These terms were for him purely linguistic, not ethnic labels as I defined them. It did not occur to me then to ask him whether he was a Sunni or a Shi’i…

Speaking about the Kurds in a general sense, we can say that they have several main important characteristics differentiating them from the majority of Iran’s population. First of all, they have their own language, which is related to Persian. Secondly, most Kurds are adherents of Sunni Islam, and finally, they were organized around a tribal social structure.
Iranian Kurdish Political Movements During and After the Second World War

During the turbulent environment of Iran during the Second World War, the Kurds of Iran succeeded in gaining a certain level of autonomy. The opportunity to advance Kurdish Iranian interests arose in the aftermath of the 1941 removal of Reza Shah by the invasion of Iran by Britain and the Soviet Union, who had invaded in order to control Iran’s resources and prevent them from falling under German control. The former emperor of Iran, Reza Shah, who espoused pro-German views, was exiled to South Africa, where he died in 1944.

Without a strong Iranian government to impose internal order, a power vacuum began to form in the area of Iranian Kurdistan, thereby allowing the development of various Kurdish political factions. In light of the fact that a war was on, conditions in Iranian Kurdistan in the early 1940’s were understandably violent. Local law enforcement weakened to the point where, at the end of 1942, “Kurdish tribesmen were swaggering even in Tabriz, clothed in their proscribed traditional costume and armed to the teeth.” In the same year, a rash of violence also occurred in the region near Urmia when a mixed group of Kurds, Armenians and Assyrians formed a group entitled ‘Liberation’, which then proceeded to engage in banditry towards nearby Azeri villages. Furthermore, tribes objected to the government’s arming of local Shia peasants in April. Thus, at the outset, Kurdish political movements were mainly established in response to weaknesses in the implementation of governance by the Persian state.

Several prominent Kurdish political groups sprang up in the early 1940s. The main early group of note was 237-238 Komala-I Jiyanawi Kurdistan (The Committee for the Revival of Kurdistan, popularly known as JK Society). A cellular organization, the JK Society was founded in September 1942. The JK Society espoused principles of ‘ethnic nationalism’, and also was connected with Kurdish groups in Iraq, and later also in Turkey.
Furthermore, the JK Society leaned communist, still, many Kurds in the area around Mahabad were attracted to the movement because it symbolized independence from central government, not necessarily because of any preference for independence in itself, but rather out of distaste for ineffectually poor governance --- for example, there had been a wheat shortage in 1942, and government procurement agencies sometimes failed to pay. Modernization programs instituted by Reza Shah led to “overtaxation, conscription, and prohibition … of trade in certain border regions”.

After the 1941 invasion, the Soviets hoped to advance their interests in Iran, which bordered the Soviet Democratic Republic of Azerbaijan, so the Soviets initially jockeyed for the favor of the Kurds, and tried to bury old feuds with limited success. In trying to ally with the Kurds, the Soviets mainly hoped to annex the territory of Iranian Kurdistan to the Azeri regions of northwestern Iran which had come under Soviet control after the 1941 invasion.
The Tehran government, nominally under the control of Reza Shah’s son, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, also courted the Kurds. Worried that the Kurds would secede, the Tehran government sent a delegation to Kurdistan in November 1941.

The delegation called a meeting of local chiefs. Once the meeting had begun, the delegation disclosed that the government in Tehran would grant Kurds the freedom to bear arms and wear traditional Kurdish garb if the Kurds would agree to recognize the authority of Tehran.
The Kurdish chieftains did not accept the government’s offer quickly---it is significant to note that, besides demanding assurances that confiscated lands would be restored, the Kurdish chiefs had hopes that they or their delegated representatives would gain employment in the government in Tehran. Rather than asking directly for independence, the tribal leaders had first hoped to gain a higher level of enfranchisement in the central government in Tehran.
Also, the Kurdish chieftains hoped to bargain with the Soviet leadership for both independence and self-determination, a proposition that proved to be asking too much from the Soviet leadership. When they were unable to control the Kurds, the Soviet leadership sought to prevent their ascendancy , and in May 1942- representatives of the USSR at a bilateral meeting in Baku told Kurdish delegates that the time had not come for Kurdish independence, although they supported minority self-determination

Naturally, besides the Soviet Union, certain western governments also valued stability in Iran very highly. In particular, British interests in Persia, particularly the government-owned Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, were crucial to both the British economy and to the war effort. A first fear of the British was that any independence by the Kurds might lead to further destabilization in Iran. “If the Kurds in Persia succeed in getting local autonomy supported by us, the Arabs of Khuzistan will want it and Heaven knows who else,” said the British military attaché in Tehran in 1941. Furthermore, the British also worried that Kurdish self-determination moments in Iran might trigger similar movements by Kurdish people living in its ally Turkey, and in Iraq. In particular, Turkey was ‘extremely apprehensive about Allied encouragement of the Iranian Kurds and the destabilization this might provoke in its own Kurdish territory” Regarding Iraq, a success for the Kurds in what would become the Mahabad Republic “would give a disastrous example to the Iraqi tribes and the nationalist agitators in Kirkuk .”

Although the time might not have been ripe in 1942 for independence, later in the war, in 1945, at the prompting of the President of Soviet Azerbaijan, the Kurds took a further step towards self-rule. After a trip to Baku, leader Qazi Muhammad dissolved the JK society and assimilated its members into the newly formed Kurdish Democratic Party (KDPI) , whose goals included autonomy for Iran’s Kurds within Iran, use of the Kurdish language as a medium for education and government, and the establishment of a single law for peasants and nobles. The arrival of Iraqi Kurdish leaders Mulla Mustafa and Shaykh Ahmad Barzani, along with around 1,000 armed and seasoned troops, further boosted the fortunes of the KDPI. At the same time, the Soviet-affiliated Azerbaijan Democrat party’s forces drove Iranian government forces from Tabriz and assumed control of the area. Finally, in January of 1946, Qazi Muhammad declared the establishment of a republic covering Mahabad, Bukan, Naqada and Ushnaviya, with its capital at Mahabad.

Archie Roosevelt Jr., grandson of President Theodore Roosevelt and a US military operative in Iran during WWII, gave the following description of Qazi Muhammad:

A short man of fifty, dressed in an old army overcoat, he had a lightly bearded, slightly ascetic face, slightly yellowish in complexion from a a stomach ailment. He neither smoked nor drank and ate very little. His voice was gentle and well modulated, his gestures quiet but effective. Something of an internationalist, he was interested in all the peoples of the world and knew many languages, including Russian, a little English, and Esperanto. His desk was littered with grammars and readers and literary works in foreign tongues…

Concerned over their interests in Iran, Britain began to apply pressure to their Soviet ally to withdraw from Iran. A key problem for the leadership of the Mahabad Republic was that as its leadership spurned membership in the Democratic Republic of Azerbaijan and refused to support communism, the Soviet leadership in turn felt saw nothing to be gained by antagonizing its allies through supporting the Mahabad Republic. Additionally, any possible Soviet concern for Kurdish autonomy or independence could not overwhelm Soviet need for oil, and for that reason, the Soviets decided to bargain with the government in Tehran. In the end, Iranian Prime Minister Ahmad Qavam scored a coup by securing Soviet withdrawal in exchange for promise of an oil concession in northern Iran. While the Soviets withdrew from Iranian Azerbaijan, Iranian troops quickly reoccupied the area; however, the planned oil concession needed to be ratified by Iran’s parliament before it could be implemented. In the end, parliament did not ratify the Soviet concession, due to nationalist attitudes of various deputies, but Iran successfully retained its territory nevertheless.

The accomplishments of Mahabad Republic included printing a daily newspaper, literary magazines and monthly journal, the establishment of Kurdish-language schools, and the enstatement of a national anthem which stated “the Kurdish-speaking people still exist and that their flag will never fall” . ‘Cut me in pieces until they kill me, I will still say I am a Kurd,” said poet and Iranian Kurdish nationalist Hemin in a poem dating from the Mahabad Republic era.
However, the Mahabad Republic also faced many challenges, such as tribal rivalries and the issue of control of Urmia and Miandoab districts, where populations were mixed. Additionally, allied chiefs disapproved of the KDPI’s stated goal of reforming the laws to make peasants and nobles equal, as well as the presence of the Barzanis. Such internal issues rapidly destroyed the support base for Mahabad’s President Muhammad after the Soviet withdrawal from Iran. Furthermore, after the Soviet withdrawal, the government of Iranian Azerbaijan signed a treaty in mid-June 1946 to return to Iran without reprisal. This treaty also covered the area of Mahabad, thereby indirectly causing the Mahabad Republic to be in revolt against the Iranian government. In August of 1946, Muhammad traveled to Tehran to negotiate with Prime minister Qavam for the establishment of an autonomous region spanning all of Sunni Kurdistan within Iran , but he gained no results.

With the Soviets now out of the picture, the government in Tehran moved rapidly to reassert control over the Mahabad Region. Government forces were ordered to Iranian Azerbaijan and Kurdistan on December 10, 1946. Finally, Tehran’s forces hung Qazi Muhammad for treason in the square in Mahabad in March of 1947, although there had been no major violent resistance to the Iranian government’s army - rather, Qazi Muhammad’s ambitions of state building was more of a threat to the government in Tehran than mere tribal unrest would have been.
Interim Years: Post WWII to 1979

After the destruction of the Mahabad Republic, a period of 25 years passed with minimal political activity from Iran’s Kurds. While not entirely destroyed, the political movement that had controlled Mahabad was forced into hiding and would not re-emerge until the 1970s.
KDPI was virtually obliterated following the collapse of the Mahabad Republic. The remnants of KDPI had ideological similarities to Iran’s communist Tudeh Party, which was also formed in the early 1940s. In the latter half of the 1940s, the Shah began to intervene more frequently in public affairs, although his powers were somewhat limited while Dr. Muhamad Musaddiq held the post of prime minister, beginning in May 1951. However, the Shah’s increased power delayed only two years, as the United States led an overthrow of Musaddiq in August 1953, thereby reinstating the Shah, who promptly clamped down on both Tudeh and the KDPI.
In the following year, KDPI held a party conference near Mahabad in which it refined its aims. Compared with the goals of the Mahabad Republic, the main concern of KDPI in 1954 was the overthrow of the Shah. Other priorities included the creation of a Kurdish entity with its own elected government, liberation of the entire Kurdistan, and the enfranchisement of women.
However, splittist theories were a stumbling block in the relationship between KDPI and Tudeh and other Iranian leftist groups, who feared that the Kurds were in league with the Soviets and would support a posited Soviet invasion of Azerbaijan. The KDPI in Iran was largely ineffectual at forwarding its policies. Rather, during the1950’s the main Kurdish political actions and rebellions took place in Iraq, and the KDPI helped by sending supplies and providing other support.

After a long stretch of relative inaction in Iran, in 1969 KDPI moved towards a more leftist policy, and selected a new party secretary-general in June 1971. Abd al Rahman Qasimlu had studied in Paris in the 1940s and was acquainted with Tudeh. In 1973, the KDPI congress adopted the slogan ‘Democracy for Iran, autonomy for Kurdistan’. The group building up its power until 1978, when people over a large stretch of Kurdistan demonstrated for autonomy. The decay of tribal power structures as Kurds became more sedentary under the shah, as well as land reform and other modernizations, all had contributed to a consolidation of Kurd ethnic identity. Furthermore, issues of social justice under the Shah’s government also contributed to unrest in Kurdistan: the region gained little from the oil-based economic development that swept through Iran under the Shah’s reign. For example, less than 20% of households in Iranian Kurdistan were electrified in 1977, with 12% of houses Kurdistan having piped water and only a 36% literacy rate in the region.


Post-1979

After the inauguration of the Islamic republic , the Kurds hoped for greater autonomy under the Islamic republic, as well a local administration conceived ‘along secular and democratic lines’ , but such hopes went largely unfulfilled.

Immediately after the Islamic Revolution, Kurdish forces began to act independently in the countryside of Iranian Kurdistan, as the new government of the Islamic Republic proved unwilling to consider KDPI’s demand was for autonomy of Kurdistan in a federated Iran. The Kurdish forces came into conflict with the newly formed ‘Revolutionary Guards’, the Pasdaran. Overall, Kurdish forces controlled most of the countryside in Kurdistan until 1982-1983 . As for cities, they ‘remained under tenuous control by the regime’ – Ayatollah Khalkhali, the ‘hanging judge’ and the Pasdaran were hated for their use of brutal pacification tactics in Kurdistan.
Several factors influenced the conflict between the two sides and rendered them unable to settle on a modus vivendi. Leadership structures for both the government in Tehran and the Kurds remained unclear. For the Tehran government, it was required to answer to the religious authority centered upon Ayatollah Khomeni in the city of Qum.

As for the Kurds, they underwent an internal power struggle between the KDPI, centered in Mahabad and Urmia, the Iraqi branch Kurdish Democratic Party (‘KDP’) in the north of Iranian Kurdistan, who had been co-opted by the Iranian government , the Organization of Revolutionary Toilers of Iranian Kurdistan (‘Komala’, a radical Kurdish independence force) in the south , and various opportunistic clerics and landowners .

Komala held its strength in the Sanandaj-Mariwan region in southern Kurdistan, where Tudeh had also been active. The people of the region were also attracted to Komala because it was more perceived as being more democratic than KDPI. Komala favored decentralization of government, was more than willing to fight with the Tehran government, but was unwilling to compromise- this posture undermined KDPI’s conciliatory stance and made it difficult for KDPI to work together with the government in Tehran. Eventually, KDPI and Komala cooperated for a period of 2 years from 1982 to 1984. This reconciliation occurred around the time that Komala participated in the foundation of the Communist party of Iran, which happened in 1982. Komala paid the price for this change, as lost supporters due to the fact that Komala was no longer a strictly Kurdish party. Much later, in 1991, Komala resumed a Kurdish identity.

For its part, the perspective of the leadership of the Islamic Republic towards the Kurds resembled the views that the British had held in the 1940s--- apprehension, particularly that any concession made to Kurds would then need to be extended to other groups of Iranian minorities. Therefore, although the June 1979 draft constitution had promised that Kurds, among others, would enjoy equal rights, the final draft of the constitution heavily favored Shia Islam. For this reason, the Kurds abstained almost unanimously from voting on the Constitution. The situation deteriorated quickly: Khomeini outlawed KDPI in the second half of 1979, while in 1980 the government made a major assault on Kurdistan. In the assault, the presence of Pasdaran caused problems, due to the fact that they were militantly Shia and only answerable to imam komitehs. The inability to cooperate ultimately led to repercussions for the government during the Iran-Iraq war: KDPI leadership refused to fight the Iraqi army until the Tehran government admitted the principle of Kurdish autonomy and withdrew forces from Kurdistan.
The period of alliance between the Iranian Kurds and the government in the later 1980s that resulted after the withdrawal of government troops from Iranian Kurdistan shattered in 1989, when the death of Ayatollah Khomeini precipitated a move by the government to kill off the leaders of Kurdish political movements- including Abd al Rahman Qasimlu. Six weeks later a major Komala official was assassinated, and additionally, Qasimlu’s successor Dr. Sadiq Sharafkindi was assassinated in 1992. At the same time, the government once again sent troops into Kurdistan, where the KDPI, with support from the local populace, fought a guerilla war against government troops.

Hoping for a change, the voters of Iranian Kurdistan came out strongly to vote for Mohammed Khatami in the 1997 Presidential election, yet were disappointed by the slow pace of improvements in life under his administration. Khatami had run on a platform of reform and pluralism, but when major demonstrations broke out in Kurdistan in 1999 after the capture of Kurdish guerilla leader Abdullah Ocalan, Khatami’s crackdown killed 30 people, wounded hundreds, and led to thousands of arrests. These crackdowns and continuing repression have caused the Kurds to become more coalesced in their behavior as an opposition movement, although it has not led to a new nationalist movement.


Conclusion

When thinking about the contemporary history of Kurdish political movements in Iran, in light of various other political movements across the greater Middle East region, several interesting points of contemplation come to the fore. First of all, it is notable that the Kurds in Iran have been relatively content to remain a part of the Iranian state, compared to their counterparts in Iraq and Turkey. This quietism exists in sharp contrast to the Iranian Kurds’ inability to secure meaningful political change, either under the Shah’s monarchical rule or under the Islamic Republic: it is striking that the Kurds have remained relatively nonviolent and committed to secular reform within the political process, despite the lack of recognition for their religion or for their wishes for higher levels of autonomy. Unfortunately, the historical association of their political groups with the USSR may have meant that aiding such organizations was extremely unpalatable to countries such as the United States and Britain, which is a problem that has beset other reformist movements in the Middle East. However, with an Islamist government in power, and no military dictatorship in sight, the United States has the conundrum of having nowhere to turn to choose a worthy ally in Iran.

76% of electors in Kurdistan province chose Mohammed Khatami in 1997, and it is likely that this year they will once again support a reformist candidate. However, what, if any, meaningful change will be made to the political status of Kurdish people in Iran remains to be seen.

800 words on IOC Investment in Venezuela: Where the Oil Party Never Stops

2009 has brought great changes in geopolitics- the ascendance of Barack Obama to the presidency of the United States has already brought such changes as an order to close the United States’ Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba, and the Obama ascendancy has also brought the possibility of a thaw in recently strained relations in the Middle East. Against the backdrop of this topsy-turvy world, international oil companies are even going so far as to consider reconciliation with Venezuela.

Investing in Venezuela, which inherently entails cooperation with Hugo Chavez’ Venezuelan government would seem to be a dicey proposal at best for international oil companies. Recent examples of Mr. Chavez’ disdain for the property rights abound: only two years ago, Mr. Chavez sent international oil companies ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips packing when they disagreed with his policies. Chavez controls oil rents, the main source of revenues for the country , and has shown already that he isn’t afraid to play hardball with IOCs or with customers such as the United States.

However, it is readily apparent that the one-two combination slumping oil prices and global financial security have put Chavez on the ropes--- without the expertise and investment of international oil companies, Venezuela’s oil industry may have trouble continuing. "There is no international financing in sight for Venezuela," Heliodoro Quintero, Venezuela's former OPEC representative, told the Associated Press recently .

For this reason, dear investors, a reach for the phone to drop your shares in Total or Shell may be premature. As the price of oil goes, so too must the economic policy of Venezuela--- currently Venezuela counts 93% of its export revenues as coming from oil.
Crude oil 1-year future prices, which were almost $150 per barrel last year , have plummeted to around $55 as of this morning, a level at which Venezuela’s extra-heavy crude is less economically viable and development of new frontier oil fields may be uneconomical . Analysts predict that oil prices will stay close to this level for some time, meaning that there may yet be some mid-term play for investors holding shares in IOCs such as Royal Dutch Shell(NYSE: RDS) and Total (NYSE: TOT) who have reached out to Venezuela in its time of need.
A Reuters poll of 32 industry analysts said that oil was expected to average $55 per barrel in 2009 , well below the level that would allow certain types of unconventional oil to be economically feasible. Analysts indicated that decreased demand for oil accompanying the current worldwide economic slowdown was primarily to blame: "Prices will go down further as we hit a deeper economic recession over 2009”, analyst Davide Tabarelli of Italian energy consultancy Nomisma Energia told Reuters in an article dated yesterday. Furthermore, new production coming on-line in Iraq, as well as Angola and Brazil, may contribute to stable prices , as may large on-ship reserves, which are at the highest level in 25 years.

To be sure, oil prices will not stay low forever. "Recovery should start from the beginning of 2010”, said Mr. Tabarelli. The Reuters poll indicated that analysts expected an oil price rally in 2010 to around $72 a barrel, and to rise further in 2011 to $86 per barrel.

For its part, Venezuela and other OPEC member states have also given signs that they plan to cut production further if prices do not rebound. OPEC has already cut its production by 4.2 million barrels per day , but Venezuela’s oil minister and PDVSA President and CEO Rafael Ramirez indicated last week that Venezuela would be willing to participate in another production cut if necessary. Along the same lines, Algerian Energy and Mines Minister Chakib Khelil also predicted recently that OPEC may agree to a further production cut in response to any further drop in prices, which Goldman Sachs analysts recently predicted could slide to as low as $30 per barrel in the first quarter of 2009.

One ray of hope that Chavez may not immediately resume his wicked ways when the oil prices climb once again is that Venezuela also requires investment in its refining capacity- Venezuela requires new upgraders to make its extra-heavy crude refineable — and PDVSA is looking for bidders to help build three of the facilities, which would not be completed until 2014 , which might give Chavez pause before he decides to nationalize oil company assets again.

With this thought in mind, it may be acceptable to proceed with caution. Shell knows full well the experience of being shut out of a developing market, having recently endured a messy loss of its Russian gas holdings , and oil companies require new projects to ensure steady revenues. The actions of President Chavez remain unpredictable, and his likely response to a rebound in oil prices down the road remains unclear. Therefore, although it’s safe to keep the stock in Total and Shell for the time being, don’t remove your broker’s number from the speed-dial list, because you may need it soon enough.

School Paper: Asymmetrical Warfare, Economics, and Old Tactics Revisited

Writing around the year 500 BCE, the Chinese philosopher Sun Tzu said:
“In the operations of war, where there are in the field a thousand swift chariots, as many heavy chariots, and a hundred thousand mail-clad soldiers, with provisions enough to carry them a thousand li the expenditure at home and at the front, including entertainment of guests, small items such as glue and paint, and sums spent on
chariots and armor, will reach the total of a thousand ounces of silver per day. Such is the cost of raising an army of 100,000 men. ”

Even at the time of Sun Tzu’s writing, during China’s Spring and Autumn period , economic concerns greatly influenced warfare. Furthermore, the idea of optimizing use of forces in the face of a stronger enemy existed even then:
“If [an enemy] is secure at all points, be prepared for him. If
he is in superior strength, evade him… Attack him where he is unprepared, appear where you are not expected…if the campaign is protracted, the resources of
the State will not be equal to the strain. ”

Sun Tzu’s final statement regarding the resources of the state resonates quite strongly with recent American travails in both Vietnam and Iraq. Although the United States Army is often considered to be the best equipped and most modern army in the world, it has encountered problems in many recent engagements. A key example are the current operations in Iraq, where At least 4,226 American servicemen have died in Iraq as of Monday, 12 January 2009 according to a recent Associated Press report , of which a substantial majority actually died in post- combat operations. The United States armed forces’ experience in Iraq prompts a very pertinent question: “How is it that the United States is neither able to completely prevent fatalities nor to completely destroy insurgent resistance in Iraq?”
The conflict between the highly-armed coalition forces and the insurgency presents us with a classic case of asymmetrical warfare.
During most of the post-WWII decades of the 20th century, the United States focused military preparations mainly on its cold war nemesis, the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union was a superpower, like the United States, and hence represented a symmetric threat. Although both sides of the conflict may or may not have chosen to employ similar tactics or technologies in the event of a hot conflict, they were similar in the amount of resources available to them and the sizes of their land masses. On the other hand, the United States differs greatly from Iraq in the amount of financial, technological, and military resources it possesses, in the size of its army, and in its level of access to satellite maps and information. In all conventional areas, the United States outclasses local forces in Iraq. The conflict between US forces and local insurgents is therefore, asymmetrical.
Asymmetrical warfare requires an extension of maneuver warfare to its logical conclusion: the weaker side must fight with minimum use of materiel and manpower, and only striking at an enemy’s weak points. Any waste of resources on the part of the weaker actor cannot be tolerated---in fact, attrition warfare is anathema to the weaker party in an asymmetrical conflict. Rather, the weaker party in an asymmetrical conflict uses advantages in terrain, information gathering, organizational structure and stealth as force multipliers. Distribution of such advantages may vary depending on whether the weaker actor attacks or defends; however, under the right set of circumstances, weaker actors are still able to survive when fighting against a stronger enemy, even one so large and powerful as the United States. According to a 1996 article, “leadership for the foreseeable future will proceed less from the military capacity to crush
any opponent and more from the ability quickly to reduce the ambiguity of violent situations, to respond flexibly, and to use force, where necessary, with precision and accuracy.” Although new weaponry technology has allowed for more precise use of force, for example by use of cruise missiles or targeted air strikes, such technology has not advanced to the point that it is able to completely locate and overcome troops mixing into a conquered civilian population. Thus, the choice becomes whether to annihilate a region’s populace indiscriminately and thereby risk loss of moral authority and other soft power, or to attempt surgical strikes. Before the advent of mass media, the first choice functioned adequately to prevent insurgencies, but presently, the second method has become more prevalent.
Unfortunately, advances in weapons and information technology have not always been able properly differentiate targets in order to prevent waste of materials and civilian casualties, nor can they overcome widespread support for insurgencies that arises from outside forces’ occasional use of heavy-handed tactics and lack of knowledge or respect regarding local languages and customs. Each day an insurgency survives, an invading large state wastes excessive amounts of resources to maintain its soldiers on the alert, whereas the insurgency forces often spend relatively little---the needs of varying actors varies greatly. In the case of symmetrical warfare, similarity of needs comprises a key factor in both the tactics employed and the goals held by actors. In the case of asymmetrical warfare, the weaker can utilize its low needs and simple defensive goals to great advantage. Examples abound: insurgent forces use devices such as shoulder-mounted RPGs and IEDs, as well as tactics such as abduction and bombings, to level force disparities with significant rates of efficacy. The new development of warfare is sometimes called 4th generational war- whereas the United States still operates a centrally-controlled 2nd generation army which focuses mainly on close fire coordination and material advantages. Oddly enough, although 4th generation forces use contemporary weapons systems, combination of these contemporary weapons systems with tactics such as those described by Sun Tzu over 2000 years ago has tilted the balance of asymmetrical warfare towards the smaller actor.