Integral Dynamics

On Saturday 3 November, in Pakistan, President Pervez Musharraf declared a state of emergency, suspending the Constitution, blacking out all independent television news reports and filling the streets of the capital with police officers and soldiers.

Stolberg and Cooper wrote in the New york Times,

General Musharraf’s move to seize emergency powers and abandon the Constitution left Bush administration officials close to their nightmare: an American-backed military dictator who is risking civil instability in a country with nuclear weapons and an increasingly alienated public.

And the situation is even worse than “risking civil instability in a country with nuclear weapons“. As Stanley Kurtz wrote in the NRO,

Al Qaeda has controlled the mountainous northern tribal region of Waziristan for more than a year, and has expanded its reach across other tribal regions, and even into cities, over that time. Bin Laden and his Taliban allies are waging a campaign of suicide bombings aimed at overthrowing the government and turning Pakistan into a nuclear-armed Al Qeadastan.

The United States is in a very difficult position.

The worst case scenario of this emergency would go something like this:

• Pakistan’s president is NOT Pervez Musharraf
• Pakistan becomes an extrimists Islamic state
• Pakistan can NOT be ‘trusted’ with nuclear weapons
• Pakistan’s public opinion is NOT positive about the United States and Musharraf
• United States and Pakistan have NOT a good relationship
• Pakistan DOES NOT cooperates with the United States and NATO in the war against terrorism

And possible,

• Al-Qaeda obtains a so-called dirty bomb

What to do?

U. S.’ Plan A would be something like this: Get back to a ‘normal’ situation in Pakistan as soon as possible.

The objectives formulated as a kind of reversal of the above worst case scenario.

• Pervez Musharraf stays President
• A more or less democratic election is held
• Benazir Bhutto becomes Prime Minister
• Pakistan continues to cooperate with the United States on the war on terror

But what if Plan A does not work. And chances are probably / likely that this plan will not work. Musharraf is riding a hungry man-eating tiger.

And Islamism has been growing in Pakistan for years increasing the risk that Pakistan becomes an extremists / anti western Islamic state with nuclear weapons.

Plan B

Plan B is not, I repeat, NOT to nuke Pakistan.

The primary objectives of Plan B would be:

(a) Get Al Qaeda

(b) Denuclearize Pakistan

Daveed Gartenstein-Ross wrote in the Weekly Standard,

A year ago, after the signing of one agreement, Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States told a network reporter, “The Waziristan accord is not a good thing–it’s a very good thing. It’s a new step.”

And may be he is - afterall - right. It created the situation that Al-Qaeda’s global leadership with possibly Osama bin Laden is (probably) based in Waziristan.

Therefore to get Al Qaeda, the U.S. government has to be invited by Musharraf (as an emergent and extraordinary measure) to have the U.S. military seal off Wazirstan and close in on Al-Qaeda.

And to denuclearize Pakistan – meaning: getting rid of the nuclear weapons of Pakistan — it would be best if all nuclear weapons would be completely gone, second best that these weapons would be under U.S. control.

Pakistan could ‘voluntarily’ sell it nuclear weapons to the United States for a good price and for a nuclear umbrella of the United States in case India or China or … (fill in the dots) would threaten or attack Pakistan with nuclear weapons.

And to complete this removeal of nuclear weapons out of Pakistan, it would also mean the removal of the capability of making nuclear weapons.

It means that Pakistan’s nuclear experts get an offer they can’t refuse. A very rude offer would be: either you move to the United States and work for us or we move you to Guantanamo Bay with our special rendition program. I trust the US planners can come up with some better, more friendly proposal.

The problem, as always, is: How do you get someone else to do what you want him to do?

How do you get Musharraf to cooperate with Plan B? I don’t have answers to that question but I suppose that if the U.S. government really really really wants this done it can convince those in power.

On Sunday, Tehran Times featured the story “Iran says ME tensions will propel oil price to $120” (link).

According to Nasser Sudani, vice chairman of the Energy Committee of Majlis (Iran’s parliament),

Oil price would rise to 120 dollars if tensions in the Middle East continued.

And today, AFP featured the story, “Oil surges above 93 dollars in Asian trade” (link).

According to David Moore, a commodity strategist with the Commonwealth Bank of Australia in Sydney

“Geopolitical tensions, issues regarding tensions between Turkey and Kurdish rebels… those sort of factors have added to oil prices.”

The reasons given for the increase of the price of oil are the ‘usual suspects’, like:

Firstly, geopolitical tensions, for instance, caused by

• health of the US economy
• strength of the US dollar
• Middle East tensions, consisting of fear of:
  • Turkey will invade the Kurdish region of Iraq
  • War between United States and Iran
  • United States imposes unilateral new sanctions on Iran
  • United Nations Security Council will approve a new round of sanctions against Iran
  • Military threats against Syria
  • Military threats against Lebanon

Secondly, an increase of global demand, for instance,

• growing demand of China and India
• cold season demand
• stockpiling by the US and other Western countries
• speculation by traders

Third, a decrease of global production and supply of oil, for instance, caused by

• war in Iraq
• unrest in the oil sector in Nigeria
• hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico
• declining oil fields in Mexico
  (see also Key Global Issue: Mexico)
• the impossibility of quickly increasing (on-demand) oil supply.

Also on Monday, Russia Today featured the story, “Oil price: the US$ 100 barrel on its way?” (link) 

According to a forecast of Aleksey Kudrin, Deputy Prime Minister of Russia:

“The oil price is very high and this affects political events and some speculations. But if we talk about the longer term of 15 to 20 years, for which we’ve planned the economy, a more realistic price would be between US$ 50 and US$ 60. I say this because if the price goes too high, it will slow down economic growth and also spur the use of alternative energy sources.”

IDEA of Open-Ended Issues

Translated into most relevant Open-Ended Issues (OEIs) it gives the following table.

Causal Relations

The above factors with there causal relations placed in a causal map gives the following picture.

However, it is good to realize that not all causal relations between the OEIs are of the same order.

For instance, how strong is the impact of geopolitical tensions on the global oil price. Opinions will differ and are highly subjective. According to Big Mike’s Contrarian Investing Blog the relation isn’t that important.

~~~~~~~~

Updates

2007-10-31: Russia Today article added with implications for the causal loops map.

Associated Press reported that Russia Sends Long Bombers Back on Patrol (link).

Two important statements

Russia and China executed war games on Russia’s soil near the Urals Mountain city of Chelyabinsk.
The war games involved some 6,000 troops from both countries, along with soldiers from four ex-Soviet Central Asian nations that are part of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin placed strategic bombers back on long-range patrol.
This is for the first time since the breakup of the Soviet Union.

Both statements signal a growing tension between the united States and Russia, especially regarding Central Asia.

IDEA of this story resulted in the following Open-Ended Issues,

• Central Asia contains vast hydrocarbon resources, with indicators: yellow, almost certainly
• China’s influence in Central Asia grows, with indicators: orange, even chance
• Russia’s influence in Central Asia grows, with indicators: orange, even chance
• Russia increases its military spending, with indicators: orange, almost certainly
• United States‘ influence in Central Asia grows, with indicators: orange, even chance

This gives the following Key Global Issues Monitor.

(more…)

Beijing persuaded the World Bank to cut from a report findings that pollution has caused about 750,000 premature deaths in China each year because of concerns that findings on premature deaths was too sensitive and could provoke “social unrest”, the Financial Times reported. (link / back-up link)

When I looked up the term “social unrest”  in Wikipedia (link)  I was redirected to the term “rebelion”.

A rebellion is, in the most general sense, a refusal to accept authority. It may therefore be seen as encompassing a range of behaviours from civil disobedience to a violent organized attempt to destroy established authority. It is often used in reference to armed resistance against an established government, but can also refer to mass nonviolent resistance movements.

Given the above description there is a lot of rebellion in this world. And rightly so. (more…)