In my recent book review, I mentioned about one of my old piece about U-2 surveillance flights from Pakistan; published in September 2010 issue of Defence Journal. Many asked for the piece and I‘m sending to my list. Some of you may have already seen it. It was written almost ten years ago. It is quite long as I covered many areas. Read it if you have interest in that chapter of cold war and lot of free time on hand.
Eye in the Sky – United States, Pakistan and Reconnaissance during Cold War
Hamid Hussain
‘Being a friend of the United States is like living on the banks of a great river. The soil is wonderfully fertile, but every four or eight years the river changes course, and you may find yourself alone in a desert’. Pakistan’s army chief and President General Muhammad Zia ul Haq to CIA director William Casey, 1983 (1)
United States and Soviet Union were engaged in a worldwide competition for dominance after the Second World War. Intelligence gathering was an important part of this power struggle between the two super powers. In the pre-satellite era, high altitude reconnaissance by special aircraft and signal interception were key components of intelligence gathering. In 1950s and 60s, these operations were conducted from United States as well as from bases all around the globe.
A variety of equipment was used to gather intelligence including static electronic monitoring facilities on the borders of Soviet Union, high altitude reconnaissance aircraft such as U-2 and RB-57 to collect electronic (ELINT), signals (SIGINT), photos (PHOTOINT), telemetry (TELEINT) and air sampling for detection of radiation emanating from nuclear test sites. Several agencies including Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Strategic Air Command (SAC) of United States Air Force (USAF), United States Air Force Security Service (USAFSS), United States Army Special Security (USASS) and National Security Agency (NSA) were involved in these wide ranging intelligence activities.
Main focus of these operations was monitoring of missile and nuclear test sites, location of bombers, missile sites and radars and eavesdropping on Soviet communication system. The general agreement between United States and Pakistan was that in return for Pakistan’s cooperation in such activities, United States would modernize Pakistani armed forces. Pakistani part of the deal included provision of facilities for U.S. intelligence gathering operations as well as cooperation in some aspects of the operation. Both parties entered into these agreements looking at their own interests. United States saw Pakistan as a window through which to peep into Soviet Union’s backyard and Pakistan saw this cooperation as a shortest possible way of modernizing its armed forces. Continue reading “Eye in the Sky. Pakistan and Cold War Aerial Reconnaissance”
Three years ago, Swati Mylavarapu had never worked for a political campaign and attended just a single campaign fundraiser.
Now, the 36-year-old Silicon Valley investor is a financial force behind one of the best fundraisers in the Democratic presidential primary, serving as national investment chairwoman for Pete Buttigieg, a fellow Harvard graduate and Rhodes Scholar whom she has known for half her life.
Indian Americans are 1% of America’s population. And in the older generation of 1.5 and 2nd generation far less (“Generation X”). But they sure are punching above their weight!
Many questions on this weblog would be answered if the individuals just read Who We Are and How We Got Here: Ancient DNA and the New Science of the Human Past. Not all questions would be answered. The book is dated in some ways, and there are certain lacunae. There are also things we still don’t know to any great satisfaction (e.g., Eastern Eurasia is under-understood). But to a first approximation, this book answers most big questions, at least from a scientific perspective.
Though American price on Kindle is $4.99, this may not be feasible for some readers. There are free preprints of almost all of the Reich lab’s publications on the lab’s website.
This post seems relevant since new readers may not be aware of the resources out there.
At my other weblog I report on evidence that a sample from Cambodia dated to 100 to 300 AD seems to have considerable Indian ancestry. This is not a result in isolation. Lots of evidence points to non-trivial Indian gene flow. The devil is now in the details of when/who.
Second, there is lots of talk about “person X looks like population Y, so perhaps they have ancestry from population Y.” This is almost certainly wrong in most cases.
Looking at Indian populations there tends to be far more variation in physical appearance within a population than the variation of total ancestry. In other words, some Tamil Brahmins look like South Indian Tribal people and other Tamil Brahmins look like West Asians. But in terms of total ancestral components, there’s no difference.
The theoretical explanation for what’s going on is that the genetic loci which control “physical appearance” are much smaller in number than the whole genome (on the order of dozens of loci). As such, the sample variance is rather large (the N denominator is small).
South Asian populations differ across each other, but there is usually a quite large within-population variation on genetic variants implicated in physical characteristics. This means that there are a large range and quite a bit of variation.
Though a lot of the discussion involves Muslims, I have heard from multiple non-Muslim people of Northwest Indian stock (e.g., Pandits) that they must have “Persian ancestry” because they look so Persian. The genetics refutes this rather strongly. Rather, modern Persians and many Northwest Indians share deep ancestry which diverged after the Last Glacial Maximum 20,000 years ago.
With things popping off in the Middle East (esp with Iran), I thought it would be good to provide a big pic overview over the main driving conflict in the region – Saudi Arabia vs Iran,
I’ve done a comprehensive 4 part series called A Tale of Oil and Fire: The Saudi-Iran Conflict that I will link in parts below for easier reading (posting the whole thing here is gigantic/too much):
What are you guys’ predictions on the upcoming turbulence (if there even is any)? With 2020 US elections, an infuriated Iran, weary Gulf, and a quiet Turkish shadow in the backdrop – we may be set for an interesting scenario in the tinderbox of the world.
PS: Latest development in Iran; apparently a pretty culturally/theologically significant event –
Watch: First Time In The History of Iran, Red Flag hoisted Over The Holy Dome Of Jamkarān Mosque,Iran. This is one of the most significant Mosque of Iran
One of the weirdest emails I’ve ever received. Click to enlarge
The insults directed to me by people who are Pakistani or by people who are Hindus are peculiar, because they presuppose a sense of communal identity which I mostly lack. Insults toward Bengalis and Muslims just leave me scratching my head. Also, now that I am no longer 15 I don’t think that the measure of a man is how much “pussy” they bag….
I was having a discussion with a young person of subcontinental origin who is completing a STEM Ph.D. An open-minded and curious person and they asked me to exposit to them why a post-colonial paradigm that reduces all non-Western/white peoples to being objects in a narrative driven by Western/white agents is built on false premises. My candid opinion is that this is not something that one can explain in a single conversation, or in a single article. The reason is simple: if you don’t know much you are ultimately relying on someone else’s credibility.
I think I’m a credible person, but obviously I would think that. Unfortunately, history is messy, complex, and filled with shades and textures that can only be appreciated through direct consumption, not description. You need to read the history yourself and reflect upon it deeply in a first-person sense.
The reality is that there are plainly mendacious actors out there who launder their credentials to promote lies. This behavior knows no ideology but is quite common and pervasive. Often these “public historians” do not lie or spread falsehood directly, but they obfuscate and redirect attention in such a manner so that their audience draws particular ‘natural’ conclusions which are at variance with reality as we understand it.
I particularly recommend history written about the time before 1800, because the foundations of the present often run quite deep, an assertion which directly undercuts the logic of post-colonialism, where the recent overwhelms the past.
On occasion, readers will question why it is so important to know broadly and deeply to understand the particular. That is due to the reality that the particular is simply the terminal node in a tree of decisions which fans out into the past and across continents.
The world breaks down into three major factions: ——post modernists (psychotic in need of urgent medical services) ——Islamists ——“non post modernists and non Islamists” Can Rwanda, the Asian Tiger of Africa, inspire and lead the global “non post modernists and non Islamists”? Can Rwanda inspire and lead the globalists?
As the United Kingdom’s Labour Party swallowed a staggering loss, it’s clear that we see a pattern across the world. Election after election, Left parties collapse against either centrist or frequently right wing parties. Does this imply a victory for the “Global Right?”
The crux of Joseph’s argument lies in the fact that Leftists have become constantly concerned with grand humanitarian conflicts and cosmopolitan problems while Right Wingers are more concerned with “skin in the game” local issues. The Leftist leader shouts in a city square about human rights abuses in Israel, America, India, the UK, etc… (all while conveniently ignoring much, much worse abuses in less pluralistic and less democratic countries). The Right Wing leader is on the hinterland battleground listening to disaffected and ignored voters about their latest economic or communal ailment. The Left has become caught up in the noise in the air while the Right have their ears to the ground.
Of course, you may notice that lately there has been some hobnobbing amongst many “nationalist” or Right Wing leaders. Yet this exercise will only go so far.
Consider this – put an American Evangelical Christian and an Indian Hindu Hardliner in a room together. While they may both agree on their disdain of radical Islam, they will reach an impasse when the Evangelical explains to the Hindu Hardliner that they will burn in hell for eternity for not believing in our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. The Hindu Hardliner will then tell the Evangelical to stop sending missionaries who destroy indigenous Indian culture with their conversion agenda. This clash will overwhelm any commonalities in the long run.
Bring a group of Leftists from disparate places such as London, New York, and New Delhi and you will have free flowing conversations about the liberation of Palestine, proper pronoun use, and how one needs to read more Marxist theory for communism to work.
Even on economics, Right Wingers from different nations will have vehement disagreements. The British Tories are distinctly to the left of American Democrats. Narendra Modi (who many times is described as “Far Right”) has enacted more “Socialist” policies in 5 years than Bernie Sanders will probably ever do in his lifetime. Modi has achieved the wildest economic initiatives of American Democrats yet is labeled as India’s doom and gloom; which is in direct contrast to his staggering electoral victories.
International Media Spent 5 Years Relaying Apocalyptic Missives Regarding Modi, Only to See Him Gain an Even Greater Majority – Something Almost Unheard of in India
Finally, we have to acknowledge the grand chasm between international media’s narratives and ground realities. The raucous and slanted theater over the 2016 US, 2019 UK, and 2019 Indian elections show how massively wrong reporting was. This was a validation of localist siege mentalities regarding the media as well as the growing distrust people have in it.
The Other
What is a nation?
Is it its citizens? Its borders? Its values? Its history? Its present? Its future?
Of course, a reasonable take is that it is all of the above. The Left’s problem is that it has disconnected from its old base (the working class) partly because it has more or less forsaken the first 3 (notions of citizenship, borders, and local values).
The rural proletariat backbone of Left parties across the world have now been labeled as bigots, uncouth, and “deplorables;” simply because they refuse to digest runaway academic politicking, sneering towards their local tradition, and denigrating of their skin color or religion.
Anti-CAA Protestors in India Display a Morphed Om, the Sacred Hindu Symbol, in Nazi Swastika (A Symbol Stolen by Nazis) Style. Displays Such as These Inflame Majorities and Harm Protest Goals.
The Left’s relentless attack on their countries’ respective “majorities” has manifested into electoral backlashes. Even in loss, we’ve seen their ideologues double down on this suicidal oration.
On top of this is the perception of the Left engaging in vote banking with minorities. With the Left capitulating to certain antisocial elements in minority groups, majorities have become even more infuriated. Whether its the Labour Party massaging the antisemitism of Islamists in the UK, Indian opposition parties lionizing protestors who canonize terrorists, or American Democrats sticking their head in the sand over the spillover of drug and gang violence from Mexico – Left parties across the world have been made bare over their apathy towards their vote banks’ faults.
Does this mean all minorities should be shamed and hounded for their misdeeds? Absolutely and unequivocally no. All communities in a nation, whether in majority or minority should move to remove their faults and prosper forward. However, the reality is that localist parties have now been given enough ammo from the Left to consolidate majorities in their countries. The Left’s vote bank vetos have lost their old potency and must face the mirror or face the music.
From Revolution to Rosé
Soviet Bolshevik Era Propaganda Poster – Emphasis on Workers
The march of muddied boots under red flags used to send shivers up the spine of capitalists. Now capitalists rally around the latest “woke” trend and other inane culture wars that are ripe for the investment into perpetual outrage. Old Left leaders came from factory floors, while the current crop comes from Ivy Leagues and ivory towers. The formally faithful worker base asks for policy changes regarding welfare, wages, and trade; while the bourgeoise urban elite donors and leadership demand new articles highlighting “X-phobia” and identity politics.
And when the Left does decide to finally wade into economic issues, the results have been lackluster.
The topic of the Left’s economic evolution is worthy of a book in and of itself. Every country’s economic situation and externalities are very unique; so it is futile to paint their economic portrait either free market green or a socialist red. However, a common theme across the world has been Left parties holding the torch of economic reform only to run either half measures or trip up over useless communal quarrels.
America is a prime arena as the economic tug of war is in full force here.
While markets have recovered and wildly prospered post-2008, many Americans feel like they missed the ship. These same Americans would propel Trump into power as they saw the Democrats’ half hearted economic agenda failing them. The Democrats would face a wave of economic populism to finish what Obama started, but this would drown under toxic identity politics introduced by the mainstream Clinton camp to nullify Sanders’ swell. The problem came about when Clinton lost and now a new wave of Democrats combined both Clinton’s social agenda with Sanders’ economic direction. As various elections across the world have shown, this is not a reliable concoction.
While older Left parties were seen as champions of the working class, they have increasingly championed policies that hurt them. Open borders and mass immigration rhetoric would be devastating to lower income people with depressed wages and increased job competition. Scathing criticism of the “billionaire class” by multi-millionaire politicians not only looks like ridiculous rhetoric but is absolutely ineffective policy. Billionaires and the mega rich are indeed the global citizens that many Leftists wish they were. As Europe’s failed wealth tax experiment showed, the rich will simply move abroad or tell their accountant to move their money.
A Path Forward
A light in these dark times for the (Western) Left is demography. The youth overwhelmingly favor Left parties in places like the US and Europe (India is the opposite where youth are placing faith in the BJP). American youth even have a positive tilt towards socialism. I can imagine a recession in the near future will shatter the walls to universal healthcare, major subsidies in education, and maybe even UBI.
However, what the Left must work on is ushering in renewed faith amongst the majorities of their nations. A ceasing of incessant attacks on majority culture, customs, and values is a must. It is all right to call out the problems of slavery, imperialism, etc… of the past, but the crimes of the past should not rest on the shoulders of those in the present. Likewise, current issues regarding discrimination shouldn’t be blanketed over whole populations.
Concerning immigration, it is a topic for individual nations dependent on context and demographics. An open or loose border ideal won’t work for most nations if any due to either economic constrains or demographic antagonism.
Andrew Yang and Tulsi Gabbard at the Democratic Debates
In America at least, I see glimpses of a future winning ticket in politicians such as Andrew Yang and Tulsi Gabbard (though both will most likely not win the primaries) who shun the vociferous social histrionics of much of their party while presenting decidedly Left articulations of economics without wading into full blown socialist visions. They stand their ground all while standing up for minorities as equal citizens instead of coddled vote banks or vilified communities. All this, while tackling the impending massive changes to the economy as the information age veers into full swing.
It is more than clear that Left parties have their work cut out for them. Introspection is the best prescription I can offer them as their current path will only lead to ruin. The world needs their kind for ideological balance, sensible opposition, and checks to an increasingly dominant right wing across the world.
Time will tell when sense returns to the Left. Till then, localism will reign.
