CHUBAN

Recent Political Crises
CHUBAN (MIDDLE GAME)

The FY/J (Former Yugoslavia / Jugoslavia) crisis threatens the European Union with terminal disease. Alija Izbegovic is rumoured to have compared Milosevic and Tujdeman with leukemia and brain cancer. As the war drags on the grand project of the European Union is threatened as never before, by mental confusion.

There are some, militarists perhaps, who feel that the international community would benefit from getting tough with the Serbs, but this is not true. The various coalitions of 'great powers' benefit from their idols and their demons. They were all able to demonise Libya and Iraq to the extent of denying Tripoli and Baghdad regular international air services, just like Sarajevo and Belgrade.

This is the same international community which was able to face down Stalin for the sake of Berlin in 1948. A collection of 'western allied powers' comprising France, Britain and the USA, but mainly the USA, were able to supply a major city entirely by air against the wishes of a tyrant who had not yet achieved 100% nuclear capability. Nowadays they cringe against a few Bosnian Serb soldiers drunk on slivovich. Of course the real reason is that they felt that they were defending 'liberal-democracy' against 'marx-lenin-stalin' communism, and now they are asked to defend 'liberal-Islam' against the suicidal alliance between 'orthodox communism' and orthodox Christianity. The new orthodoxy is of course privatisation and free markets, just as demonstrated during Boris Yeltsin's coronation as the new tsar.

So how can we defend 'liberal-Islam' ? Does this mean recruiting the afghani warlords for Bosnia. But where are the opium (afyoum) plantations ? These people will only really fight for their own version of narco-terrorism. Afghani warlords came on both sides. There were also the russian generals who made their fame, as losers, just like the british. The afghani warlords were always good at winning wars, or not being defeated, right from the days of Alexander the great (Iskander). So the western propaganda media, and also some muslims stress the Islamic character of a country where most people cannot pronounce the names of the leaders.

As a state the people of Bosnia deserve several things. One of these is freedom of movement. Because of the civil-war someone or something denies the people of Bosnia freedom of movement. Why can they not leave ?

1. Landmines on the roads.

2. Military checkpoints on the roads.

3. People must serve in the army, before leaving.

4. Passports and visas are necessary for travel.

5. Prefer to stay in familiar surroundings.

6. Lack of money to buy tickets and stay in hotels.

Obstacles to Bosnians' freedom of travel are exerted by both the much maligned Bosnian Serb military forces and the international community. The international community could give special help to the people of former Yugoslavia by allowing special privileges to its refugees. This would specially help if preference were given to young men of military age. All objectors to war who can escape should be welcomed. Those with a committment to war will remain. These are the militarists. They can be found in many societies.

Even before the Jugoslav civil war, men had to perform military service, just like Israelis. Some members of the EU still try to enforce conscription, including Germany. The current civil war in the heart of Europe shows the failure of this type of thinking.

Militarism has some strange supporters. Religious people for example have a taste for militarism, either as a direct means of forced conversion to religion, or more recently as a sort of impartial force which will protect missionaries and relief workers from rape and pillage.

FACTIONS IN THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY

The 'international community' who could be expected to help protect the nascent Bosnian (or BiH for bosnia-i-hercegovina) state are a community of states who prefer to maximise their own advantages. There are important elements of all of these states who wish to see an elimination of competition and also diversity.

In the case of Bosnia, the supporters fall into three types.

(1) Professionals, who support BiH for money.

(2) Liberal democrats, such as factions in USA and EU.

(3) Islamists who see BiH as an Islamic community in the EU.

(1) The Professionals

Their sole reason for being in BiH is financial. Because of wartime conditions there are excellent opportunities for making money on the black market. The best selling book, CATCH 22 outlines the sort of opportunities opened up for enterprising people by wartime conditions. There has been a spate of stories of UN soldiers either helping out or competing with the local mafia in the sale and distribution of cigarettes, drugs, prostitution, and UN military uniforms.

Very poor countries such as Bangladesh contribute troops for money to build up the local military establishment. It is quite likely that there is some sort of ranking in the order of assignments by potential value. The bangla-deshi army got the worthless task of observing the civil war in Bihac. The soldiers as well as the civilians suffer great deprivation here, because of macho posturing by other supporters of the Sarajevo government.

(2) Liberal democrats.

Stalin condemned liberal democrats as supporters of fascism. The truth is that many politicians appeal to authoritarian, racist and sexist communities in order to get elected. The ex-governer of New York, Mario Cuomo is now past history, while Clinton remains the US president. Poor old Mario Cuomo was outspoken in his opposition to the death penalty, while going along with the fascistic tendencies in the USA by continuing to build prisons.

The trouble is that anyone with strong views has some fascistic tendencies but the political realisation of fascism can only come from democracies with serious problems such as unemployment and declining living standards.

Scenes of concentration camps and the results of ethnic cleansing seen on TV disturb some viewers. The authorities in many liberal democracies answer this with media events such as the OJ Simpson trial in the hope that the problem will go away. Although the acts of the Serbs in their ethnic cleansing pursuits seem morally repugnant there are elected politicians everywhere who seek to gain from the sort of conformist and communitarian thinking which is behind the sort of vigilante groups which beat up travellers, gays, drug dealers and so on.

Bosnian muslims, as members of a minority, should expect very little whole hearted support from elected politicians in the democracies.

(3) Islamists

The countries in the Islamic Conference Organisation have an appalling human rights record. After the Jewish holocaust many thoughtful Jews decided there could be no god. Yahweh was dead. Later on the Jews became so powerful that the USA state department reckoned Israel could take on all the Arab countries and win in a couple of weeks.

Perhaps a 'good genocide' is what the muslims need. A few million muslim dead, but later on the foundation of another 'Islamic state' in Europe which can wage successful wars.

But for the moment the muslims have an official position of supporting BiH. One of the more genuine supporters is Malaysia, because they can appreciate the tragedy of such destruction in a 'modern economy'.

Most modern Islamic governments do not have a good record in protecting minorities. In fact people such as Kurds, or druzes are often supported by cynical governments as part of a wider stratagy. Perhaps the plight of the people of BiH has helped these Islamic countries by raising the issue of human rights, much more than these countries can protect BiH.

ALLIANCE FOR BiH

For a start many of the most powerful countries have problems of their own. The liberal democrats could help the Islamic partners in a coalition to defend BiH by two actions.

(1) Install a democratic government in Iraq.

(2) Lift sanctions in Libya.

Other actions could follow. The easiest of the two options is of course to lift sanctions on Libya. Next the BiH government could be given exclusive right to make certain deals with Libya. This would give their micro-state a financial edge. That money would have to go to the people to spend as they wished, including paying for emigration. The end of the arms embargo should be accompanied by an offer to take all the people who wanted to leave.

The European Parliament should pass resolutions to make it easier for people to leave the war-zone. Some sort of emergency citizenship scheme could be invented for those refugees who could prove they had not committed war crimes. Much legislation is already on the books for the nazi crimes, so legally, the other acts of destruction could be on the list.

Of course war crime legislation could also be extended to conspiracy. Politically correct people could have a go at the European collaborators with other lethal dictators. It is quite possible that a democratic government in Iraq would like to document, if not prosecute, this type of collaboration.

The trouble is that much of the international community wishes to see democracy nowhere East of Suez. France and England built their reputations on colonialism, and often supressed democracy. They then tried to give it, but often without the necessary economic power to the people. This means that there will never be an alliance between the rich and the poor which can be particularly sustainable.

For an example of diplomatic duplicity it is not even necessary to look to Iraq. Greece itself had a civil war to reinstall a discredited elite. This elite was backed by the international community. Even at the time of the founding of the UN, Britain and France were trying to re-establish colonial rule in most of South East Asia. They recruited from the defeated Japanese armies to enforce their own colonialism, trying to set back the clock. This produced a transatlantic division that remains to this day.

Democracies do not always favour other democracies. Indeed the Chinese democrats know that well enough by now. The people of former Jugoslavia are still learning.

The key to the improvement of democracies is the formation of supra-national bodies, devoted to the enhancement of freedom, education and other virtues of civilisation. Very suddenly we find democrats bitterly divided on these issues. The advocates of the various factions of the FY/J are very easily able to manipulate these people.

The issue of Islam is used to divide democrats. This has already gone to quite high levels in NATO, where the top man, Willi Klaas is not only under investigation for corruption, but he has also touted the idea of a new Cold-War. After the class struggle is won the laptop generals will target their attentions on the Islamic countries.

After all, the british and French had a long record of fighting in the Arab countries, and often the colonialists encouraged different religions, just as the Hapsburgs and the Ottomans did in the past.

The new cold war generals are men who are liberal-democrat in the sense of Zhirinovsky. They seek a role for NATO in controlling important resources such as external oil supplies. They are prepared to ignore the opposition of some people at home in order to impose their 'New World Order'.

DOMINO THEORY

The much discredited domino theory about Viet-Nam and the collapse of all of South-East Asia failed to take into account local antipathy between Vietnamese and the Chinese. But the gulf wars succeeded in destabilising Europe, because of the wretched effect of sanctions against Iraq. The Gulf War allies failed to reconstruct the damaged economy of Iraq, and much of the surrounding region. They decided to continue an economic recession by anti-Arab and anti-Islamist policies, seeking instead the re-unification of Germany. Although some economists preach global integration, the politicians often seek the opposite.

The Jugoslav civil war is the echo of the Gulf War. Sanctions hit Turkey, the main big power between Europe and Iraq, and that did no good at all to the Serbian economy. The time for diplamacy was when the West was pressing for war.

Modern wars damage the spectators. Kuwait was described as 'Having A Ringside Seat', during the Iran-Iraq war, but it became a victim later on. That was not part of the script.

Economic disintegration precedes war, and Jugoslavia had the symptoms. So is the case in the Caucuses although with more patience the economies could have survived. Nationalities are traded by cynical politicians like Stalin, but there are many diaspora politicians playing the same game. These are all meta-conspiracy theorists, trying to gain power in different lands. They go to this Babylon called Washington DC. The Bosnian government is still trying to win power in its own country. The big wheelers and dealers always seem to want power, even if it means destroying infrastructure. But first they try to destroy the minds of their followers by nationalist and emotive slogans.

Slobodan Milosevich is a good 'resurgance' politician, in the mould of the Arab ba'thist as much as Lenin or Tito. Supressing minorities with tanks and poison gas is very much in the spirit of that sort of resurgence. The Serbian Academy of Sciences must bear some of the blame, in that tame academics went a bit too far on the nationalist line.

The collapse of communism in Europe was seen as a great triumph, but little has been done to help people who have seen declining living standards. Centrally planned economies seem out of fashion, but in the absence of planning there is little infrastructure. The UK suffers this with its poor link to the channel tunnel. Instead of communism western societies are plagued with men who want to deport surplus people. How many major democracies are lacking politicians who recommomend deportation as a means of saving on infrastructure ? Housing and schools are not to be shared with migrants.

Some people in the so called democracies see the point of 'Defending Sarajevo'. They see the Serbian assault on Sarajevo as a generalised attack on multi-culturalism. Attacks on multi-culturalism are meat and drink to right wing newspaper owners and talk-show hosts. Perhaps Sarajevo is assailed by a culture of idiocy. But the idiocy of the Serbs are reflected by the idiocy of the English who let tabloid newspaper reports set the course for action. Generally the tabloids have other stories so there is no need for action. The diplomats will in fact argue for a consensus between great and important powers, but agreement between the Serbs and their victims is the main objective.

The great powers will go to any lengths to force agreement. Most of their executive institutions are staffed by men with a 'cold-war' mentality, and they go on and urge everyone else to see that the Bosnian war is too hard to understand.

Ulster With Mountains.

Worse than Viet-Nam.

Must not Cross the Mogadishu Line.

Quagmire.

Centuries of Religious / Ethnic conflict.

Of course some of these epithets could also apply to Belgium, because religious and ethnic hatreds have also influenced history in other parts of Europe. The history of the rest of Europe has also had war, but although they had celebrations of the end of the war, they did not really go into the causes very much.

Before the firing starts in earnest, there are many symptoms.

[1] Hyper-inflation of currency.

[2] State fails to pay wages in large sectors of economy.

[3] Spectacular bankruptcies, often involving banks.

The FY/J suffered all of these. The 1992 Gulf War was an episode which gave the economy a terminal jolt. Better would have been a protracted war with great money to be made by supplying all of the combatants.

ARMS FOR BOSNIA

Bosnia will become a testing ground for new weapons systems. Cluster bombs and anti-personnel mines are already in extensive use and Bosnia threatens to become Europe's Cambodia. The politicians try to ignore this fact. Lifting the arms embargo will lead to a situation where people support armies like rich men finance football teams. Some fear that the war will spread. There are several scenarios:

(1) Mutiny at home.

Disaffected UN troops will go back and overthrow their own governments. The soldiers would have some popular support, since politicians are held in contempt by many.

(2) Greece versus Turkey.

The Turks are fighting the Kurds at the moment, but if they could offer the Kurds spoils of war in parts of Greece, that would be something.

(3) War in Macedonia.

Many experts see the danger of large scale conflict in Macedonia for various reasons. Despair of life will set some on a path to war, so there is much reason. Albania and Macedonia are hard to integrate into the European economies at the moment.

(4) War between Croatia and Serbia. The so called international community is likely to jump up in surprise, when this happens, and call another conference. Never the less, Serbian sponsored rebels occupy much of Croatia. They lived peacefully in Croatia, before its independence, and they did not want to leave after the attainment of 'Hrvatska' despite the emergence of fascistic tendencies of the state. The Serbs who found themselves resident in Croatia formed powerful militia, as the Jugoslav army disintegrated.

(5) War between Slovenia and Italy.

The slovenes decide to grab Trieste. This scenario seems unlikely, but Italy is flirting with fascism, and it has vast pensions problems. State bancruptcy may not be far off but they are still hoping to join a European common currency.

Since the beginning of the war in 1991, the EU and UN decided to impose an arms embargo on the FY/J (EU on 5 July 1991, and UN on 25 September 1991). This has been the cornerstone of official policy ever since. The reasons for the policy were never clear. NATO are still comissioning new weapons, and one would have thought the FY/J an excellent laboratory for testing out new systems.

But maybe France and Britain have second thoughts. Neither of them test out their nuclear weapons at home, and they are perhaps worried about selling the combatants intermediate range missiles with cluster-bomb and fuel-air explosive warheads. It is reminiscent of the medieval attempts to ban certain cross-bow bolts from warfare except against the saracens, Arabs, muslims, or Turks.

The spin doctors assure us that only the effective maintenance of the arms embargo can prevent a generalised European war, but these are the same people who said it was ok to arm Iraq and Iran and create millions of grieving relatives of the slain.

The spin doctors also fail mention that trade sanctions against Japan in the 1930s lead to war in the 1940s. The advocates of the arms embargo have to prove that lives are being saved, rather than that suffering is merely extended.

There are several problems in getting arms to all the combatants in Bosnia. The main ones are:-

(1) Permission

(2) Money

(3) Delivery.

(1) Permission to ship arms.

The UN has passed resolutions imposing general sanctions on Serbia and an arms embargo on the FY/J. Nuclear weapons are also govered by a seperate agreement, called the Non-proliferation Treaty. Even if the arms embargo is to be lifted, it is unlikely that many would welcome an application by the BiH government for nuclear weapons and intermediate range rockets. These are called strategic rocket forces, and few countries are allowed to have these. One country, Israel, is allowed to have secret strategic rocket forces, and other countries that try to develop them may well be subjected to trade sanctions just like Serbia, Iran, Iraq, Cuba and so on. These trade sanctions often affect machinary which is needed for industrialisation, and the making of agricultural chemicals such as fertilizers (explosives) or pesticides (war gases). If a country is a source of narcotics, then it may also be subject to trade sanctions in organic solvents.

Ending the arms embargo means controlling the arms, but who knows best. The type of weapons could determine the course and duration of the war.

Strategic Rocket Forces.


Peace talks start before fighting. Once war starts it will be over in a few hours for many non-combatants. But the main idea is to stop the fighting. It would perhaps be ideal to provide Bosnia, Croatia, and Serbia with about two nuclear missiles each. That is a total of six. There is no guarantee that they may not decide to use them on say Slovenia or Greece, rather than the FY/J. Alternatively peace could be negociated within days.

Tactical Rocket force


Smart Missiles to destroy Serbian anti-aircraft systems. These are necessary perhaps to open the airports at Sarajevo and Tuzla. Anti-personnel Landmines.


This sets a scenario of a war going on for decades. It will be faught with periods of varying intensity through a whole series of peace conferences and diplomatic cocktail parties while ordinary people suffer horrific injuries until the combatants become exhausted. This is the sort of weapon that hits the working classes only. Battle Tanks.


Suitable for deserts and countries with motorways. Require enormous logistical support for sustained combat use. Individual tanks are quite cheap (a Chinese tank costs less than a top of the range motorcar), so the BiH government could have a few to boost morale, provided they could get fuel to run them. Signals and Communications gear.


Expensive stuff, but it helps to win wars. Mis-use of it can help to lose wars.

Chemical / Biological Warfare


CB agents maybe used to attack people, or their domestic animals and food crops. If the enemy may be starved, then it may be uneccessary to use these weapons.

Guns and small rockets.


These range from portable mortars to vehicle mounted anti-aircraft guns (technicals) used in street fighting. These are made in many countries, and there are plenty on the market.

The BiH government knows that these weapons will only bring further misery and destruction, but they seek weapons for self defence until a settlement, ubdoubtedly involving Serbia and Croatia as well, can be worked out. The French and British experts tend to hope that Bosnia will just die, and dissappear, but this is unlikely to happen. In the meantime they control the arms that enter Bosnia.

(2) Money Problem.

The World Bank (World Development Report) ranks BiH as more prosperous then Afghanistan, but worse off than Kampuchea, Eritrea, Liberia or Somalia. The BiH government can raise the money to send emissaries to beg for international support, and because some of the leaders are muslims they receive a warm welcome in some Islamic countries.

Apart from Malaysia, most Islamic countries, including the oil exporters, have horrendous economic problems. Malaysia is not even a completely Islamic country, since it contains substantial minorities of Chinese and hindus.

The BiH government can attempt to borrow money to wage war. They could promise the lenders a high rate of interest, in order to attract money. They could also procure any other form of currency. Arms themselves are a form of currency. Should friends of the BiH government supply arms for free, it is likely that some would be sold to meet other expenses. Charity is often diverted to the commercial sector very quickly. It gives people something to do, and is not morally reprehensible in such wartime conditions.

The Serbian apologists allege that the BiH government has no problems, and that many people are already supplying arms to the BiH government. This is unlikely to be true given the status of Bosnia.

Normal sources of revenue are denied the Bosnian people. Mining, manufacturing and tourism are not really possible when the government has little control of the transport facilities. UN aid is an obvious palliative, but it is no basis for an economy.

News reports state that some Arab countries have promised arms to Bosnia, and the Gulf States have a sure overcapacity of weapons. Many of them recycled the oil wealth on expensive purchases from their so-called friends.

(3) Delivery

Bosnia is sandwiched between Croatia (Hrvatska) and Serbia, and if Bosnia wants an outlet to the Adriatic, then Serbia wants that even more. Although Montenegro still remains twinned with Serbia as a component of the 'New Yugoslavia', the Serbs do not really count the Montenegran ports as Serbian outlets to the sea.

There are few airports which are open, and regular air delivery to Bosnia would require action against the Serbian anti-aircraft systems. This is why the Bosnians would like sophisticated weapons to destroy radar installations and so on. United states airforce commanders see this, and so there are threats for a concerted bombing offensive against just such installations if the Serbs do certain specified things. The russians object.

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CHUBAN (MIDDLE GAME)

END OF NATO

Willi Klaas is wanted to help the belgian police with their enquiries about corruption. Willi has also mentioned that NATO is searching for a new role, and a confrontation with Islam rather than communism. So Europe is to face its new threat from Africa, rather as in the days of Hannibal. But Bosnia is precisely the opportunity all the NATO generals were waiting for ? Apparently not. The end of the Cold War threw most military planners into complete confusion. After the sucess in Kuwait, failure in Somalia then Bosnia. In each case armies were comitted, without war aims.

For NATO there was only one war aim, and that was to repel a hypothetical soviet invasion. NATO is also a beaurocracy, and also a means of standardising weaponary and allocating military contracts. In some ways NATO was born of supressing democracy in its own home: Greece. The alliance was completed after the greek civil war, when a ruling family was imposed by force.

While the Soviet Union was supposed to represent communism most European politicians would give unquestionable support for NATO, since it represented their armed forces in alliance against future problems.

The collapse of communism found the generals facing new enemies: cost cutting politicians. The closure of miltary bases has created great anguish for the professional soldiers and their families. The same also happened in the former communist countries. There was a dismantling of military bases, but none of the international institutions came up with any 'peace aims' except perhaps the setting up of a World Trade Organisation to celebrate free trade. At the moment WTO seems about as effective as a huge stutue of Stalin. It is meant to settle arguements about car imports and so on, but the leading states continue with bilateral disputes, and the leaders also question the existance of China and Russia in the trading forum.

There have certainly been no attempts to allow free trade in Libya, Iraq, Iran, Serbia, Bosnia and Cuba. Trade in alcohol is forbidden in much of the Islamic world, and non-muslims are denied the right to tour the Islamic holy sites.

In fact tourism is blighted by the existance of anti-personnel landmines in much of the world. The presence of these acts as an unfair restraint on certain countries like Eritrea from developing a tourist economy. Trade in arms tends not to be controlled by the World Trade Organisation. The same applies to many pharmaceuticals and medecines.

Although 'sustainable development' has become a buzzword, this means different things to different people. A strong environmental lobby in Japan may preserve the Japanese forests from clear felling, but the damage may be done in Indonesia, and the Phillipines.

None of the NATO planners were able to agree on a reasonable set of 'peace aims'. The idea was to preserve the status quo wherever possible and not allow too many frontier changes. But frontier changes have been happening very fast since 1989. Somalia split into two, and Iraq has hosted an enclave of infighting Kurds. The old USSR and Jugoslavia split into component parts, with accompanying wars.

Despite its drawbacks, the aims of the old NATO were not kept secret. Every new soviet weapon stimulated new systems in the West, and people knew that communists were subversives to be kept in check. This was especially true in USA domestic politics, and there were many committees to assess the links between soviet expansionism and left wing terrorist groups. At times the IRA and PLO could be given the honarary description as 'leftist'.

Because NATO functioned in public, with huge and expensive air-bases all over Europe, many people gained obvious benefits in well paid respectable jobs. The military industrial complex was a component of almost any welfare state. This was particularly true of the UK and it spread to England's former proteges in the Gulf. There was some opposition to militarism, but there was also ambivalence because of the well paid jobs. There are still some philosophers who would sooner design exotic weapons systems rather than flip burgers in a fast food outlet.

The whole computer internet grew out of a plan for a sophisticated war resistant communications system. The USA produced DARPA-NET from the defense advanced research projects agency. The hold of the military industrial complex on academia is unquestioned in the modern world. Whatever the ethics of Hiroshima, and Nagasaki, the A-Bombs proved that physics and engineering could influence wars in a spectacular fashion.

In political systems where public money is distributed like largesse, the military are always asking for more. After the end of the Cold-War various creative ideas were floated around to use the military.

(1) Use AWACS to detect drug smuggling planes.

(2) Use NATO to fight militant Islam.

(3) Use NATO to combat the emergent East Bloc mafia.

(4) Give help in natural disasters.

(5) Enhanced contributions to the UN military machine.

Some of these ideas do seem to have some value. There are still people in Europe thant think in crusader mentality, and others that feel that military force should be used against subversives such as drug smugglers, Islamic terrorists, or communists. Disaster relief operations often use military labour, while military engineering has been important for many developed countries.

An analysis of NATO requires a knowledge of the armies of its component countries. Two of these, Greece and Turkey have had military coups and the brutal supression of human rights during the existance of NATO. Clearly NATO failed the people of Greece and Turkey, despite its existance. Spain and Portugal enjoyed continuing military dictatorships during the existance of NATO, but these were anti-communist dictatorships until the revolution in Portugal.

The strategic rocket forces gave Germany the chance to enjoy nuclear protection by proxy. There were however a few objections when the generals wished to install intermediate range nuclear missiles in Germany. These weapons would necessarily explode within or near Germany during a war, and some people were fearful of this plan.

Few of the NATO armies are associated with a single warrior caste like for example sikhs in South Asia, but most armies have links with the oldest families in the land. They also are willing to act as agents in the creation of a Sandhurst-Westpoint elite of generals who can rule in the low income countries with a rod of iron. This means there is a sort of world-wide military conspiracy, where the generals form an exclusive self-interest group. Besides opressing their people, generals may also lead their people into fruitless wars. That is one of the reasons why democracies try to control their generals. The Middle East is a good example. All wars there have been lost, rather than won.

Contrast the shopping mall edefice of the Pentagon with an average greek or Turkish barracks. The militarisation of the USA is qualitatively different to its poorer NATO partners. It is understood that the Pentagon does not need to put tanks into the streets of Washington. Indeed they resist such calls, because the generals do not wish to act as a mere police force to combat street crime.

In the days of increased competion to secure new high-tech weapons orders, the generals prefer to be recipients of bribes to chose systems from competing contractors. While NATO tries to keep a clean image, everyone knows that it is corrupt, but perhaps not quite so bad as Zaire, or even China.

Almost all democratic states have chambers which include former military officers or soldiers. It is accepted that an officer will resign his or her commission before entering politics.

If more women are to enter politics, where they may well end up running armed forces then it is only natural to encourage some of them to enter the armed forces.

It is particularly easy for women to be combatants in a very high tech war with air-power, strategic missile systems, and radar defences. Communications units could also employ women exclusively.

Women are of course victims in all wars.

NATO has hardly tried to enforce a uniform standard of soldiers rights. In Turkey an unwilling conscript may well be murdered, while in the USA the army has to turn volunteers away. The end of the Cold War gives new opportunities for NATO.

(1) Trade Union for soldiers.

(2) Election of officers.

(3) Participation of women in military activities.

(4) Soldiers with long hair.

(5) Unified forces radio and tv network.

(6) Common pay and conditions.

France and England are two of the most militaristic members of NATO. They have run joint ventures in the Crimea, Viet-Nam, Egypt, Kuwait, and more recently Bosnia. The level of co-operation is just short of actual hostilities betweeen the two partners but that is all. The military of these two countries may well have some suicide pact whereby they would destroy the equipment of each other to prevent it falling into enemy hands. The brits turned their guns on the French fleet, laid up in Algeria, in 1941.

France had a troublesome period with NATO under General De Gaulle. The reasons were technical rather than military. The French were just trying to be a bit anti-American, while being steadfastly anti-communist. The French perhaps disagreed with the Americans over the Viet-Nam issue, because they themselves had previously lost a war in Viet-Nam.

The French military force is firmly entrenched in French society. Indeed, their current constitution is bequeathed by general De Gaulle. There are also barracks all over the country, occupied by paramilitary police who often stand by idle during alarming scenes of rioting against foreign trucks during farmer's demonstrations against free trade. On other occasions these police are called out to beat up students during riots in the capital city.

France has parades of tanks through the street to celebrate its national day (Bastille Day). The modern French state took on all comers in the post revolutionary period, and dominated nearly all of Europe for a while. But twentieth century history has been miserable. France was invaded three times in the space of just thirty one years.

The French military has trained dictators just as brutal as any of the Sandhurst mould, and is perhaps especially proud of its past associations with Syria and Lebanon.

The USA, England and France have tried to dominate the world market in sophisticated weapons since 1945, when Germany and Japan were demilitarised. The competition has come mainly from Russia, China and Slovakia, and the fear of Chinese long range rockets getting into the hands of Iran has soured relations between america and China. In fact just three countries (the USA, United Kingdom and France or USA-UK-F for short) attempt to regulate the global arms trade. For a long time this grouping has been more important than NATO. Recent political developments over the 'Arms for Bosnia' threaten to split this group.

INFECTION

Fascism has been compared with an infection, most notably in 'The Plague' by Camus. Croatia and even Italy are diseased European nations in this respect. The strife in FY/J represents the work of populist politicians. Nationalism, unemployment and religious sectarianism are components of social disintegration.

Some of these things may be quantified.

Nationalism: ethnic statistics.

Unemployment: rate of jobless people.

Religion: often supposed to be 100% for state religion.

Different countries will have different mixes. Fascists tend to want one religion, one people, and full employment. In the past strong attempts have been made to identify the religion and the state. But even in the most benighted Islamic country there are those with an alternative religion: money. When Marx said that religion is the opium of the people, he must have been well aware of the interchangeability of opium and money. Opium is a drug for some and a currency for others.

As currency, it is often better than paper money, and also perhaps more sustainable than a gold mine. For those men whose religion is money, then opium is the sacrament. In all the countries with an official state religion, there are still those who put personal wealth above the religion. Italy at the time of the Borgias or Arabia at the time of the Sauds: both of these represent religiously divided societies, but they do not necessarily produce conflicts like those in Northern Ireland.

Nationalism and sectarianism get out of hand when they go to control employment by discriminatory tactics. Somalia and Croatia both experienced disintigration as a result of client buying amongst competing ethnic groups. Even so called democracies can degenerate into chaos very quickly if a substantial minority see their treatment as unfair, then start to resist.

Ethnicity is very good for politicians or patrons to get a ready made constituency. They often reflect the fears rather than the hopes of their clients. Next comes a forced conformism. This gets people into armies so that militarisation can start. Of course people cannot use ethnicity alone as a means to incite hatred if they are working in an ethnically homogeneous community. It is then necessary to seek other 'enemies within', such as single mothers or whatever. In fact the whole point of going after single mothers is to make a religious point. Old fashioned people in the UK want to say that England is a Christian Country, just as some Japanese traditionalists may wish to say that Japan is a Shinto country.

The 'Religious Right' in America and the 'Islamic Fundamentalists' of the Middle East are attempts to achieve the same uniformly thinking fascistic states as 1940s Japan. So a religious profile of a nation can be a predictor of war and serious conflict. Obvious divisions may produce internal conflict, while nations with a state religion may develop missionary tendencies where the people feel they have a duty to propogate a message.

There are some proven recipes for conflict. Division of the population over different major religions can lead to a conflict scenario. The statistics might look like this, although the exact figures are questionable. Cynicism may give rise to a vast quiescent population which while acknowledging the wisdom of all traditions seek to flee the virtuous enthusiasts of the most powerful.

Hypothetical tabulation of religious statistics.

                 BUDDHIST CHRISTIAN HINDU JEW ISLAM OTHER NONE
 ISRAEL          -        10%       -     50% 40%   -     -
 SRI LANKA       70%      5%        20%   -   5%    -     -
 KASHMIR         -        -         20%   -   80%   5%    -
 HOXA'S ALBANIA  -        -         -     -   -     -     100%
 BURMA           90%      5%        -     -   5%    -     -
 JAPAN           85%      1%        -     -   1%    70%   1%

Rows could add up to more than 100%

Because human populations change through migration, or differential birth rates, the figures for a single geographical region may change over the course of time. The 100% 'Other Religion' status is achieved in countries with a twentieth century form of emperor worship, such as North Korea, or Albania during the period of communism. Even in countries with a population of a single predominant religion, there is no guarantee that sects may not develop, and lead to the fracture of the state.

The different religions may have to be enshrined in law along with prohibitions on slavery and other abuses such as unsafe factories, with fire doors blocked up. Employment practices which discriminate against religious minorities must be outlawed, even including preachers. The Vatican should be taken to task if it can be proved that the Pope must be a roman catholic. At the same time Christians and Buddhists should be able to work at least as tour guides in Makkah al Mukarima. A free market in labour often works against social harmony. The interests of employers and employees are often, but not always, contradictory. Labour markets for what they are need to be regulated. If governments are to work in a modern economy they need labour market regulation.

Equal opportunities rules need to be made for religious or ethnic groups before, rather than after conflict breaks out. That the Americans seek to dismantle such regulation maybe more because the regulations are seen to be ineffective than because the people wish to exclude minorities.

Many governments are unable to enforce equal opportunities between different ethnic and religious groups. There are also cases where a religious or ethnic minority are percieved of as richer than the rest, and then demagogues can motivate the masses to massacre their neighbours (Jews in Europe, Chinese in asia for example). The concentration of trade or finance into the hands of a minority is common. Sometimes the minority may be religious or ethnic, but it may also be a secret society. It is then very hard to enforce any equal opportunities law at all. Chinese triads or freemasons are examples loved by consparicy theorists.

The World Bank (Workers in an Integrating World, 1995) gives a survey of government interventions in labour markets. These include decent working conditions, income security, and protection of the vulnerable. Some types of government intervention may have purely negative effects on social harmony. Institutionalised racial and religious discrimination is an example. Because refugees from war and massacres overflow into neighbouring countries it can hardly be claimed that all labour policies are purely an internal matter for a particular country.

Croatia in its pre-independence period failed to protect Serbs from dismissal from civil service jobs. Somalia also followed policies that favoured particular tribal groups in government jobs as a prelude to its civil war. The United States suffered a civil war over differing perceptions of labour rights (slavery).

Where there are religious or ethnic divisions, then employment protection for minorities is just as essential as land and property laws, but according to the 'New Right' this is creeping communism and therefore an affront to liberty. Even in the absence of ethnic or religious minorities other groups are percieved as vulnerable: children, women, homosexuals and the disabled. There is clearly much space for regulation.

All of this regulation and enforcement requires infrastructure in terms of computers and databases. Parliaments often consist of lawyers who draft legislation that they themselves cannot understand a few months later. Justice systems are aften inadequate to give all of the citizens the protection of the law, even when laws exist to protect the vulnerable.

It is very easy for the so-called civilised countries to castigate others over 'Human Rights' issues, but it is much harder for their governments to enect laws to protect vulnerable minorities at home. When the Americans talk about human rights in China for example they mean that the soldiers should not shoot students, rather than equal opportunities programs for tibetans as Chinese citizens.

The Americans still have a long way to go in ensuring equality of opportunity for african-Americans. Prison and labour camp statistics are skewed towards blacks in America, and much so called anti-crime legislation has made the situation worse rather than better over the last decade.

VIRUS

Alija Izbegovitch has used the term, in describing his rivals as a choice between leukemia and a brain tumour. The continent of Europe now sees two statesmen wishing to follow in the footsteps of Saddam Hussein, and a green light for an attack to help shore up domestic politics. Recent events could be described in cliche:

BOSNIA BECOMES SERBO-CROAT CONDOMINIUM

AMERIKA WAGES PROXY WAR AGAINST SERBIA

AMERICAN AND GERMAN AMBASSODORS GIVE GREEN LIGHT

PORTILLO CONDEMNS ETHNIC CLEANSING

BOSNIA IS MILOSEVIC'S INSURANCE FRAUD

And so the rot sets in in the heart of Europe. British ministers condemned the use of poison gas when its use was revealed in Iraq, but some of the business establishment made money from the trade with Iraq, and at the same time obtained points in some circles for their steadfast stand against that demonised enemy, Iran. Now Serbia is demonised rather than Iran. There has been no great revolution in Serbia, but Serbia has been punished with international sanctions, but for what ?

But the rot is deeply set. Apart from the light of Islam in Bosnia. Izbegovic has the solutions in Islam, and indeed this is seen in some of his helpers, in particular Mohamed Sacerby. The difference between light and darkness is hard to see for many sleeping people, and this often describes muslims. Intense rituals which do away with the need for thought and so on. After decades Europe is still unwilling to accept a new state whose president wrote a book about an Islamic state, and was jailed for it. Izbegovic and Tujdeman went to jail for their opinions while Milosevic made a career in banking in a country famous for hyperinflation. In a just society Milosevic would also have been in jail for embezzlement. Bosnia is his 'insurance fraud'. The UN is the insurer who is short of investigative skills.

THE FUTURE. ENTER THE ECO-TERRORIST

Bosnia needs a port. If Croatia is serious it should offer Bosnia an adriatic island, in exchange for some land territory, rather like the agreement between Finland, and the USSR. The Croatians should also offer protection against ecologists and others who oppose development, so that Bosnia can have some port facilities. An international traffic link from Serbia to the Adriatic should be constructed using the cleanest technology possible.

The political problems caused by ethnicity and religion are small compared with those induced by resource disparities. Obvious misuse of resources mobilises much popular opinion, to the extent that petrol stations are firebombed.

Joint management of river basins is an unlearnt art of international diplomacy with one or two exceptions. For some reason war seems more profitable than sending in construction companies. Sometimes war is seen as a prelude to sending in the construction teams in case there is a hostile minority to be cleared off the construction site. This happens to a limited extent during confrontations between ecologists and the construction industry.

GAS PIPELINE WARS

The latest ceasefire in Bosnia hangs in the balance because of a gas pipeline problem. At least this features in news reports. The Bosnian emissaries got Chernomyrdyn (himself a gas mogul) to supply gas to Sarajevo, but this requires agreements of all the hostile forces on the route. And then someone needs to repair the bullet holes in all the pipes in the flats which are still standing.

One has to admire these international construction projects even though considerable waste seems involved. The original big Middle East pipelanes ran to Israel and Lebanon, but were just closed and other ones built when political realities changed. This is hardly a happy climate for the essential maintenance teams.

Grozny became site of a terrifying battle because its pipeline infrastructure was so important to Russia. As usual America is trying to set the terms. During the 1980s they opposed the sale of high technology equipment to the Soviet Union, and condemned the trans- Siberian pipelane because slave labour was allegedly involved in its construction. Does that mean we should boycott anything shipped by road through certain American states where they have chain gangs. The Americans seem to welcome the Gulag system now.

The danger of wartime sabotage to large scale infrastructure projects perhaps calls into question the interventiomist role of the UN. Perhaps Colin Powell should head an international corps of armed engineers who will intervene not only when the oil companies private property is threatened, but where public peoperty is also threatened. The UN should be given an impressive building, like a new generation pentagon (dodecahedron) from which to run its military operations.

Somewhere in Africa perhaps. Egypt already has the pyramids, so Algeria, or Eritrea could be possible candidates. Landmine clearence will remain one of the most daunting tasks.

DAYTON OHIO

November 1995

In the run up to the traditional british Rememberence Day the leaders of the former Yugoslavia's feuding republics are to meet in Dayton, Ohio. Few people outside Ohio have heard of the place. But its an important part of the USA economy. In happier times the Yugoslavs might have gone there for business management courses. The place was, after all, a former company town of IBM, also now afflicted with difficulties, although perhaps not on the same scale as the balkan conflict.

Dayton once had a large plant run by International Business Machines, in the age when the typewriter and Hollerith card sorter were the support of beaurocracy. Indeed, the Yugoslav beaurocracy was slow to wake up to the information age. Milosevic conducted a sort of anti-beaurocratic revolution. This in a country with two alphabets but no typewriter industry of its own.

Of the three leaders Tujdeman and Izbegovic both knew prison, for their political beliefs, while Milosevic must have known management seminars for bankers. Amnesty International gives unconditional support to prisoners of conscience, and so Izbegovic and Tujdeman may seem deserving cases. Slobodan Milosevic is in fact described as both a former banker, and a former functionary in Serbia's state gas enterprise, Tehnogas [The Death of Yugoslavia, L.Silber & A.Little].

Great speeches are made at the Dayton Conference, following on from the UN 50th Birthday Celebration, which also saw another anti-birocratic (Serbian spelling here) revolution. The UN's major debtor, the USA, denounced the beaurocracy, and called on the need for reform. This is in keeping with the current political climate of the USA, where populist leaders such as Newt Gingrich or Ross Perot seem intent on destroying major publically funded institutions.

(C) Tony Goddard, BELFAST 1995
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