Civilians can return to Swat, Pakistan govt says

Since I've written in previous posts about the Pakistani army's (apparently completed) operation in the Swat valley (as well as about its anti-Taliban offensive more generally), this is just a quick line to note that I heard, in a passing mention in a news summary a couple of nights ago, that the government has now said it's safe for millions of displaced civilians to return to the area. That's all I've heard about the official announcement, however; those who are interested should be able to find out more with a little effort.
Update: see here.

A journalist blogs from Helmand province

Here.

A Marine helicopter unit compares service in Iraq and Afghanistan

Interesting piece in today's NYT.

McNamara: some suggested reading

Having said that I'm not going to be writing very much in July or August (see post for July 2 below), I think I can be excused for not making any substantive comment on McNamara in the wake of his death.

For those who may be interested, however, I'll mention a few books that might be worth a look. Deborah Shapley's biography of McNamara Promise and Power is well regarded but I haven't read it so can't comment directly; Paul Hendrickson's The Living and the Dead I've read bits and pieces of; Halberstam's The Best and the Brightest I haven't looked at in a long time. I also have not read most of McNamara's Vietnam apology In Retrospect.

Two books that I have read, both of which contain interesting material on McNamara and Vietnam and both of which I can strongly recommend, are:

Yuen Foong Khong, Analogies at War: Korea, Munich, Dien Bien Phu, and the Vietnam Decisions of 1965 (Princeton U.P., 1992; also in paperback). This was the author's dissertation, so not all of it is easy going, but especially for those interested in how policymakers use and misuse historical analogies, it's very valuable.

David Milne, America's Rasputin: Walt Rostow and the Vietnam War (Hill & Wang, 2008). This excellent, impressively researched work on Rostow is interesting on a number of points, including the relationship between Rostow and McNamara. (I reviewed this book in the Winter 2009 issue of New Politics; the review itself is not available for free but some other parts of that issue, as well as parts of the current Summer 2009 issue, are. The NP website is here.)

"A true world political authority"

The new papal encyclical on social/political matters calls, among other things, for a strengthened UN and "a true world political authority." I have a post planned for either the end of this month or the beginning of next that will go into this theme at more length.

McNamara

Just saw the news of his death. I may have some comment later.

Ilie Nastase, anyone?

So I'm watching the quite amazing Federer-Roddick Wimbledon final. The NBC announcer has noted several times the presence of Borg, Laver, and Sampras in the past champions' seats near the court. Yet who is sitting behind Borg, clearly visible? Why, none other than Ilie Nastase. OK, he was no Borg, Laver or Sampras, and he had a temper and he was controversial. But he was still a pretty darn good tennis player. Yet neither Ted Robinson, the announcer, nor John McEnroe, commenting with him, has seen fit to mention Nastase's presence.
P.s. Manuel Santana was also there; I believe Robinson did mention him once.

July and August at H/P

July and August are probably going to be largely downtime here. I do have one or two posts planned, but I don't expect to be posting very often.

Technology and accidents

Several recent highly publicized plane crashes, along with the accident on the D.C. subway system (Metro), have got me thinking, albeit not very coherently, about accidents and technology. The Metro accident hits closest to home for me. Was it the kind of thing bound to occur sooner or later given the (presumed) pitfalls of reliance on an automated computerized system, or could it have been prevented by, say, a back-up system? Such a back-up would no doubt have been expensive, but I believe airplanes have them, at least in a rudimentary form, and so do, I believe, nuclear power plants, so why shouldn't subways? Perrow's work on 'normal accidents', which I've heard about but not read, suggests that not all accidents can be eliminated, especially in technologically complex environments; still, that is no reason not to try to make transport and other systems as safe as possible.

The Metro accident is a tragedy, obviously, for those who were killed and injured and for their families; it also will inconvenience everyone who uses, either regularly or occasionally, the Red line, as service on that line will be slower than usual. Moreover, because the whole Metro system is going to be operating in manual (non-automatic) mode for an indefinite period (at least according to what I heard last night on the news), the service on the system as a whole will be slower. Of course, safety matters more than speed, but in a metropolitan area already choking on its traffic -- an area where one can easily get the impression that no one does anything except drive around all day and clog up the roads -- anything that makes the subway less fast and efficient is bound to be unwelcome, to say the least.

On a related issue: See this post on the projected high-speed rail line between San Francisco and L.A.

Waziristan: "a long haul"

As a part of the Pakistani army prepares to launch what may -- or may not -- be an imminent assault on Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud's forces in South Waziristan, and as a separate Taliban faction in North Waziristan announces its withdrawal from a 2007 peace deal, Pamela Constable reports in yesterday's Wash Post ("Pakistan Treads Warily as New Fight Looms," WP, 6/29, p.A8) that some observers are beginning to raise questions about the operation.

A retired Pakistani government official named Roedad Khan, writing in The News International paper, "recalled [a] 1930s operation in which 40,000 British and Indian forces failed to crush Mirza Ali Khan, known as the Fakir of Ipi, a religious and tribal leader in North Waziristan... [Roedad Khan] warned that by attacking next-door South Waziristan, the army could open a 'massive, self-inflicted wound.'"

Interviewed by Constable, a Pakistani army spokesman, Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas, brushed aside such concerns, insisting that Mehsud is no longer seen "as a Robin Hood figure" by the public and that the terrain in S. Waziristan is more hospitable for an anti-militant campaign than the terrain in Swat, where the Pakistani army recently completed an operation against the Taliban and re-took the city of Mingora, albeit at the cost of creating some two million internally displaced people.

But the army spokesman conceded that problems will remain even if Mehsud is defeated. "'The tribal areas have been neglected for 50 years,' [Abbas] said. 'We will do our part, but there has to be follow-up by the civilian administration, better governance, more development. This is going to be a long haul.'"

That much seems pretty certain.

P.S. The continuing U.S. reliance on drone strikes in the border regions continues to raise controversy. More on this later.

Frank Rich on equal rights

Here.

Beat it, I'm watching 'Thriller'

Not really, but why throw away a good post title? (And no, I didn't copy it from anyone, though someone has probably used it already unbeknowst to me.)

Everyone was saying on TV yesterday that he watched Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly, etc. I don't know much about dancing (virtually nothing, in fact), but to me Michael Jackson's moves didn't resemble theirs much at all. But he could dance all right, no question about that.

Extra credit question: Which noted IR scholar has published a book about Fred Astaire? If you think you know, give the answer in the comments. The honor system is in place, so don't cheat by looking it up first!

Smuggling by children on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border

A depressing story on this subject last night on the NewsHour. Check out their website if you missed it.

Waltz symposium

In my e-mail inbox today is the table of contents for the June issue of International Relations (published by Sage), which carries the first part of a symposium titled "The King of Thought: Theory, the Subject, and Waltz," with a well-known cast of contributors. Thought I'd mention it in case someone is stopping by here who is interested but may not get the table-of-contents alert. (As to whether I'm going to read the articles themselves -- very unlikely, but I did look quickly at a few of the abstracts. At least a couple of the pieces will probably be of interest to those with theoretical preoccupations.)

Pakistan border update

As strikes by U.S. drone aircraft in the border regions continue, resulting in a number of deaths, a breakaway Taliban figure in northwest Pakistan who criticized Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud has been killed. The death of Qari Zainuddin "is being seen as a setback for the government in its efforts to isolate Mehsud ahead of the security forces' next phase of their anti-Taliban offensive in the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, says the BBC's Mike Wooldridge in Islamabad."

However, as noted here, the bigger obstacle to the next phase may be the apparently insufficient number of soldiers the Pakistani army is committing.

Yes and no

Yes, I am aware of the events in Iran; no, I have nothing especially original to add at the moment to the abundant commentary in the traditional media (e.g., I just heard an interesting edition of the public radio program On Point on the subject, with Shaul Bakhash and others) and in the blogosphere.

Will people ever stop writing books about Kissinger?

Apparently not. (Alastair Horne is a respected writer and historian so this book may well be worth a look.)