What Lessons For Military Men From Israel's Exploding Pager Attacks On Lebanon?

by Kudakwashe Kanhutu There are no new lessons to be learnt, just a reminder of an old one: Autarky. This lesson was beginning to get lost even on a Superpower like Russia. No matter how efficiently produced or, how cheap the cost, you should NEVER buy anything from your adversaries. EVER. I was quite surprised that Iran was still using US made Helicopters for Presidential Transport when Russia (an ally) is a leader at Helicopter production.

Ukraine's Kursk Incursion: A Nuisance Check On The Chessboard?

by Kudakwashe Kanhutu 

Sometimes when I am losing badly at Chess, I just make a nuisance check which has no chance of even changing the dynamic of the game. I thought of this parallel as soon as I heard that Ukraine had counter-invaded a Russian Federation border region.

The major difference is that, there is no wasteful loss of life in my nuisance checks in my Chess games! 

Should The Global South Now Accept The West's Long Standing Invitation To World War III?

The Russian Federation is one of the few countries Israel cannot emotionally blackmail - Russia lost 27 Million of its people while freeing Europe from Adolf Hitler. The Red Army liberated Auschwitz during the Vistula - Oder Offensive.

by Kudakwashe Kanhutu

From assassinating Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, Foreign Minister Hossen Amir-Abdollahian on 19th May, and Ismail Haniyeh on 31st July, the blowing up of the Nord Stream 2 Pipeline, to arming Ukraine with advanced weapons, the West and its proxies have shown they hold an even higher disregard for the unwritten and written rules than even I thought they did. 

Writing in Postil Magazine, the famed Russian Philosopher - Alexander Dugin - suggests that the Global South should now militarily respond to these military provocations by the West and its proxies. I have conceptualised this as accepting the standing invitation to World War III long extended by the West. For, make no mistake, to respond in kind to the West's provocations so far, should plunge the World into World War III. 

Dugin decries all the impunity that countries like Israel and the United States have enjoyed in committing crimes in Palestine and elsewhere. While he concedes that there is wisdom in viewing provocations with a cool head, he thinks that this has gone on for far too long and that a response is now required; 

"It is important, of course, not to be provoked. But if you are being cynically annihilated in front of everyone’s eyes, and you persistently “do not give in and do not give in to provocations,” it looks strange. As if you yourself encourage maniacs to keep doing the same to you."

He drives the point home that the New World Order can only be built by the winners of the current conflagration - World War III in my view; 

"No, by acting in this way, we are neither laying the foundations of a new world order nor supporting the existing one. To participate in the layout of the new world, one must first win. The weak and the losers have no right to play a role in defining the parameters of the future." 

What Dugin says in his Postil opinion piece is very valid and should be considered by the Global South. I just do not see how this will not lead to World War III. I am just glad that this difficult decision is not mine to make... for now. 

The White City Grenade Attack And Its National Security Implications

“Make us enemies of every people on earth, but save us from civil war” - Lucan, Bellum Civile, c. 48.

The aftermath of the grenade attack.

The grenade attack aimed at assassinating President Emmerson Mnangagwa of Zimbabwe, at White City Stadium, on 23 June 2018, missed its target completely but killed 2 aides and injured Vice President Kembo Mohadi as well as Minister Oppah Muchinguri Kashiri. This grenade could have potentially wiped out the country’s Presidency and a host of high ranking officials. There was no claim of responsibility so we can only make educated guesses as to who was responsible. As for the National Security implications, we can discuss that with what approaches mathematical certainty.

Who Was Responsible?

If we really want to get to know who was responsible, we must discuss matters objectively. First to go is the notion that what happened in Zimbabwe in November was not a Coup. It was a Military Coup. Necessary yes, but it was a Military Coup. Whoever was aggrieved by this change of the man at the helm, is the first suspect in deciding who could have tried to assassinate the current President. This step will also allow us to get to the next step: political implications had the assassination attempt succeeded.

President Mnangagwa has accused the G40 faction in ZANU PF as the people responsible for this latest attempt on his life. The G40 was the other competitor to succeed Robert Mugabe, and they lost out their pole position when Mugabe was removed from power. By accusing the G40, President Mnangagwa is really accusing Robert Mugabe, as the G40 was Mugabe’s favoured project in ZANU PF prior to his ouster. The accusation against Robert Mugabe also sticks because he has not been repentant, and has shown himself very willing to politically undermine President Emmerson Mnangagwa. Either Robert Mugabe ordered the grenade attack himself, or those still loyal to him did it without his say so, but he would have been the (willing) political beneficiary had the attack succeeded.

If I know the above dynamics, enemies of Zimbabwe also know the same dynamics and could have carried out the attack to throw the country, or at least ZANU PF, into civil war/conflict. As to what these other people would benefit from such a scenario, one would have to know all the concerned parties and their interests, and how those interests would be served by a civil war. It is beyond the scope of this short entry to make such an analysis.

Political Implications:

Had President Mnangagwa and his two Vice Presidents been eliminated, Constitutional Lawyers will tell you that the Speaker of Parliament would have assumed the Presidency until Elections had been held, but that’s just lazy theorizing. The reality is this: those who carried out this attack would have wanted Robert Mugabe reinstated as President, as a “corrective measure” against the Military Coup that removed him in November. It would then be up to Mugabe to go ahead with Elections, or declare a State of Emergency to allow him time to get back at his “enemies” in the Armed Forces of Zimbabwe. This is also where the grenade attack planners show their myopia, or desperation; the Military, instead, would have stepped in automatically and ruled Zimbabwe under State of Emergency powers. There is a unity in the Command Element of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces that has defied outsider meddling for a long time (as Robert Mugabe found out when he tried to set then Lt. General Valerio Sibanda, against General Chiwenga, on his return from China in November last year).

National Security Implications:

The throwing of the grenade was a desperate act of people who would rather see the country burn in a civil war than prosper under someone else. A scorched earth policy mentality that very much characterised Robert Mugabe’s conduct towards the time of his removal from office. The possibility of a civil war was there had President Mnangagwa’s calming influence at the helm been removed. The military’s first instinct is to use force. After all, you can be assured that Robert Mugabe has not yet suffered the fate of Gaddafi only because President Mnangagwa holds in check, this extreme instinct of the security establishment. Robert Mugabe also did this same thing very well with Morgan Tsvangirayi. There are times when Diplomacy trumps the use of force. Without this calming civilian influence, the military would make missteps that will lead to civil war (or the need for intervention by outsiders).

A Potential For Dangerous Escalation: "Russia To Destroy Any US Platforms That Strike Syria"

"Abstinence from all injustice to other first-rate powers is a greater tower of strength than anything that can be gained by the sacrifice of permanent tranquillity for an apparent temporary advantage" - Thucydides, History Of The Peloponessian War.

Iskandr M. Short range missiles capable of conveying nuclear warheads. 

by Kudakwashe Kanhutu

Colonel General Valery Gerasimov, the Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, - an official whose words should always be taken very seriously - has announced that US aggression against the Syrian Arab Republic Forces will no longer go unpunished. He has threatened to destroy any platforms that will have launched missiles against Syrian Government Forces, as such acts are putting Russian servicemen in Syria in danger. What this means in practice is that, if the US Fifth Fleet were to launch the strikes against Syria government targets, the entire Fifth Fleet will be sunk by Russian retaliatory strikes. This act, of targeting the opponent's military assets, is called Counter-force and is covered by the Laws of War. But, it can easily escalate to Counter-value: the targeting of non-military assets as war, inevitably, starts to subserve its logic. 

There is, therefore, the potential for dangerous escalation, even to the general use of nuclear weapons between the two countries. This, only if the United States continues to not pay heed to those words above by Thucydides. For it is due to the United States not playing by the book, in Iraq, in Libya, in Syria, and in other places, that we are this close to catastrophe.

How NOT To Stage A Military Coup

by Kudakwashe Kanhutu

The best treatise on how NOT to stage a military coup has to be what was written by General Heinz Guderian in his autobiography - Panzer Leader. In enumerating the reasons why he declined to join the failed coup plot against Hitler in 1944, he tells us that nothing should be left to chance in the planning. Panzer Leader is a great book to read itself, but below, is just an excerpt relating particularly to what the plotters did wrongly in 1944 - essentially everything: 

“In the first few weeks I was fully occupied in getting the machine in running order again. I had no time to spare for the contemplation of other problems. Matters which today seem important to the men involved in them, I hardly noticed. I was so busy that I was quite unaware of the day-to-day happenings other than those at the front. My new colleagues and I worked late into the night in our efforts to save the front. 

What were the actual results of the attempt to assassinate Hitler on July 20th?

The man who was to be killed was in fact slightly wounded. His physical condition, not of the best beforehand, was further weakened. His spiritual equipoise was destroyed for ever. All the evil forces that lurked within him were aroused and came into their own. He recognised no limits anymore. 

If the assassination was intended seriously to affect Germany's governmental machine, then the most important officials of the Nationalist-Socialist regime should also have been eliminated. But not one of those was present when the bomb exploded. No plans had been made for the removal of Himmler, Goering, Goebbels or Bormann to name only the most important. The conspirators made no attempt to ensure they would be able to carry out their political plans in the event of the assassination succeeding.... 

.... From every point of view the results of the attempted assassination were frightful. For myself I refuse to accept murder in any form. Our Christian religion forbids it in the clearest possible terms. Apart from this religious reason, I must also say that neither the internal or external political situation was conducive to a successful coup d'etat. The preparations made were utterly inadequate, the choice of personalities to fill the principal roles incomprehensible. The driving force had originally been Dr. Goerdeler, an idealist who believed the coup d'etat could be carried out without the assassination... 

Dr. Goerdeler had also decided on the choice of the majority of the people destined by the conspirators to hold office in the new government. He had drawn up lists of names in this connection which, through his own carelessness, fell into the hands of the Gestapo. The character of Colonel-General Beck, who was to have been Head of the State, I have already described at sufficient lengths. His behaviour on 20th July proved that my previous opinion of him was correct. Field Marshal von Witzleben was a sick man. He hated Hitler with a burning hatred, but lacked the determination necessary to carry out a military putsch in such critical and difficult circumstances..."

Notes:

Passage taken from Panzer Leader, the Autobiography of General Heinz Guderian - master of the Blitzkrieg and father of modern tank warfare - commanded the German XIX Army Corps as it rampaged across Poland in 1939 (and France in 1940).

General Heinz Guderian, Commander German 19th Army Corps. Picture Credit: Wikipedia.

The Tight Embrace Between Terrorism And The Electronic Media?

Participating at the 13th International Terrorism and Electronic Media Conference in Sofia, Bulgaria.

by Kudakwashe Kanhutu.

Sofia, Bulgaria.   

It is quite the intractable problem for humanity through the ages isn’t it, that good and bad exist so proximately that they are, in fact, two sides of the same coin. Flip the coin this way and the good side faces you, flip it again and there is every chance that it’s the bad side that faces you. Technology and innovation espouse this metaphor most emphatically, as every piece of technology ever invented to aid humanity positively, can also be used to harm humanity. Case in point, at the dawn of Terrorism, Dynamite, whose primary purpose was to make mining and construction easier, was quite the God sent for anarchist terrorism – the power that had previously been the preserve of States, became easily available to individuals. It is, therefore, humanity’s lot that every advantage comes with a disadvantage, every opportunity creates vulnerability. 

Indeed, it’s a very thin line that separates good from bad in almost every aspect of human affairs; free speech can easily stray into hate speech, explaining issues can be misconstrued as glorifying them and, that last example is especially pertinent to the Media and Terrorism sphere. There seems to be a tight embrace between Terrorism and the Media. As Terrorism is said to never be aimed at its victims, but at its audience, the Media tends to always be, perhaps unwittingly, the “megaphone” of Terrorism. If the above premise holds, there is even a tighter embrace between Terrorism and the Electronic Media. Technology and Innovation have democratised the Media space, and various actors, including the Terrorists themselves, now have their own “megaphones.” Technology can now be used equally to glorify the good as well as the bad. 

This conundrum is exactly what the International Academy of Television and Radio (IATR ) wants to appraise every year. They hold an annual conference to survey exactly what the relationship is between Terrorism and the Media, especially Electronic Media. There is no shortage of guidelines as the United Nations’ various bodies have discussed the issue ad infinitum. The IATR conference is a chance to discuss what these guidelines mean in practice. It is attended by journalists, civil society, academics, and government officials, who all then exchange views on what the field looks like to them. It’s a chance to discuss each other’s concerns and constraints which culminates in an outcome document. 

While the duty of every responsible citizen is to contribute to the well-being of society, for example by not glorifying Terrorism, the discussions at this year’s 13th International Conference in Sofia Bulgaria, leaned more towards the governments’ worldview, to the exclusion of the legitimate concerns of those who tend to resort to Terrorism. I suppose it was inevitable that the discussion would turn out like this, because as I said above, saying Terrorists have legitimate concerns could be easily be misconstrued as sympathising with them, and can even land one in prison. I got the impression however, that the gathering is open to new ideas. What is needed at next year’s conference, is more people from the critical schools of thought who will challenge the gathering if it falls too much on the side of establishment mentality. The networking value of the same event is great, in that it can create a just-below-government consensus, that can then inform policy, even among governments that are antagonistic towards each other.

13th International Terrorism and Electronic Media Conference.

Bulgarian Defence Minister Krasimir Karakachanov at the Conference.

Bulgarian Defence Minister Krasimir Karakachanov at the Conference.

Discussing the current state of terrorism and electronic media with delegates from Croatia, Serbia and Romania. 

Stjepan Mesić, the last President of Yugoslavia before dissolution, the Syrian Ambassador to Bulgaria, the President of the Serbian Parliament and various other attendees.

Stjepan Mesić, the last President of Yugoslavia before dissolution.

Stjepan Mesić, the last President of Yugoslavia before dissolution.