Missileaneous Excitement

For a country whose entire foreign policy can be distilled into the question “Should we launch another missile and piss everyone off?” it wasn’t surprising that North Korea recently launched another one of its missiles. As always, the reactions to it were along predicted lines, given that this has happened so many times before – South Korea was alarmed, the Western European powers condemned it, China looked the other way while the US imposed a fresh set of sanctions on North Korea. That last point made me wonder – wasn’t North Korea already isolated and reeling under the weight of international sanctions? Yet each time they launched a missile, a fresh set of sanctions were promptly announced – is there some sort of bottomless pit of sanctions that the US has in place? Or do they think up new things to sanction each time a missile is launched?

The guys at the State Department must be pretty bored trying to come up with new sanctions each time. They probably walked in to the next day’s meeting with a sense of overwhelming dread and despair.

Head of Sanctions Department (addressing the Sanctions team): You know the drill, boys – that’s the tenth time those North Koreans have fired a missile. We’ve already placed sanctions on defence equipment, uranium and radioactive elements, electronics, medical equipment, industrial goods, heavy machinery, vehicles, specialized services, general services, recreational firearms and home décor items – so think of something new.

After countless late nights spent poring over the possibilities, the end result would be a sanction on some fairly innocuous item, like citrus fruits. With all the big-ticket items already placed under sanctions, the Sanctions team plumped for citrus fruits after a vigorous and heated debate over the merits of imposing sanctions on other similarly insignificant items like lawn ornaments, embroidery kits and cushion covers.

A State Department announcement to that effect will follow:

“The United States shall not tolerate this impudent display of missile launching by North Korea. We take such matters seriously, and to show you how seriously we take it we shall impose a sanction that forbids the entry or exit of citrus fruits to North Korea. Citrus fruits are a rich source of Vitamin C and highly tasty – a state deprived of Vitamin C can only survive so long. This is just the beginning, and if the North Koreans do not dismantle their weapons program we shall extend the sanction to other fruits and maybe even vegetables, if push comes to shove.”

The North Korean state, while being disappointed at the prospect of breakfast without orange juice, would engage its propaganda machine to convince people that they never really loved citrus fruits that much in the first place anyway.

“Citrus fruits are the ultimate symbol of Western imperialist and hegemonic forces. Its zesty flavour and quenching allure mirrors the decadent and hedonistic lifestyle of Western consumerist ways. The dastardly but admittedly tasty citrus fruits are headed down the same path of destruction as the rest of Western society. The Supreme leader has always been more of a watermelon person anyway. Apples, bananas and grapes are also fruits he’s really quite fond of.”

Soon, though, the rest of the world moved on as stock markets began to crash amid fears of another recession, and North Korea was forgotten again. It wasn’t always this way for North Korea. Until the Islamic terrorists came along and truly made a nuisance of themselves, North Korea was in the spotlight with far greater regularity.

It all started in 2002, with George W Bush declaring North Korea as one of the members of the Axis of Evil, along with Iran & Libya. I know what you’re thinking “Axis of Evil! Wow, that sounds like a great name for a heavy metal band!” But unlike Iran & Libya, who weren’t exactly jumping for joy over their new moniker, North Korea seemed to revel in its bad boy status, firing off a slew of missiles, embarking enthusiastically upon uranium enrichment programs and indulging in all the clandestine and covert stuff that doesn’t go down well with the US unless it’s the CIA that does it.

The excitement peaked in 2005, with the Axis of Evil being discarded for the more colourful-sounding “Outposts of Tyranny”, comprising six countries with North Korea once again leading the way. I know – “Outposts of Tyranny” sounds like an even better name for a heavy metal band, doesn’t it? Perhaps the US State Department should consider creating names for metal bands as an alternate line of work.

Apart from North Korea, though, most of the outposts of tyranny have simply lost their tyrannical edge and can now be more accurately termed as “Outposts of Milder Levels of Oppression and Totalitarianism”. Gaddafi is not around anymore, Iran has agreed to dismantle its nuclear program, Myanmar is inching closer to democracy, Belarus no one even remembers had originally made it to the list and Obama is considering making a trip to Cuba – leaving North Korea as the one outright evil, unrepentantly tyrannical country from that original list. The time seemed ripe to truly take centre stage, as opposed to being part of an Axis or one among the Outposts.

Sadly, along came the Islamic terrorists and blew it all to bits, in more ways than one. Apart from the obligatory week in the spotlight fetched by a missile launch, it's back to the scrapheap of geopolitical obscurity for America’s favourite villainous state.

Borderline Crazy

As Catalonia prepares for a referendum on whether to break away from Spain and be a separate country, a lot of important questions cloud the mind. Would the new country be a part of EU? Would this benefit the people of the Catalan region or just see a rise in ultra-nationalism with little economic progress? Would big businesses flee the Catalan region if it weren’t part of EU? Would this encourage the Basque separatists or the Andalusian nationalists and lead to a further disintegration of Spain? Would Real Madrid and Barcelona; the only rivals for the Spanish League titles, now start winning their respective national titles for the rest of eternity without each other for competition? And finally, if they do vote for a separate country – could they PLEASE make sure they get their borders right?

One of the toughest, yet most critical parts of being a country is getting your border right. You may have the finest natural resources, rich tourism potential, a highly productive population, great reserves of oil, but if you don’t get that border right all your energy would go into squabbling with that pesky neighbor over a border dispute for the next 50 years or more. You may think that messing up with maps is Apple’s forte, but look around and you’ll see a lot of countries have got it wrong and been involved in bitter border disputes – India, Pakistan, China, Japan, South Korea, Greece, Turkey, Egypt – the list is endless. You may think that if they could put a man on the moon, getting the borders correct should not be an issue, but it is. Sadly, rocket science is overrated – there are so many things far more difficult to do – understanding women, peace in the Middle East, mastering calculus, agreeing on national borders, unarmed combat with a Bengal tiger, building a Large Hadron Collider in your backyard, obeying traffic rules on Indian roads – once again, the list is endless.

But coming back to territorial disputes – as Indians, we may think we’ve seen it all – after all we not only have territorial disputes with Pakistan, China, Bangladesh and Nepal, we also have territorial disputes between various states in the country! The recent ASEAN summit, however, made me realize how little I really knew. I’d thought that India – Pakistan, Iran – Iraq, Israel-Palestine – was about as complex as it got, until I heard of the South China Sea dispute. Here was a region that had 8 different territorial disputes involving 7 different countries – and I had no clue about it! To help you better understand what this means, below is a matrix that I’ve prepared listing the disputes and the countries involved.

So, what is it about the South China Sea region that’s got 7 countries throwing tantrums and refusing to talk to each other like gentlemen? Firstly, it has oil – although the estimates are wonderfully enigmatic over whether it's a huge amount of oil or a fairly small amount. A Chinese estimate puts it at over 200 million barrels of oil, whereas an American one puts it at 28 billion barrels. While both are amounts that are not to be scoffed at, it does make one wonder - isn’t one of them terribly wrong here? Like, terribly, disastrously, insanely and unbelievably wrong? I mean, it’s ok if you say it’s 230 and it turns out to be 250 – but if you say 28 and it turns out to be 200+, or the other way round, you’ve done a very bad job, haven’t you? And these are people who would study this stuff for years to come up with these estimates, and then get it so badly wrong. Someone ought to be fired – imagine, it’s like telling your shareholders you’ve made sales of 200 million at the AGM, only to call a sheepish press conference next week saying that your sales figures were slightly off the mark – that instead of 200, it’s more like…umm…20! It’s understandable if it’s all part of some propaganda – like North Korea telling the press that their economy is so prosperous by lining up 20 fat people to pose for the cameras while the rest of the country is starving, just to show what a good job The Great Undisputed Leader Is Doing Foiling The Evil Imperialist Designs Of Western Capitalism. It was the same when I read about shale gas reserves in India – from an initial estimate of 300-plus trillion cubic feet; it came down to…6 trillion cubic feet! Who made the initial estimate and why did people believe him? Did he just randomly wake up one morning and cook up that number?

But coming back to South China Sea, whether 200 billion or 28, it’s enough to have the countries fighting over it, so at least the consequences were irrelevant. And it isn’t just oil – the area is rich in fishing potential, and we’re talking of 7 countries that absolutely love seafood here. And it’s also a very busy shipping lane, so there’s plenty of money to be made there as well. For those curious about India’s guest appearance – Indian navy vessels sailing in the South China Sea received an “unscheduled escort” by a Chinese Navy vessel for a good 12 hours. I have no clue what that means, but I’m guessing “unscheduled escort” is being used in an extremely euphemistic manner here. I shudder to think what's going to happen if I ever walked up to a girl and offered to "unscheduled escort" her!

So you can imagine the plight of poor, neutral Cambodia when it hosted the ASEAN meet this year. According to Reuters, Cambodia spent all its time “batting away repeated attempts to raise the issue about the disputed waters during the ASEAN Meeting.” It must’ve been worse than any of those family gatherings where an uncle/aunt or two have had a drink too many and the secrets start to spill out. If Cambodia had a thick head of lush, black hair, it would’ve turned listless and grey by the end of the ASEAN Meeting.

“Listen, China – I don’t care! You must learn to share your things, ok? Otherwise no Satay for you!”

“And Vietnam – look at you – you ought to be ashamed of yourself. You promised you’d only fish in your territorial waters!”

“Brunei, you too??? I expected better from you at least – squabbling like a baby over maritime boundaries!”

“Taiwan – I always thought you were the smart, sensible one – that you’d be above all this and keep yourself occupied making all those consumer electronics. What’s gotten into you – 7 border disputes???”

Needless to say, the ASEAN Meeting ended badly – but it just raises the question – if bilateral disputes have been simmering for over half a century – can a seven-way one EVER be resolved?  You may not have that many borders, Catalunya, but make sure you get it right!