Iran’s Proxy War
The kidnapping of Israeli soldiers (and escalation thereafter) has led to more push/pull along the American – European faultline as America supported Israel’s “right to self defense” and the EU condemned Israeli actions as “contrary to international humanitarian law”. This lends credibility to the argument that Hezbollah is acting as a proxy for Iran and is attempting to split the vote regarding its nuclear discussions.
UPDATE: This conflict also serves to show the world population the ill effects (namely increasingly obscene oil prices) of going to war in the Middle East proper. This micro escalation has caused $76.25 .
Network News Half-Life
Physics Web – Nothing groundbreaking, but something to know and think about –
Albert-László Barabási of the University of Notre Dame in the US and colleagues in Hungary have calculated that the number of people who read news stories on the web decays with time in a power law, and not exponentially as commonly thought.
The average half-life of a news item is just 36 hours, or one and a half days after it is released.
Education In Afghanistan
WaTimes – The Taliban is focusing on the very long term while we struggle with the short term –
“Schools are being shut down by bombs and threats, denying another generation of Afghan girls an education and the chance for a better life,” said Zama Coursen-Neff, co-author of the report. “Attacks on schools by the Taliban and other groups that are intended to terrorize the civilian population are war crimes and jeopardize Afghanistan’s future.”
…The organization reported that there were more attacks on the education system in the first half of 2006 than in all of 2005.
Spam
Comment moderation is temporarily on while I update my antispam plugins and the like.
Indian Bombings
The Hindu –
At least 137 people were killed and 230 injured in a string of seven terror blasts that tore through first class compartments of suburban trains around 6PM during the peak hour traffic here today.
IMMEDIATE IMPACT
In terms of “who did it” Muslim fundamentalists of some organization, possibly linked but more than likely inspired by the organic terrorists of London and the economic shooters of Bangalore. Chances are they were not organic in the sense they came together for this attack though they may be homegrown Indian Muslim terrorists.
This operation targeted the economic viability (which provides the state legitimacy) of the city of Mumbai. The first class compartments are utilized by the rising middle class, the lifeblood of the new Indian economy. The train system is absolutely critical infrastructure as the main throughfare from residential areas to key economic zones. Disrupting this system basically shuts down the economy for any given period of time. This is likely to be mostly disregarded in the noise surrounding the death count but is the more significant impact.
SHORT TERM IMPACT
There are three main fear vectors – go home, utilize public road transportation in the form of buses, or utilize the taxi/auto system. Home is the best and logical choice for individuals, but not in the interest of the state.
The other two (buses and taxi depots) are very likely to be targets of follow up attacks with most buses being overcrowded and guarded by a lone sapoy with a stick. With the entire Indian security system based on the idea that with one or two security nodes everywhere word will get to the more powerful who actually have the capacity to respond. This leaves the system open to lightning in and out attacks.
Whether or not these attacks take form will be dictated by the size and degree of innovation cultured in the organization conducting these actions. Based on whether they take advantage of fear vectors can help us gauge how far along the GG trajectory they are. An advanced group will seek to expand the “shutdown” timespan.
LONG TERM IMPACT
Look for more of the same, attacks concentrated on the economic hubs of states with significant cultural fault lines targeted at exploiting those rifts in order to fragment the state.
From an organic security perspective look for international cooperation to increase, India and Pakistan relations to destabilize (and in turn India-US relations to some degree, offset by how the nuclear deal plays out).