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Evolutionary Defense Strategies,
Pakistan and China
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by Gaurang Bhatt, MD |
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Evolution has many lessons to teach us about defense strategy and international relations. Nehru in his ignorance of biology and general na'vet' went ga ga about Hindi Chini Bhai Bhai (Asian universal brotherhood) as did Gandhi in his dealings with Pakistan. The three India Pakistan wars and the India China war of 1962 confirmed their foolishness. The evolutionary parallel is the height of trees in a forest. All trees need sunlight to use their chlorophyll to generate nutrients from carbon dioxide and water. It would make sense for any tree to restrain the waste in energy consumption by restricting its height and spend its resources on its leaves, roots, flowers or seeds as they will ensure a long healthy life and improved chances of fruitful progeny. Growing tall is energy costly because of longer trunks that have to be sturdy enough to withstand winds that will snap them if they are not thick enough. Trees do not exceed 350 feet in height, as the thickest trunks they can muster would snap by fast wind shear forces produced by the swaying of the trunks. If the trees in a new forest could only come to a friendly non-rivalry understanding to keep their heights modest (say 25 feet) they would save a lot of energy and channel it more usefully and productively. It is like the increasing defense expenditures of the US, Russia, Japan, China, India and Pakistan, all running to get ahead but staying in the same relative place irrespective of increased effort and expenditure. When push comes to shove, selfish individuals and nations neglect even children, spouses and relatives or citizens respectively, (individuals) as in trophy younger second wives, Clinton oval office liaisons and nations starting wars (US in Iraq, Panama, Granada etc.), so powerful is sexual libido and hunger for power. There is no international court of justice with genuine punishing power and no accepted code of ethical international behavior, so international relations are a Hobbesian hell with rules of the jungle. That is why the European nations indulged in slave trading, genocide and colonial exploitation in the sixteenth to the twentieth centuries. Russia and the US for centuries have expanded their empires and even today America preemptively attacks other nations militarily without cause or justification just as the Persians, Alexander, Romans, Arab Muslims, Mongols and the Europeans did before. Thus unilateral neglect of national military in Nehruvian style led to China's successful and Pakistan's unsuccessful attacks. This is what the US tries to do with Cuba and other disobedient countries in Latin America, Syria and North Korea by embargoes. Another technique is the Salami tactic in which pieces of a country are sliced off to reduce its power and geography. The US did this with Mexico by taking the US southwest, separating Panama from Colombia, permanently occupying Guantanamo in Cuba and presently bases in Iraq. India did the same with Bangladesh when opportunity arose due to Pakistan military atrocities on its east wing and Mujibur Rahman. Britain has played the divide and rule strategy in the partition of India, separating Kuwait from Iraq, the Biafran war in Nigeria and other cases. Apartheid South Africa tried it with Bantustans and Israel plays the same game in the occupied West Bank. In nature predators attack the weakest of the herd to isolate, kill and consume them and rivals for sex do this by killing the infants of another power to get the mother back to fertility to sire a new brood. US and European tactics of supporting obedient client governments the world over (Iraq, Egypt, Pakistan, Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Jordan, Pakistan etc.) while killing or exiling the opposition is similar. Another evolutionary strategy is advertisement as deterrent. The fanning of a cobra's ribs into a menacing hood, pilo-motor erection to look more formidable and bright iridescent coloring to warn predators that the animal is poisonous as done by poisonous frogs and butterflies or porcupine spines are warning signs. We use home and car burglar alarms for the same purpose. |
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21-Jun-2008 | ||
More by : Gaurang Bhatt, MD | ||
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