China: Samoa’s Most Favoured Nation.

Australia remains the biggest foreign aid donor to the South Pacific Region, primarily to PNG and Vanuatu, giving well over $7billion AUD per annum, followed by the United States which is concentrated in their military territories in Micronesia and American Samoa, followed by Japan. China, however, has accelerated their donations to the region within half a decade, and, in particular, the Chinese have given a substantial aid to Samoa.

Samoa has been earmarked by the Chinese government as a most favourable nation status in the South Pacific. This elevation of Chinese influence in Samoa has recently increased for political strategic reasons in order to increase the Chinese geo-political influence in the Pacific region.

Comparably, the Chinese have also begun an accelerated foreign aid program to African nations as well in a beyond the Asian borders expansion of Chinese geo-political influence

Specifically, for Samoa, the largest traditional donor remains New Zealand. However, stronger Asian economies have asserted their influence most notably from the Chinese, Japanese and Koreans.

Australia still dominate the financial institutions of Samoa, therefore, Australia remains the commercial epi-centre for Samoan banking and financial influence.

Most recently, China has increasingly become the most favoured nation for Samoa's national interest, moreso, than New Zealand, Australia and America in geo-political and economic matters.

The relationship between Samoa and China have accelerated recently in light of the South China Sea tensions, the brokering of a military and infrastructural development agreement between China and Philippines has dramatically increased the Chinese sphere of influence in South East Asia.

The recent $40 million foreign aid to Samoa announced last week by the Samoan Prime Minister has sealed a warm and closer relationship between Samoa and China.

American geo-political and economic influence, in Samoa, is minimal obviously due to their direct territorial interests in American Samoa. In American Samoa like the Marshall Islands and Micronesian territories are American territorial influences primarily for military purposes.
Militarily, Samoans rely almost entirely on New Zealand and Australia for its National Defence.

Timoteo Tufuga

Source:




1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China%E2%80%93Samoa_relations

2. http://www.samoagovt.ws/2016/10/samoa-china-agreement-signed/

Religious conflict between a Hindu-Sikh State, and a Muslim State, within Kashmir, an unlikely trigger for Mutually Assured Destruction?

Religious violence has long existed in the Indo-Asian region since man had contrived religion, even as recent as the seventh century with the advent of the Islamic faith, this influential tour de force had coercively influenced the region for a millennia and a half. Even with the Occidental colonial influence, particularly, from the British Raj, within the past three centuries, whose omnipresent influence in procuring effective geo-political diplomatic dialogue and redress, would help solve the problems of the religious divide that had infected the Indian race of people. This influence would culminate with the Radcliffe Line,(1) a de-colonisation resolution culminating with the creation of the modern states, of West Pakistan (West Punjab, and, since 1971, simply known as, Pakistan), East Pakistan ( formerly known as East Bengal, then, in 1971, known as Bangladesh). These nation states were the direct product of an irreconcilable religious conflict which would only be resolved with the artificial creation of these nation states.

(Wikipedia.com)

In the meantime, non-affected regions, such as Kashmir, which was similar to other Principalities, like Bhutan, Nepal and the Maldives, (2), were considered as independent regions and States, but, unlike Bhutan, Nepal and the Maldives, Kashmir, was unable to attain full independence, and Nation State recognition, nor, become assimilated geo-politically into either of the major nation. Instead, and, perhaps, purposely strategically designed by the Architectural master plan of Radcliffe, et al, was the politically strategic, soft State, positioning for the Kashmir province, which would serve as a bufferzone territory, by which, adversarial stronger hard powers, of India, Pakistan, and, even China, are kept at arms length from each other.

(Wikipedia.com)

This came to the fore, when the Chinese had engaged the Tibetans in 1950 bringing the Chinese right at the doorsteps of India, and then, in direct conflict with the Sino-Indian conflict, in 1962-63, with skirmishes over the Aksai Chin area, within Kashmir proper,(3) in which it would attest to the value of the Kashmir region, as a Buffer Zone, in preventing direct engagement between China and India with sporadic infiltrations from either side in cross border incursions.

(Wikipedia.com) The mobilisation of military assets between these very formidable military powers were always kept at arms length from direct territorial cross border incursions since the 1960s.

However, what has been on going since 1947, and the great religious schism of a nation along the Radcliffe line (Pakistan-Indian border), of 1947-8, resulting in the religious pogroms and the mass killings of up to a million fellow Indians. Even after the creation of the Muslim States, West and East of India, the religious violence had lessened only after forced religious migrations in and out of designated religious areas.

Today, the ongoing skirmishes between the Indians and Pakistani religious elements, have transmogrified into a geo-political sphere of influence at the battle scarred Kashmir province, and within this generation of Indian and Pakistani belligerents, seem to be have gained new vigor, with more spates of violence once again within the Line of Control (LOC) areas within Kashmir.

(wikipedia.com)

Recent incursions by the Pakistani military assets into Indian controlled Kashmir has been considered provocative which may flare up into yet another battle front for the Deodandi blend of the Sunni militancy with direct military support from the Pakistani armed forces.(4)

Although, India is primarily Hindu and Sikh dominated, the Muslim population are significantly represented within the nation with over sixty million Muslims considered as part of the Indian Citizenry. With this significant presence in the modern day Indian State, the Indian Nation are wary of not pressing the issue of a religious conflict least it may flare up into a domestic civil war. Instead, what has evolved is a regional sphere of influence conflict whereby the soft state status of the Kashmir province has presented Indian and Pakistani government with a particular geo-political crisis of where to draw the line in the sand, insofar as, honouring the buffer zone, status of Kashmir. It seems incumbent for both sides that Kashmir must remain a Soft buffer zone region in order for both Nations having a buffer, no mans land, buffer between them along a contiguous Line of Control, (LOC), into perpetuity.

Why is Kashmir important? No other nations in the world have the unique parity of military capability as India and Pakistan facing off with each other. Unlike, North and South Korea, whereby, their differences is political economic ideology, the Indians and Pakistani conflict, on the other hand, is predominately based on a religious conflict. However, the difference is that unlike another other Islamic Jihadism conflict elsewhere on the planet, Pakistan, as a Muslim nation, unlike Iran, is the only Muslim nation with Nuclear weapons. India, like Pakistan is also a Nuclear power as well.

Nuclear warfare, and, the most unlikely position of a Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) does not register as a Clear and Present Danger situation for the Occidental world. Apart from a direct conflict between China and America, or Russia and America, the most probable countries that would come close to such an event is Pakistan and India. North Korea does not even come close to Pakistan as the most likely nuclear capable nation that is most likely to go rogue.

Presently, the storm in a tea cup in the line of control area, may be considered insignificant at this particular juncture, as compared to the South China Sea area of interest, and South East Ukraine, with the Donbass conflict, as well as, the distractions with domestic Jihadist acts of terrorism throughout Europe and Occidental targeted areas, the Kashmir region remains a potential combustion region that may suddenly draw global attention when it may escalate into something akinned to a Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD).

Tim Tufuga

14th October, 2016


Sources:

1. Partition of India, Wikipedia.com, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partition_of_India

2. ibid.

3. Sino-Indian War, 1962-63, Aksai Chin, Wikipedia.com, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Indian_War_of_1962

4. Surgical Strikes: US Says Empathise with India, India Press, ndtv.com, http://www.ndtv.com/india-news/us-backs-india-slams-pakistan-for-linking-afghan-peace-to-kashmir-1473450

Islamic State of Donbass and Lugant the primary suspects for the MH17 Casus Belli attempt, another Ukrainian Red Herring. By Tim Tufuga 30th September, 2016.

The Occidental Joint Investigation Team (JIT) had submitted their interim report to the public media and have overwhelming concluded that the probable culprits for the MH17 shootdown were Russian military sourced.

What has not been confirmed as to which units and nationalities were involved in the BUK battery chain of command that would order the MH17 shootdown.

Since the initial MH17 preliminary findings were submitted the public knowledge of certain military elements that were not directly linked with the mainstay Belligerent factions of the Donbass separatists and the Ukrainian military forces, would include a very visible presence of Chechen Fedayeen fighters who have enjoined the Ukrainian conflict as directly Russian Army enlistees, or recruited as Mercenaries, within the Ukrainian Separatist units. Collectively, the Chechens and other Muslims within the Ukrainian Separatists, have since been collectively identified as the Islamic State of Donbass and Lugant.

There is a high probability, that the chain of command for the BUK Battery to shootdown MH17 would most likely be a battery unit commanded by Chechens within the Russian forces or more likely within the Islamic State of Donbass and Lugant (ISDL). Subsequently, the mainstream Russian Armed forces chain of command, would not be made aware of this unilateral rogue executive order, directly.

Consequently, it would be important for the Russian and Occidental elements to deductively look into the ISDL as the most likely cause for a Casus Belli event.

NB. IDSL was a speculative red herring circulated by Islamic Social media sources to distract and disinform the investigation. The primary suspect for the MH 17 shootdown is most likely the Ukrainian Military. 

By Tim Tufuga

September 30th, 2016

Source

1. ABC, http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-09-28/mh17-shot-by-russia-made-missile-from-rebel-area-prosecutors-say/7886616

2. Wikipedia.com, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_17

3. The Moscow Times, Dolgov, A, https://themoscowtimes.com/articles/russia-to-start-drafting-chechen-men-into-army-kadyrov-says-39583

4. Youtube, 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0zw_IalMWk

5. ISDL, https://x.com/Mars_FM13/status/510016254313115648

Australian White Phosphorus bombing of Syrian Army is it considered a war crime under the Geneva Protocols on Incendiary weapons? By Tim Tufuga

(RAAF FA 18 courtesy ABC Australia)

Under the general scope of the Incendiary weapons munitions definition as defined as an illegal chemical weapon, the White Phosphorous (WP) bombing of the Syrian Army positions killing an estimated hundred or so Syrian Soldiers at a military base near the Deir al-Zor military airport, East of Syria, may have constituted a war crime under the 1980 Protocols on Incendiary Weapons (Convention on certain conventional weapons)?

According to the 1980s Protocols on Incendiary Weapons, this indictment against Australia may be considered a valid moot, particularly, under the general definition that,

“ any weapon or munition which is primarily designed to set fire to objects or to burn injury to persons through the action of flame, heat, or combination thereof, produced by a chemical reaction of a substance delivered on that target. “

However, in defence of its military use, in a tactical combat situation, white phosphorus primary military function, is to act as an illuminant and, or an obscurant (smoke screen), supportive function, in actual tactical combat operations, and it is not considered as a primary weapon to destroy enemy targets. With this definition of White Phosphorus chemical weapon ordnances primary illuminant and obscurant function and not as a primary weapon to inflict lethal effects upon a military targets, renders the deaths of military targets as merely incidental deaths caused by the white phosphorus illuminant weapon.

In this later definition of White Phosphorus chemical weapon delivery upon the Syrian Army positions causing the deaths of nearly a hundred military and civilian personnel, therefore, does not constitute a war crime under the Protocols on Incendiary Weapons by the Geneva convention 1992, particularly, under section (b) of the 1992 definition, whereby,

“ Munitions and devices, specifically designed to cause death or other harm through the toxic properties of those chemicals specified…”

The keywords, in this updated version, is whether the White Phosphorus is specifically designed. If the primary function of the White Phosphorus was to illuminate the target area then the specific design of the weapon is not considered to be a primary weapon and therefore exonerates Australia from having committed a war crime.

However, when compared to the initial 1980 Protocols on Incendiary Weapons, the definition seems unambiguous and would have levelled the culpability of using White Phosphorus as a certain type of an actual conventional weapon to inflict actual lethality then Australia has indeed committed a war crime.

Just to reiterate, in no uncertain terms, that the more clarified definition of the delivery of an illuminant weapon by the Australian FA18 bombing sortie upon a Syrian Army position, near the Deir al-Zor military airport, was not considered as a primary weapon to destroy and neutralise a military target, in this definition Australia has not committed a war crime, and under the specific definitions extrapolated within the 1992 Protocols on Incendiary Weapons of the Geneva Conventions on Certain Conventional Weapons, the Australian use of White Phosphorus upon a Syrian Army military post accidentally killing Syrian soldiers is not considered a culpable war crime and that the Australian government can not possibly have committed a war crime.

Tim Tufuga
26th September, 2016.


Sources:

1. White Phosphorus, Weapons Law Encyclopedia, http://www.weaponslaw.org/weapons/white-phosphorus-munitions

2. Australian Jets involved in botched air strike, ABC, http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-09-18/australian-jets-involved-in-botched-air-strike-on-syrian-army/7855610 19th September, 2016.

3. Syrian Crisis, ABC, http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-09-19/syria-air-strikes-will-continue-despite-botched-operation/7858694, 19th September, 2016.

The scourge of Islamic Jihadists fueling the return to the political fore of xenophobic political parties: The return of Senator Hanson.

Senator Pauline Hanson, has become the carpetbagger who has arisen like the Phoenix from the political ashes. Senator Pauline Hanson had polled over 140,000 Australian senate votes to elevate her back into a political career. A former jailbird whom was ousted from her Political party, One Nation Party, has once again become the vox populi voice and the embodiment of the ultra xenophobic and chauvinistic Australia.

(Pauline Hanson Google images)
(Australian Muslim Protestors, Google images)

The Ultra right and the radical Jihadist symbiosis.

Paradoxically, the political and cultural symbiosis between the rise of the ultra right wing xenophobic political parties, such as the United Australia Party, with their hate fueled political narrative, has worked in political collusion with the politically radicalised belligerent Islamic Jihadist groups, as the focus point objective for xenophobic scapegoatism. In this symbiosis of hate begets hate, the synthetic outcome of the present ethnic and religious tension is yet another impetus for a fervent anti-Multiculturalism narrative.

The Cronulla riots and other riots throughout Australia reflected the storm in a tea cup racial tension generated in certain pockets of Australian communities. (Aussie Pride protestors, Google images)

The bifurcated and symbiotic relationship between the radicalised Islamic Jihadists, and the Ultra-right reactionary political elements, of many Western Societies including Australia, has become a salient ultra right conspiracy that would become a dummified version of a Tom Clancy novel theme and motif of a subversive rise of neo-fascist elements of society, from one form of extremist terrorism from the ultra right of the ilk of the Anders Brevik, as the insipid bedfellows with the radicalised Islamic Jihadists throughout Western communities, both viewing the common enemy of multiculturalism, the liberals, the moderate centre left political mainstream of most Western Societies. The International Labour Movement and the Left wing political mainstream has also come into the cross hairs of the ultra right. The Radicalised Muslim Jihadist, mostly, angry Muslim menfolk from the western suburbs of Sydney, and other less affluent Australian suburbs. Such suburbs are typical in England, Belgium and France as areas where recent homegrown jihadist terrorists were radicalised and becoming activated as Actuals.

(Anders Brevik, Google images)

In Australia, the face of resentment and hatred has manifested itself, by a gaffe riddled, stuttering, redheaded white Anglo-Australian woman, from a less affluent West Brisbane suburban area, having been disendorsed by the Liberal Party, and by the One Nation party to becoming the current leader of the United Australian Party.

The current popularity of the ultra right wing political parties have culminated with the United Kingdom Independent Party (UKIP) removing Great Britain from the EU, during the Brexit. Not even the race riots from 1981 till 1985 during the Brixton race riots could Great Britain could ever hope to leave the European Economic Community. However, the 2005 London bombings and the global war on terror and the radicalised domestic terrorism has given impetus for the British to veer anti-multicultural and right wing.

The French rightwing National Front leader Le Pen,; has become a tour de force with the help of the Paris massacre in November 2015. Other obvious results from the Global war on terror has been the influx of war refugees from the Middle East to Europe.

The feeling of justified political success of the ultra right has swept the world and the Neo-Fascism has become the anti-Liberal mantra and the anti Multiculturalism narrative has become the ultimate objective for the right wing agenda.

Pauline Hanson's victory was a rousing victory for her anti-multicultural agenda. Her Neo-Nazi minions had millieued around Bendigo in a anti-Mosque protestation. Whilst, it may be argued is not a constitutional crime it is however considered a Federal offence under the Racial Discrimination Act, 1975. Countering the Bendigo United Patriots Front and other National Front movements within Australia the pro-multicultural groups and anti fascist protesters would confront the National Front rioters. To exacerbate the pro-multicultural narrative has been the radicalised Islamic Jihadist who have degraded and the merits of a cosmopolitan and a multi-culturally harmonious society.


The present political zeitgeist in a global war on terror is the perpetual rise of the radicalised Islamic individuals, such as the unaffiliated and unassociated lone wolves, who have arisen from the seemingly innocuous suburbs, throughout most civil societies throughout the known free world. The victors no doubt are the proponents for the ultra reactionary and homogenous xenophobic mainstream. The victims are the target ethnic groups for the moment, the Islamic communities. Outwardly, multiculturalism is once again challenged by the negative influences of both the ultra right homogenous mainstream and the extreme radicalised minority groups such as the Radicalised Islamic Jihadist.

Tim Tufuga



16th September, 2016.


Source:

1. Hanson, P, Senator P. Hanson Full Speech, 14th September, 2016, http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/pauline-hansons-2016-maiden-speech-to-the-senate-full-transcript-20160914-grgjtm.html


2. Morris, M, ABC, http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-10-12/who-was-behind-bendigos-anti-mosque-protests/6848468

An Australian response to a post Islamic State: The emergence of Independent Kurdistan By Tim Tufuga

An Australian perspective on the global war on terror and the impact on Multicultural Australian society and Kurdistan.

On our television screens, and through our social media, we see the carnage of a nation embroiled in a seemingly inexplicable complicated civil war. Australians had formally partook in the global war on terror by deploying Australian military personnel to assist in the global effort in dealing with the Islamic Jihad problem.

What has been recognised is the after the draw down of the coalition war machine another war raged from the Arab Spring insurrections that had spread throughout the Middle East. The present Syrian civil war was the product of this Arab Spring and the Islamic State had emerged as the Champion of the Saddam Hussein’s legacy of declaring a mother of all battle, a interpretive allusion for a global Jihad,[ Hale Alexandra, Mother of all battles, 2003, http://www.halexandria.org/dward256.htm ] as promised in the first Persian Gulf War in in 1991, a one hundred day war which ended with a proper thrashing of a Sunni warlord. Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi,[ Wikipedia.com, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Bakr_al-Baghdadi ] the self declared Caliph of the Islamic State, had inherited the vision of his predecessor, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi,[ Wikipedia.com, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Musab_al-Zarqawi ] for such a Sunni Caliphate, however, it was in truth, Saddam Hussein’s vision as initially proposed in 1991 which seemed to have come true today. However, such a vision may indeed only be considered ephemeral but more significantly would act, instead, as a catalyst for yet another paradoxical outcome for the Sunni Muslims. Whilst the Islamic State would realise Saddam Hussein’s “Mother of all battles” narrative, by coercively establishing a Sunni Caliphate, in truth, however, as the twist of political fate will have it, the Islamic State presence, would create a conducive environment for helping forge a hastened transition towards a new independent Kurdish state.

Australian involvement in redrawing of the Middle East map.

In Australia, by the end of August, 2016, the forty fifth federal parliament, was officially opened by his Excellency, Lt. General Cosgrove, the incumbent Australian Governor General, in his speech he reaffirms the Australian commitment to reconciling a constitutional anomaly with the indigenous people of Australia by formerly announcing a proposed referenda to formerly recognise the indigenous people of Australia in the Australian constitution. In the same speech, multiculturalism and the indigenous issues regarding the delicate race relationships within a modern, vibrant, well informed, and a tolerant Australian society was challenged with the formal recognition attempts of the Australian indigenous people within the Federal Australian Constitution, on the one hand, and, a proposal to amend the Racial Discrimination Act, 1975, with the amendments proposed for 18c of the Act, which deals with the definition of racially motivated hate speech infringing upon individuals and institutional freedoms of speech within formal public Australian functions and institutions.

Meanwhile, a progressive social dynamic of multicultural Australian society has been counteracted by political and cultural skirmishes within far away and exotic places, like Syria, which has been brought home, at our doorsteps, as part of a universal global war on terror narrative. An Australian society, like in America, Europe, Asia, and Africa, the threat level of asymmetrical global warfare, has been brought home, with domestic acts of terror.

After September 11, 2001, the war on terror, was a noble casus belli for America and its allies to launch a seemingly justifiable war against the perpetrators of an unprovoked act of terror against America and an attack against the free world. Australia would enjoin in this war most willingly. Little did many Australians know that some decade or so later more non-Australian Defence Force Australian citizens would be included in the war casualty statistics not only in official conventional combat zones within the Middle East, but, would be radicalised as domestic terrorists within Australia. A new challenge to Australian multicultural society had emerged after September 11, 2001. A political legacy that would reveal a global political shift from a centrist and liberal realpolitical world view, to veering more right wing, reactionary and xenophobic world. An increasingly insecure society which has been justified with a global war on terror morphed not only becoming a strategic mission creep in another pocket region in the world but a war now being fought right at our neighbourhoods.


Australians joining the war zones in the Middle East: The Islamic State the political strategic picture.

In 2013, after the draw down of formal military proceedings from Afghanistan and Iraq by Australia’s commitment to the global war on terror seemed to concluded Australia’s decade long commitment to the global war on terror.

In Brisbane, Australia, in 2013, a 27 year old Australian man, Ahmed Succarieh, (Raymond Succarieh), an ex-Runcorn State High School student, in Logan City, South of Brisbane, would become Australia’s first suicide bomber in the Syrian civil war. Ahmed Succarieh (aka Abu Asma al-Australi)[ Sales, Leigh, ABC, http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2013/s3889609.htm ] drove a truck, ladened with high explosives, into a Syrian Army checkpoint killing thirty five people.


Raymond Succarieh (aka Abu Asma al-Australi) (School photo, google)

A year later, in September, 2014, his older brother, Omar Succarieh[ McKenna, K, Courier Mail, 2014, http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/crime-and-justice/war-on-terror-brisbane-terror-accused-omar-succarieh-denied-bail/news-story/3eb6c0cdd5deea86966957325144760b ], a Logan City Islamic bookstore owner, during a nationwide Australian counter terrorism law enforcement sting, involving the Australian Intelligence Community, the Australian Federal Police and State Police joint operation, was arrested and charged under counter terrorism laws, with providing financial aid to the Al Qaeda linked terrorist organisation, Jabhat Al Nusra ( now known as Jabhat Fateh al-Sham).

Other notable Brisbane based arrested terror suspects, included Ahmed Succarieh’s older brother, Omar Succarieh, (Al Qaeda linked Jabhat al Nusra financier), Agim Kruezi (Logan City resident recruited into the Jabhat Al Nusra recruit), and, over one hundred known Brisbane and Logan City based Actuals and Suspects.

Presently, in August, 2016, Ahmed Succarieh’s older brother, Omar Succarieh, remains remanded in the Arthur Gorrie Correctional Centre, in Wacol, Brisbane, still awaiting his trial for terrorism law offenses. The Succarieh siblings are amongst a growing number of radicalised Australians still being lured into the conflicts in the Middle East and some even more frightening for the Australian community, having failed in their ambition to enjoin in the Middle Eastern Conflict, would resort to homegrown acts of terror. The asymmetrical nature of the global war on terror has brought what seems to be a conventional foreign war right into our neighbourhoods and to our doorsteps.

The global war on terror at our own doorstep.

At the grass roots level, the present global war on terror has inculcated an unprecedented cultural conditioning beyond the scope of immediate significant and peer persons radicalisation of local citizenry. More pervasive is the fluidity of access to information through the digital age. Radicalisation for a potential Islamic Jihadist terrorist is no longer limited to social gatherings in physical known places like Mosques, Islamic schools, or even Islamic bookstores, but, the internet is more pervasively accessible to individual and more particularly to potentially radicalised individuals and individual groups.

Young people from ethnically disadvantaged groups, particularly, from the Islamic cultural backgrounds, have traditionally become culturally isolated within most Western societies and Australia is no exception. Typically, minority groups, with their culturally unique traditions, whether they are from a middle class, or working class, socio-economic backgrounds, if culturally estranged, isolated and disenfranchised, may be susceptible to the social dysfunctionalism and often will become your regular angry juvenile delinquent. Some become unemployed and disaffected and would remain your typical disillusioned unemployed job seeker, within a West Sydney suburb, or, in Logan City, in Queensland.

What is more complicated, however, is the overarching ideological narrative which would threaten the very fabric of a harmoniously multicultural Australian society, which is the indelible threat to a seemingly harmonious multicultural Australian society brought about by a particular cultural and ethnic group of individuals bringing with them their particular baggage which only serves only to marginalise these individuals, their peers, and their kin, even further, within an Australian multicultural society. The ascent of the xenophobic societal attitude has found their raison de’ tre with the inadvertent assistance of the domestic radicalised Islamic Jihadist.

However, as in the case of Ahmed Succarieh and other Islamic radicalised homegrown terrorist elements, was easily groomed into Jihadist radicalisation by his peers, and social networks. Subsequently, he would willingly sign up to enjoin a deadly adventure, or a misadventure, as the case may be. The scenario seems unsophisticatedly simple, in so far as, understanding how an angry young man or a religious zealot may become radicalised to the utmost extreme that they would be more than willing to forfeit their own lives for a cause they consider more important than themselves. A person placed in such a conducive environment for radicalisation will be groomed to become the worse case scenario for any national security risk assessment.

With the seemingly futile attempt at curtailing the cornered cat against the wall cultural isolation for many Islamic Australians, the never shall twain shall meet cultural estrangement has been assuaged with citizenry responsibility and community goodwill. Unfortunately, in the vexatious complicated world we live in sometimes as Gore Vidal book entitled “Perpetual war, for Perpetual peace”,[ Vidal, G, 2002, Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace: How we got to be so hated, https://www.amazon.com/Perpetual-War-Peace-How-Hated/dp/156025405X ] the global war on terror a conflict to quell the global spread of the Islamic Jihad since September 11, 2001, had morphed into an inter-generational mission creep.

Social mass media and mainstream media flaming the Jihadist narrative.

People engage each other on their laptops, recruitment for lone wolves are in individuals homes they are accessed by the advanced digital age. The digital age technology and, in particular, the accessibility to the social media networks, has changed the dynamics of conventional engagements and conflicts.

What seems disturbing to the uninitiated laity is the media information overload streaming pictures of war atrocities on our television screens, and viewing the child victims with blood streaked smears, disorientated and disheveled. The immediate response of the unaffected is how can man possibly inflict such an atrociously violent act against a child? Then, as we pan further out from the fragile scene of an innocent victim of war, we view the war torn rubble and realise the location of the recent barrel bombing and find out the city’s name, Aleppo, a major Islamic State stronghold within in a place called the Rojava region, in Northern Syria. Still, the unaware viewer at first glance will not be able to see the connection between the child who has obviously been caught out in the cross fire of a complicated civil war. Whilst the child is being attended to at a medical emergency triage station, the viewer will side with the journalist’s assessment of the situation and insodoing would form a negative opinion of the Syrian government’s rules of engagement against their Sunni enemies. For the part of the Syrian government the Shia backed government forces is undoubtedly supported by a religious narrative which would elevate the conflict to religious fervour. The justifications for conflict for many combatants is sourced at some myopic religious rite of passage which is Islamic sectarianism at its most violent expression. The Alawite Shia backed Assad regime, has found a common ally with the enemy of my enemy makes me your friend, alliances with Russia, augmenting a traditional Shia ally with the most powerful Shia Islamic nation Iran, would ensure that the Shia Muslim would consider the present global war on terror not as a conflict against religious infidels, but a conflict waged against another Muslim sect. The Shia whilst accruing only around 30 per cent of the world’s Islamic followers, have, indeed, become a potent tour de force and a religious sect wedge within the Sunni dominated world.

The Global War on Terror mission creep.

From a military and politically strategic standpoint, the endgame for the present global war on terror did not end when the United States President, George W Bush, landing an aircraft on board a US Aircraft Carrier, and he would triumphantly declare “Mission Accomplished”,[ CNN, May 2, 2003, http://edition.cnn.com/2003/US/05/01/bush.transcript/ ] in May 2003. Nor when President Obama’s Operation Geronimo Seal Team Six culling of the world’s most wanted terrorist and with the eventual draw down of American and Coalition of the willing forces from official military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. Instead, a released former detainee within the Bucca Camp,[ Parks, B, news.com.au, May, 31, 2015, http://www.news.com.au/world/north-america/how-a-us-prison-camp-helped-create-isis/news-story/00f2cef93d3b00dd05354d68f4ef2e2e ] in 2004, (US military prison in South of Iraq), whom would declare himself the Caliph of the Islamic State Caliphate, cumulatively would reaffirm the mission creep strategy in endeavouring to transform the Middle East region and to change the Sykes-Picot contrived Middle Eastern map.

With it comes the notion that the perpetual war for perpetual peace will indeed further demonise the prevailing hegemonic forces, led no doubt by Russia and the United States of America, having the vicarious responsibility for allowing the present global war to continue. It may be analytically accurate to surmise that the strategic designs at ending the global war of terror has morphed into a Geo-spatial strategic military and political mission creep. The strategic mission creep in the war against terror has bestowed a can of worms inheritance to the present and future military and political leaders in what seems to be conundrum endless rabbit hole.

Meanwhile, at the conventional war fronts within Syria and the Levant region, Shia Islamic military forces, both from Iran and the Kurdish and Shia backed Iraqi government forces at the moment making sure that the perpetual war of attrition against an overwhelmingly omnipresent Sunni Islamic Jihad which has been spearheaded by the Islamic State, and by the dissenting Rebel Sunni forces and particularly by the Al Qaeda backed local militias, including the aforementioned Jabhat Fateh al-Sham,[ BBC, August, 1, 2016, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-36924000 ] in which, some of our local Brisbane Australian Jihadists have willingly traveled afar to join in the bloodletting, and, in doing so, stoking the flames for a perpetual global Islamic Jihad which, at present, still continues unabated.

The Middle East theatre, a continuation of Western and Russian proxy engagements.

Meanwhile, the participation by Western and Russian military forces in the region, has not only fulfilled a retribution against Sunni terrorism, through years of conflict against Sunni Jihadists from Chechnya, but, the unlikely alliance of Russia, and the Shia Islamic world, with the Shia Syrian Government forces and the Iranian government forces, Russia is able to continue with their traditional proxy theatre of war against Western backed Sunni forces which are presently engaging the Shia Syrian government regime of President Assad. The Russians have inadvertently supported a Shia led military force which has fought a war on two fronts the IS forces and the Al Qaeda network as the Sunni religious foe, and to a lesser extent, the forces of the Peshmerga, or the Kurds, on the other.

Overall, what appears to be adjunct Arab spring Sunni instigated rebellion led by an artificially contrived Rogue Fedayeen mercenary Army flying under a Sunni Islamic State black flag, would become a catalyst in hastening the path to Kurdish statehood. On the face of it all, the participation by the Russians and other externalised military elements with their bombing sorties have been welcomed by the Syrian government. Meanwhile, putting the proxy war aside for the Russians versus the NATO forces, the willingness of the local political and military establishment of the foreign stabilisation elements has augmented their dwindling resources to continue their resistance the able to use their military weapons and ordinances to ‘fire for effect’, against their vowed religious and ethnic enemies.until, eventually, Syria, like Iraq and Afghanistan, has sufficiently been reduced to failed state status.

Within the Levant region triangle of conflicting forces: The Kurds, the Sunni, and the Shia.

The Kurds are engaging their regional enemies:
 Sunni Armies from both the rebel forces, predominately led by the Al Qaeda network with their subsidiary affiliates;
The Islamic State, led by the self proclaimed Caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.,
The Turkish armies converging from the Anatolia region to the north of the Rojava region.
As well as, and to a much lesser extent for the moment, with having to engage the Assad Shia regime from the South West Syria.

August-September, 2016: Tactical military operations in the Levant: Turkish invasion of the Rojava region, and the Shia and Kurdish liberation of Mosul.

Tactical approaches to local skirmishes have centred upon the Kurdish Syrian area of Northern Syria, known as the Rojava region. Paradoxically, within the Rojava region, which is traditionally a Kurdish region, has instead become the declared Islamic State Caliphate, with the cities of Aleppo and Raqqah, presently, considered as the capital of the Islamic Caliphate [ Syrian War, Wikipedia.com, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_civil_war ]

2016 Syrian Civil war: The fragmentation of political, military control and command.

(Syrian Civil War 2016, Wikipedia)

Turkish military incursion into Syria (August-September 2016)[ Associated Press, Foxnews.com, http://www.foxnews.com/world/2016/08/27/kurdish-led-syrian-forces-report-turkish-air-raids-on-bases.html ]

Meanwhile, adding further to the confusion is the conflict between the Turkish Sunni Army presently converging from the Anatolia region, Turkey, making an incursion into the Eastern Rojava region.[ Rojava conflict, Wikipedia.com, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rojava_conflict ] It seems as though the with the spate of recent terrorist attacks in Turkey, the Turkish military have considered the Kurds and the Islamic State responsible for the spate of terrorist attacks within Turkey. The overall military strategic designs of the operation no doubt is to nullify the battle effectiveness of the Kurdish terrorist cells emanating from the Rojava region, and to eliminate the Islamic State menace, also suspected of procuring terrorist cell incursions within Turkey, as surely as militarily possible. This military operation engagement is presently unfolding in September, 2016.

Meanwhile, at the same time, to the East of the Rojava region, within Iraqi Kurdistan, the Islamic State forces, presently garrisoned in Mosul, are about to be overwhelmed by the Iraqi Army, the Peshmerga Kurdish forces, and the Popular Movement Front (PMF), made up predominately of Shia Muslims fighters, and Al-Malaki loyal Sunni tribes from nearby Baghdad. The resistance still remains stoic.

The Kurds reclamation of the Kurdish Syria, the Rojava Region, from the Sunni Islamic State, the Syrian Rebels, and the Syrian Government forces (Red dots within Rojava Region), led by Kurdish military groups within the Peshmerga, YPG, and the PKK, with Aerial support from mainly the US Airforce.


(Rojava, Wikipedia)

The Independent nation State of Kurdistan: The Sykes-Picot Agreement: The endgame for The Islamic State.[ History.com staff, 2009, http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/britain-and-france-conclude-sykes-picot-agreement ]

Whilst the present skirmishes are presently unfolding within the Rojava region within Kurdish Syria and within Iraqi Kurdistan, and in ineluctable wake of the demise of the Islamic State, the Assad regime will almost certainly be replaced. However, what seems to be the successful outcome to come out of the Islamic State’s paroxymic influence within the Levant, is not in the creation of a Sunni Caliphate to replace the Sykes-Picot agreement from 1916-18, but, in the creation of an official Kurdish Nation State presently within the Rojava and Iraqi Kurdistan region. In many respects, this will proffer and strategically palatable resolution to the present crisis within the Middle East region. From the political and war torn chaos, what seems to be a most likely outcome from the seemingly delusional Islamic Caliphate would not be a return to the Sykes-Picot Middle Eastern Map of the Levant region but a hastened transition for the creation of a new nation that is will proffer a Geo-political and sectarian cosmopolitan independent nation state of Kurdistan. Paradoxically, Islamic Caliphate, which was initially envisioned by Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, and, realised by the self declared Islamic State Caliph, Abu Bakr Al-Bagdadi, would bequeathed instead not an Islamic State, for such an artificially contrived Sunni Islamic State can not evolve in a vacuum, through a sudden coercive event such as the Sunni Islamic State being created without the intrinsic cultural superstructures already entrenched within the local polity. Local political and cultural and tribal infrastructures, which is traditionally Kurdish and most are not Sunni Islamic in origin, have to be culturally transmitted from one generation to the next, it is absent in the present IS Caliphate. In the absence of such superstructural institutions and cultural elements the vision of a Sunni Caliphate within a Kurdish dominated region is simply delusional.

Instead, what has always been the regional and social-political cultural superstructure of the region that being the Kurdish people, and their culture, notwithstanding, their respective peculiar cultural practices the coercive influence of Jihadist aggression, albeit, Shia, or Sunni, will eventually dissipate as the prevailing cultural elements of the indigenous cultures with the overwhelming superstructures embedded will prevail.

Perhaps, understandably so, then, the crux of the present crisis may be sourced at the post Great War Sykes-Picot agreement, then drafted, and ratified, by the victorious European Allied powers, carving up the Ottoman Empire amongst themselves.

What seems significantly noticeable from the carve up of the Ottoman Empire was the absence of a Kurdish Sovereign State. Such a fragmentation of the Ottoman Empire, since 1916, has sown the seeds of disenfranchisement for a very significantly unique ethnic culture of people. Understandably, then, with the unlikely outcome of the Islamic State artificially contrived regional paroxysm, will eventually lead to the creation of an independent Nation State status for the Kurdish people. A historical anomaly will be rectified with the formal recognised existence of a unique ethnic culture whose overall ethnic population of around thirty million which undoubtedly represents a significant ethnic cultural representation within the Levant and Asia Minor region.


Sykes-Picot division of the Ottoman Empire within the Levant creating the modern day Middle Eastern nation states. (1916-19)

Illustratively, the Kurdish region whilst it had been absorbed within the Ottoman Empire would continue to be absorbed and partitioned into four Nations within Asia Minor. With an absence of a Kurdish nation in the twentieth century seemed to have defied the cultural superstructural[ Wikipedia.com, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_and_superstructure ] local knowledge of hundreds of generations of Kurdish cultural existence and a geographical connection and affinity within these particular part of the Asia Minor region. To visually realise the Geo-spatial expanse of the Kurdish cultural superstructural sphere of influence would, therefore, reduce the present territorial map for four Middle Eastern and Asia Minor nations; Turkey, (the South East Anatolia region of Turkey); Syria, (Rojava region), as West of Kurdistan; Northern Iraq, as Southern Kurdistan; and, West Iran, ( Rojhilat, or within the Kermanshah region), as East Kurdistan.


(Google)

Ideally, a new Kurdish nation illustratively will encompass a significant geo-spatial and political area of four Asia Minor nation states, effectively shrinking each of their geographical territorial boundaries quite significantly. Indeed, in terms of practical nation building considerations such a nation will present a daunting international political overreach. For the present moment, in the wake of the Islamic State ephemeral presence, realistically, such an immediate Nation state forged out of four separate geographical and Sovereign National Borders, would be considered as a political and logistical ambitious delusion, even for the most ardent megalomaniac Caliph to conceive in such a momentary notice.

Realistically, however, the present transitory government of the Iraqi Kurdish Regional Government has in place the cultural superstructural, and infrastructural institutions, already established that would make such an eventual transition politically manageable and smooth. Moreover, an eventual Independent sovereign nation status for the Kurdish people and their political representation under its own President. President Barzani being the current incumbent Iraqi Kurdistan President may easily assume the mantle as a head of state.

Another considered question is the Iraqi Kurdistan eventually becoming an Independent nation perhaps as a lesson from the systemic failures from the Syrian regime in Raqqah and Aleppo, the eventual inclusion of the Rojava region within a new Kurdistan State may curtail the seemingly unstable Rojava region and the susceptibility to being overwhelmed so easily to prevailing foreign forces. With the inclusion of the Rojava region from Northern Syria into an Independent Kurdish State, an international resolution for appeasing the regional unrest may finally be attained.

With a Kurdish Nation state a Geo-political and territorial Buffer State will provide a physical and religious and political barrier that would help create a safety zone from conflicting sectarian conflicting factions within the affected region. In a practical sense such a buffer zone for all intents and purposes presents the most acceptable reconciliation for a region that has been historically oppressed by the overwhelming forces of the Shia and Sunni sectarian, ethnic, and tribal oppression and conflicts.

Kurdish ethnic and religious minorities. The Yezidis from Sinjar.

At present, the world can not accept a Sunni theocratic Islamic State Caliphate regime maintaining its outrageous occupation of a region which has historically been considered as the purview cultural influence of a disenfranchised ethnic population overlapping four nations. With this historical malaise a perpetual source of tension and instability has ensued in the last century since the demise of the Ottoman Empire within the region since the Sykes-Picot agreement. No doubt, this history of Kurdish oppression would predate the Sykes-Picot agreement for the oppressed Kurds even during the reign of the Ottoman Sultanate rulers, the Kurds were oppressed. Needless to say, the historical acts of ethnic oppression and even before the invention of the term in modern day coinage, ethnic cleansing committed against the religious minority like the Yezidis, by the regional Muslims, was well known and documented well before the Islamic State was ever conceived.

The traditional Yezidi Kurdish region.

The most recent attempt to ethnically cleanse the Yezidis by the Muslims, and the usual suspects were the Sunni and other occasions the Shia would enjoin in the attempting to cull the purported Devil Worshipers. As part of the Yezidi syncretic religion, which seem to include pre-Islamic religious rites and icons culminating with a worship of seven Angels in which one in particular, the Peacock Angel, Melek Taus, is considered by Islamics and Christians alike comparatively similar to Lucifer, or Jin (Koran) as the fallen Angel. Melek Taus, is especially revered by the Yezidi. Unfortunately for the Yezidi race their revered Peacock Angel would become perhaps the single source for their grief and persecution even to this day.

In the latest attempt to ethnically cleanse the Yezidis, was as recent as the August, 2014, Sinjar massacre. On August 3rd, 2014 around five thousand Yezidi men were executed by the Islamic State. Their women and children along with the rest of the fifty thousand or so Yezidi who had survived the culling fled to the mountains. The ISIS forces simply prevented the Yezidi from returning to their homes starving them in the process. Food drops from the US Airforce and by Iraqi Army saved many from certain starvation.

Military Operation movements into Mosul September 2016. The path towards Erbil.

The inevitable demise of the Islamic State seems obvious. Mosul, will eventually, be liberated and in the eyes of many Kurds, the menacing scourge of the Sunni Salafist invaders will, eventually, retreat. Presently, the Kurds have found an ally in the Shia, if only, for all intents and purposes to rid the enemy of my enemy makes me your friend, makes the Shia the perfect bedfellow for the Kurds in this present crisis.

Meanwhile, at the head of this eventual liberation of the Iraqi Kurdish region is the Peshmerga forces, a military force made up almost entirely of local Iraqi Kurds. The Peshmerga, more than any of the participant forces, the Popular Movement Front (PMF) included, would be very eager to not only expel the Islamic State, but, insodoing, and, more importantly, in the wake of the expulsion of the Islamic State, the Peshmerga, will turn their attention to the political ramifications of their expected victory by consolidating their expectant gains by paving the obvious road map, not to Baghdad, but, to Erbil. As the Kurdish Regional Government capital, Erbil, will, undoubtedly, be the converging hub through which all Kurdish international diplomatic decision making are to be made and not in Baghdad.

The greater Kurdish nation: Kurdish nationalism overreach.

By enumerating the proximate regional Kurds within the four Asia Minor nations of Turkey, Iran, Syria and Iraq, cumulatively speaking, the Kurdish population would aggregatively number well above twenty eight million Kurds. Certainly, collectively speaking, this Kurdish population would form a significantly powerful nation in their own right. However, in conceiving such an ambitious vision of uniting the Greater Kurdish collective into forming a single union and a single centralised government with a federation system would nearly be impossible due to the history of separate development. Perhaps, a conceivable Confederation of Kurdish states could be a possibility in a distant future. For the moment, a Greater Kurdish United Nation of sorts would be considered as strategic nationalism overreach. Meanwhile, for the immediate future at least, the Kurdish self determination impetus must be advanced from Erbil.

(Iraqi Kurdistan, google)

A catchcry emanating from Erbil for declaring Kurdish independent nationhood status

Whilst comparatively speaking as President Barzani from the Iraqi Kurdistan may accurately point out that the estimated strength of the Islamic State fighters are close to two hundred thousand strong, the Kurdish population of twenty eight million or so from the four nations would easily overwhelm any ephemeral presence of IS occupiers of Kurdish territory. The problem, then being, is uniting the seemingly disparate and self serving interests of the myriad of Kurdish tribal and geographically unique areas of the greater Kurdish region.

(Syrian Kurdish region (in yellow), within the Rojava region)

A formal attempt at establishing a United Kurdish Nation from the four Kurdish regions within the four separate nations, into a unitary Kurdish soveriegn state may be considered a political impossibility, at least, for the immediate future post IS.

A more realistic Kurdish nation, may, instead, be forged between a confederated union betweeon the Iraqi Kurdistan region, and the Syrian Kurdish region of Rojava, within Northern Syria, which may be considered less ludicrously impossible to envisage.
In conclusion

As the current Islamic Jihadist narrative continues to blur the secularist political resolution to the current Middle Eastern malaise, and likened to most Levant political matters, there seems to be an absence of a tangible, substantive political solutions to the current cultural impasse. The political impasse is beyond restorative justice resolution and instead a revision of former political decisions made a century ago must be revisited and astute political minds, and dare I suggest it, a secularist solution will proffer a more sound resolution to the Middle Eastern political malaise.


Tim Tufuga

1st September, 2016

Armageddon for the Pax- Anglo-American hegemony: Ukraine and the South China Sea, a potential theatre of conflict for America and Allies.

The United Nations decision delivered today, the 12th July, 2016, dismissing the Chinese historical sovereignty claims to the South China Sea territorial waters has had an expected response by the Chinese government. The Chinese government and its military will simply ignore the United Nations resolution. In so doing, a gesture made by a rogue nation like North Korea might have been ignored by most regional and global geo-political interests such an outlandish claim to almost the entire South China Sea expanse would be considered simply as a political military posturing to be paid lip service by the global community considered only as a storm in a tea cup by any other military and political power apart from the fact that the bold claims to the territorial waters is being made by a superpower imposing their mass and size within the region. For the Chinese the South China Sea area is yet another Tibet. The Tibetan precedent means that the Chinese regional and global presence within the South China Sea, can not simply be dismissed by the Asian region, and certainly, it can not be ignored by the United Nations, and, of course, by the Americans and their regional allies.

Whilst veteran Americans service men and women, may still be licking their wounds from the global War on Terror (GWOT) now being morphed into an asymmetrical conflict without a border, or a battle front. Nor is such a conflict centred within a particularised theatre of war within geographic territory within the Middle East per se, like within the Tora Bora Mountains, within Afghanistan, or Fallujah, in Iraq. Instead, the global war on terror is what it is, in an asymmetrical global war context whereby acts of terror is the present day modern day war zones of asymmetrical theatre of conflict which has brought the conflict directly into the civilian community. Asymmetrical conflict and terrorism aims to disrupt the unsuspecting population to violent acts of terror, and transform innocent civilians and other valued assets as collateral damaged victims of a perpetual global war on terror. The global war on terror, therefore, has moved the conventional war zone away from a traditional warzone and an actual theatre of war changing the entire mindset of warcraft into the twenty first century. In a conventional conflict setting, making war was simply a designated conflict zone, which would be clearly mapped out on a map and whereby a tactical approach to battle is, thereby, strategically planned, and tacitcally executed, by military personnel, using various military assets. Such assets may also include undeclared warzones even amongst allied territories such as an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) making an incursion into NATO member ally, like Turkey or Pakistan. In such a changed environment of modern global war strategies, and tactics, the predictability of modern day warfare is no longer determined by the traditional conventional rules of engagement.

Even the recent conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq has drawn out unprecedented lessons of warcraft, lessons from over a decade or so of military engagement by a battle hardened nation who have deployed some two million servicemen into active duty in the Middle East for Operation Enduring freedom, Iraqi Freedom and Operation New Dawn, and the drawing down operations aimed at securing sustainable peace within the region, now deemed to be a futile attempt since the subsequent rise of ISIL and IS.

Subsequently, weary Nation on a constant war footing acting as the global policeman on his watch will be under tremendous stress in trying to maintain the Anglo-American hegemonic stability through the United Nations platform. Evenso, America has recovered not only from the paroxysms post 911 and the ensuing conflicts in the Middle East and their occupation of a region churning out the next generation of anti-West terrorist cells, the problem was the terrorist cells suddenly morphed into homegrown terrorist cells within Western Societies and communities themselves, transposing and morphing the war on terror straight back home to domestic criminality activity by local radicalised socially and racially profiled local citizens.

The past half decade has been a trying period domestically, not only militarily, but, economically, for the American people, and it seems that only as recently as the past two years the Americans have recovered economically from half a decade long recession, the American economy has slightly recovered nearing the end of the Obama administration. The Obama legacy, at least, from an economic performance context, has been an economic astute recovery from the 2008 recession period, in which the Obama administration had to inherit the economic shock of the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) inherited from the previous administration.

However, the legacy of over a decade of war has left an indelible adverse affect upon the nation's psychy, like the potentiality of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) upon the two million or so Veteran servicemen and women, have added certain social and community stresses in Stateside American society.

The 2016 Federal election campaign has seen an acute rise in race hate violence committed not by the lower rung of American redneck society, but, by the officers of the law themselves like some hive minded behvioural patterned conditioning with numerous accounts of black men being killed by trigger happy white police officers in America. Coinciding with this hate meme, has been the general shift to rightwing political leanings of American society, particularly, in response to the Islamic Jihadist acts of terrorism, not only domestically, in America, but, throughout the globe. It is not that terrorism has only become a recent occurance in the past decade or so since September 11, 2001, but, rather, with the digital age the transparency of the information age and the rapidity of instant messaging over the social media in particular has become a double edged sword for the information age. People are informed instantaneously. A police office shoots a black man and the victim's spouse video tapes the shooting livestreaming from her mobile phone and the globe is instantly informed of the incident. No one has time to embellish and to redact or delete sensitve material. In such an example of instant communication the world is more aware of events in an instant. Global terrorism has become livestreamed which makes it more powerful than reading the headline news from the daily tabloids paper which is old news for about six hours ago before publishing.

Uncertainty continues for the free world with a shoot from the hip twitter making instant political quibs from a Republican Presumptive candidate has stirred many people in this short message texting form of politicking, which affects not only American society, but, a global audience feeling uncomfortable knowing that only 180 million eligible voters, in America, would decide whom to vote into the Oval office the most powerful human being on the planet.

The British Brixet has brought about new uncertainties within the European Union in a time when collective solidarity in response to the Ukranian crisis has gathered the military leaders within the European Union, and the Schengen membership, within the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), on a clear and present danger war footing with their traditional former Communist world foe Russia. In various and possible theatres of engagement, within Europe, we could identify the various potential hotzones within the Black Sea, Crimea, to South Eastern Ukraine, within the Donbass region. As well as, the potential likelihood of skirmishes within Georgia, and within the Muslim region within Chechnya, which would give Russia and their allies, within the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) member nations, some grief.

What will, potentially, be the new world order, is the nascent perpetual rise of a new economic bloc between Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, known collectively as BRICS. Brazil will be hosting the Rio Olympics, and, there has been a successful psywarfare campaign to undermine the Rio Olympics with the Zika virus scare, which has deterred many athletes and tourists from participating in the 2016 games. Also, the political instability and the social upheavals with an ambitious desire to host the games whilst being ill prepared economically and financially to build the infrastructural development leading to obvious shortcomings before the Rio games, and, added to the physical problems the human resources problems which include the humiliating fiscal mismanagement of unpaid police officers and security personnel, exacerbated with perpetual street marches, and protests. Such a precursor build up for the Rio games has become a anti-climatic deterrence for the Rio games much to the chagrine of the host nation, and, more particularly, as a member of the BRICS fraternity.

Another BRICS member nation, also having a regional crisis, is China, with the recent decision made by the United Nations delivered over the South China Sea artificial island making, and in response to the Philippine government's grievance plight to the United Nations to rule on the rights of the Chinese to take possession of thousands of Exclusive Economic Zone territories simply with the construction of articial islands in previously considered international waters, has been considered as an outrage by regional neighbours livid at the reality of being denied access to the maritime spheres of influence within the South China Sea. As a consequence of this action by the Chinese the Philipines had taken their plight to the UN, the aim of which was to detract and discourage the Chinese from asserting their sovereign influence within the South China Sea, and, in so doing, encroaching upon the exclusive economic zones of other regional sovereign nations such as Malaysia, Vietnam, Philippines and other proximity regional nations, being stood over by China.

Military presence

China, whilst not a member of the CSTO, will, militarily, stand alone in their own regional presence within the South China Sea area.

From a military standpoint, the context of a military brinkmanship has presented the region with a heightened sense of tension which has brought about some added concern over the likely ramification being felt globally. Whereas, the Global war on terror is considered to be an asymmetrical conflict of religious ideas, traditions and a clash of cultures, the regional conflict over the South China Sea, is a traditional theatre of war in a conventional military context. Unlike, the Middle East conflict whereby the level of military engagements is basically conventional small arms Urban Operations (UO) firefights with aerial, artillery and armoury tactical and mechanised support, the conflict was a lopsided affair with a first grade military superpower with a coalition of the willing members on the one hand versus, a third rate substandard military enemy with a primary small arms weaponry of AK47, RPGs and a mounted 50 cal. in most instances with no air protection apart from an RPG or a Shoulder launched SAM, and hidden IEDs. Overall, the Middle Eastern regional conflict over the past decade or so, has been fought on a small arms conventional Urban terrain operation against an enemy armed only with small arms.

However, the prospect of having to engage a superpower enemy on two fronts is an even more daunting task for America to have to face. With A Ukrainian conflict in Europe and having to face the ominous might of the Russian war machine is intimidating to say the least for the Americans and their Allies.

Meanwhile, in South East Asia, facing the Chinese in a direct fist to cuff is another matter entirely. America will receive more than just a bleeding nose with a scrap with the Chinese. If some two million Americans are suffering from PTSD from the decade or so of the GWOT in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Chinese Challenge is entirely an elevated theatre of conflict that will be considered more challenging and demoralising to any Coalition of the Willing elements being led by the United States.

Previous American conflicts with other nations and terrorist movements, since world war two, will be pale in comparison to a conflict between the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) member nations, led by Russia, over the Donbass and the Crimean region. As well as, having to prevent the Chinese from completely taking over the entire South China Sea, and America leading the charge by a regional military Alliance led by the US naval force element, is, overall, at least, is probably biting more than NATO, and, any South East Asian military alliance, can chew.

Added to this woe of having to face the Russians in the Donbass region right at their backyard is like playing sport at someone homeground. The homeground advantage will always favour the locals.

Likewise, in the South China Sea, America's allies within the region will be more effective within their own Exclusive Economic Zones, however, they will be hard pressed to police the South China Seas with the heavy traffic of Chinese, and Russian, Submersibles, intermingled with NATO and regional Naval assets, the likelihood of a conventional mutually assured destruction seems a certainty.

What would be a likely outcome from such an armageddon conflict?

A new world order will arise and with it the Pax-Anglo-Americana hegemony will be diminished irreparably. The post 1945 Anglo-American hegemony and even the United Nations itself will probably morph into something less Anglo-American. With Brixet, the British would have relied almost completely upon the Commonwealth of Nations members for their Anglocentric support which under the present geo-political climate is only peripheral in impact upon the BRICS membership.

India, being the only Commonwealth Nation member and as a member of BRICS, which has a neutral stance in any potential conflict in which both sides on the conflict will probably will not trust India and their role and subsequently Indian will sit on the sidelines and watch the play unfold.

In the next few months as the tension will either escalate with whatever nation will try to remove the Chinese artificial islands from the South China Sea, they must be prepared to have a real military skirmish. Such a skirmish will have a serious repercussions throughout the globe not only from a military context but through an ecnomic context as well. In such a brazen disregard of the United Nations decision by China the world will be on the brink of a real Armageddon.



Tim Tufuga
12th July, 2016.