The high oil prices that helped to sustain the Taliban for much longer than
local economic conditions would have warranted now exist once again. Continued
sales of opium, meanwhile, provide the Taliban with the means to keep up their
recruitment of armed combatants and controlling regional governors who are
enriching themselves.
Anyone wishing to control the spread of the Taliban must therefore consider two
aspects: the global trade in narcotics and secondly the per capita consumption
of crude oil. Since both these indicators are more relevant in Western Europe
and the United States, it suffices to focus attention on the two areas.
How the British Empire collapsed
Before delving into the most obvious strategy items left to control the
Taliban, it is appropriate to examine the historical reasons for
the collapse of the British Empire, if for nothing else but to tell ourselves
that the status quo can indeed be changed with a bit of will.
Writing in the Wall Street Journal this week, Zachary Karabell notes the
following:
Consider what happened in 1946, when a cash-strapped Great
Britain turned to the US for a loan. For 30 years or more, the British had been
consumed by the threat of a rising Germany. Two wars had been fought, millions
of lives had been lost, and the British treasury was dramatically depleted in
the process. Britain survived, but the costs were substantial.
In spite of its global empire, a powerful military, and an enviable position at
the center of world-wide commerce, in early 1946 the British government faced a
serious risk of defaulting on its financial obligations. So it did what it had
done at various points over the previous decade and turned to its closest ally
for assistance. It asked the US for a loan of $5 billion at zero-interest
repayable over 50 years. As generous as those terms seem today, such financing
had been almost routine in years prior. To the surprise and shock of the
British, Washington refused.
Unable to take no for answer, Britain explained that unless it received funds
the government would be insolvent. The Americans came back with a series of
conditions. They would lend Britain $3.7 billion at 2% interest, and the
British government would have to abide by the 1944 Bretton Woods plan, which
made the dollar rather than the pound sterling the reference point for global
exchange rates and required Britain to make the pound freely convertible. Even
more significantly, Britain had to end its system of imperial preferences,
which meant no more tariffs and duties on goods to and from colonies such as
India. These were not mere financial penalties: taken together, they meant the
end of the British Empire.
While interesting from a historical
perspective, Karabell perhaps understated the role of another bit of change
over the same period - the decline of the opium trade. For it wasn't the
textiles of India or the rubies from Myanmar that kept the great British Empire
alive but rather the humble opium den.
Destroying the landscape of India with forced farming of opium and selling the
finished product in China with handsome profits along the way, the British
Empire essentially derived a quarter of its revenues or more from the opium
trade; income that was readily useful in dealing with the pesky Prussians and
Germans in World Wars I and II.
I would recommend readers examine the subject at length in tomes such as Sea of
Poppies by Amitav Ghosh and Opium, Empire and the Global Political
Economy by Carl Trocki which immediately come to mind.
When the Chinese stopped smoking opium in the early part of the 20th century,
the ramifications were felt on the existence of the British Empire.
This is exactly the historical parallel to use. The idea of destroying the
demand for heroin and other opium derivatives has apparently never entered into
the calculation of the United States and NATO countries. To do that, they
obviously will have to work on controlling their domestic populations, in
effect taking the "war on terror" homebound, hitting at drug addicts
internally.
That course of action isn't popular of course, but in the long run more likely
to succeed in controlling the Taliban.
Oil
The same goes for the price of oil. If global oil prices can be pushed down,
there is clear evidence that funding for fundamentalist Islamic groups also
declines. Why then doesn't the American government impose a tax - say $2 per
gallon - on the sale of gasoline in the US; following the lead of the
Europeans? This would inevitably - and especially if the current rate of low
economic growth continues for the interim - lead to a decline in the price of
oil globally to adjust for the tax effect.
Jim Kunstler wrote the following about the generic supply of oil from the
Middle East in his blog entry dated October 12, 2009:
The combination
of extreme resource dependency and religious fanaticism is a fatal equation for
the Middle East. They are angry, crazy and often savage people who own
something we can't live without, and we are overfed buffoons, often savage
ourselves, who think we can make them like us - whether they like it or not.
Again, personally, I don't believe the status quo will persist a whole lot
longer. The US economy is radically de-complexifying (ie crashing). Part of
this will be expressed in the bankruptcy of US military capacity - at least
where supporting troops-on-the-ground in foreign lands is concerned, and
probably overseas bases, too. The US could get in trouble with other sources of
foreign oil (think: Mexico) before anything chokes off the Middle East. But in
one way or another, the US will soon become both
capital-and-energy-resource-challenged to an extreme, perhaps to the extreme
where we can't feed ourselves. Our problems in running the nation as it has
been set up to run - as a colossal demolition derby with sideshows of bargain
shopping and infotainment - are insurmountable if one accepts the majority view
that it is "non-negotiable".
It is important to consider here
that a tax on oil will have multiple follow on effects:
Reduction in the price of oil as pump prices cannot move up too much in the
current economic climate. In effect, this counts as a transfer of revenues from
the Middle East to the US government, channeled through the US consumer.
The initial shock of higher oil prices will push down US consumption, hurting
the export-oriented economies of Asia. That in turn could prompt greater focus
on domestic consumption in these countries and perhaps even realignment on the
currency side (free floats).
An improved likelihood of carbon tariffs globally, which are designed to reduce
per capita consumption of oil in the US and Europe, as well as more gradually,
in Asia. This will also push down the use of fossil fuels in Asia, with China
likely to fare the worst given its high emissions.
Increased focus on research and expenditure on new technologies to supplant the
oil economy. Since the US, Japan and Europe have the lead on technological
innovation, the initial benefits will perhaps be felt there more considerably.
Gradually, other countries like China and India will also benefit from the new
technologies.
There you have it - to defeat the Taliban, Americans and Europeans will need to
curb demand for opium derivatives at home as well as destroy the stable
revenues of the oil producing Middle Eastern countries. The wrong strategy
would be to deal with the symptom without dealing with the cause appropriately;
precisely why the current strategy is a colossal failure.
In effect, the US and NATO need to start "bombing" at home rather than in
far-off countries: reduce the use of drugs and oil domestically if they ever
want a real chance to control the menace that the Taliban have become, and will
morph further into over the near term.
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