Ever since North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il’s reported stroke last year, speculation has been swirling about leadership succession in the world’s last remaining Stalinist state. Today the answer seems to be that the “Dear Leader” will be succeeded by his youngest (26 year-old) son, Kim Jong-Un. Jong-Un’s two older brothers appear to have been passed over for not being “manly” enough – one caught sneaking into Japan to go to Disneyland, the other said to have “the heart of a woman.”  All of which points to how alien North Korean reality is to the wider world. In reality, Kim Jong-Un’s uncle (Jang Song-Taek) is perhaps already in effective control of North Korea, and likely will remain so for some time to come, acting as the young Kim’s mentor and member of the all-powerful National Defense Commission.

On the surface, North Korea’s succession drama appears to complicate U.S. efforts to reign in rogue nuclear and missile developments by the DPRK – which have been strikingly on display in recent days. But the Obama administration needs to approach developments in North Korea from a broader perspective. There is no evidence to suggest that leadership change in North Korea will make the tasks of denuclearization and counter-proliferation any easier. If anything, Pyongyang’s provocative activities on the nuclear and ballistic missile fronts are likely to increase during the transition.

In recent days, North Korea’s brazen nuclear test, and its accompanying series of missile launches, has focused attention once again on the crisis to international security and American leadership that is brewing on the Korean Peninsula.

It’s necessary to remember that North Korea’s actions – and our responses to them – are not taking place in isolation. For whatever reason, Pyongyang has chosen this moment to test whether the U.S. has the ability and the will to stop a total breakout of its nuclear and missile capability. Others are watching closely. Allies, like Japan and Israel, are wondering whether they can rely upon American leadership and the U.S. strategic umbrella in times of crisis. Adversaries, such as Iran, are gaming whether there are any impediments to following North Korea’s example.

This is why the Obama administration cannot afford to minimize the significance of this threat, as it initially seemed to prefer. Decades of counterproliferation policy appear to be on the brink of collapse, increasing the odds that the world’s most dangerous weapons may fall into the world’s most dangerous hands. America’s alliances with some of its most important international partners are similarly at risk.

While still on the campaign trail, Vice President Joe Biden warned that the new president would be tested early in his tenure. Pyongyang appears determined to prove Biden right.

Timing, they say, is everything. At the moment, no one knows that better than the EastWest Institute. On Tuesday, with much fanfare, the New York-based think tank released what it billed as the “first-ever U.S.-Russian joint threat assessment” on Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile capabilities. The report is a study in threat minimization, with every possible technological impediment to Iran’s emergence as a nuclear power highlighted and stressed. Of particular note, however, is its take on Iran’s burgeoning ballistic missile arsenal. Despite official pronouncements from Tehran on the subject, the report concludes, there is currently no evidence that Iran has a ballistic missile with a range of 2,000 kilometers. So imagine the Institute’s surprise and chagrin when, less than twenty-four hours later, the Islamic Republic successfully tested just such a capability: the 2,000 kilometer range solid fuel Sajjil-2, capable of striking southeastern Europe and U.S. bases throughout the Middle East.

All of this bears more than a passing resemblance to what happened a decade ago, when the Commission to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat to the United States, better known as the Rumsfeld Commission, issued a similar warning. The Commission’s report, released publicly on July 15, 1998, warned in part that the threat posed by the “emerging capabilities” of aspiring weapons states like North Korea and Iran, as well as strategic competitors like Russia and China, “is broader, more mature and evolving more rapidly than has been reported in estimates and reports by the Intelligence Community.” That assessment was roundly ridiculed by a confident CIA — that is, until North Korea suddenly launched its Taepo-Dong intercontinental ballistic missile over Japan some four weeks later, surprising U.S. policymakers and the sages in the intelligence community alike.

The enduring lesson from that incident, and from the EastWest Institute’s embarrassment this week, is that “strategic surprise” — what the preeminent strategist Colin Gray terms “the possibility of achieving decisive results from attacks launched on short, or zero, warning” — has a way of upsetting the best-laid predictions, and that our adversaries are investing heavily in precisely those types of technologies. It is also a timely reminder that, when it comes to thinking about such threats, assuming that our enemies have more (rather than less) sophistication is the only way that one can be surprised pleasantly.

By now, the idea that Iran is the world’s leading sponsor of international terrorism is fairly common knowledge. Even so, the State Department’s annual survey of global terrorism trends provides a useful glimpse into the breathtaking scope of Tehran’s regional troublemaking. According to the latest edition of Country Reports on Terrorism, released on April 30th by State’s Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism, Iran “remained the most active state sponsor of terrorism” in 2008, responsible for violence and instability that thwarted “international efforts to promote peace, threatened economic stability in the Gulf, and undermined the growth of democracy.”

Iran, the study details, continues to serve as a logistical and financial lifeline for Lebanon’s terrorist powerhouse, Hezbollah - to the tune of “more than $200 million in funding” and the training of “over 3,000 Hizballah fighters at camps in Iran” annually. Last year, the Islamic Republic also continued to provide major support in the form of “weapons, training, and funding” to Palestinian rejectionist groups such as Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC), expanding the capability of those groups to target the state of Israel.

The study also makes particular note of the Islamic Republic’s pernicious influence in Iraq. “Terrorism committed by illegal armed groups receiving weapons and training from Iran continued to endanger the security and stability of Iraq” in 2008, albeit with less severity than in previous years, it says. “Many of the groups receiving ideological and logistical support from Iran were based in Shia communities in Central and Southern Iraq.” And while “[t]he Iraqi government pressed senior Iranian leaders to end support for lethal aid to Iraqi militias,” Iran’s ongoing sponsorship of instability in the former Ba’athist state led the Iraqi government to launch a military campaign “to combat extralegal Iranian-supported militias.” That offensive has paid major dividends since its start in April 2008, most notably the neutering of firebrand Shi’a cleric Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army. Still, the study warns, “Shia militant groups’ ties to Iran remained a challenge and threat to Iraq’s long term stability.”

The list does not end there. “Iran remained unwilling to bring to justice senior al-Qa’ida members it has detained, and has refused to publicly identify those senior members in its custody,” the report notes. And the Qods Force, the paramilitary arm of Iran’s feared clerical army, the Pasdaran, “provided training to the Taliban on small unit tactics, small arms, explosives, and indirect fire weapons” in Afghanistan, with major detrimental effects on stability there.

Damning documentation indeed. But one has to wonder whether it will have any impact at all the Obama administration’s concerted efforts to engage Iran’s ayatollahs. Chances are that it will not; White House officials have made it abundantly clear that they are committed to pursuing “dialogue” with the Iranian regime. These unwelcome revelations, however, should serve as a timely reminder that the current regime in Tehran is in fact far from a constructive diplomatic partner.

Think you are having a hard time? Take a look at Moldova and count your blessings.

This small country wedged between Romania and Ukraine has the lowest living standards in Europe — lower than Albania! — despite possessing some of the finest agricultural land you have ever seen. That there is a Moldova on the map is a result of the clash of Stalinist and fascist rivalries before and during the Second World War, and even of Russian-Romanian and Russian-Ottoman rivalries going back generations. The bitter pill for people who live there is that Moldova has missed out on all — all — the benefits and progress in Europe from the end of the Cold War.

Moldova made significant progress in the early years of independence, with the best conducted elections in the former Soviet Union and landmark land privatization. In some ways, the country was a poster child for desovietization, but then things went wrong, very wrong. In large measure the problem is the shallowness of the country’s political elites, who are provincial in every sense of the term. In part, the country suffers from left-over Cold War rivalries.

It is well-known that Russia exhibits less than full respect for Moldova’s independence and sovereignty, especially over the breakaway region of Transdniestria. Less recognized is that Romania is as bad if not worse than Russia toward its near neighbor. Much of the Romanian leadership regards Moldova as a Romanian province, ripe for reincorporation into an expanded Romanian motherland. Indeed, one of the country’s major political parties is the Greater Romania Party, which openly calls for absorption of Moldova. With entry into NATO and the European Union, Bucharest was supposed to leave these territorial ambitions behind. Fat chance. Both Brussels-based organizations were naive in the extreme about Romanian nationalism.

Moldova has an ethnically mixed population, combining peoples of Romanian, Ukrainian, Russian, Bulgarian and Turkic identities. The one sure thing is that an active attempt to absorb Moldova into Romania would provoke civil war. The resulting violence might not be on a scale with the break up of Yugoslavia, but it could be bad enough, although NATO and the EU are supposed to be around to prevent such things.

The dire state of Moldova’s economy means many of its young people work abroad, the men often in Russia and the women in Europe (many in prostitution). Remittances amount to nearly forty percent of national income. A consequence of having so many younger voters abroad is that elections are disproportionately decided by the older people who remain in country. These people often support the Moldovan Communist Party, which just claimed victory in a general election for the third time.

Now, the Moldovan Communist Party is pretty much Eurosocialist, and certainly nothing like an old-style Communist Party. Still, it has the disciplined techniques and party organization of its name, and that name still has drawing power among voters who are nostalgic for the “good old Soviet days.” Crucially, the Communists are the only major party with cross-over appeal among all the ethnic groups. Most opposition parties offend and scare the non-Romanian population. So, the Communists in Moldova can and do win legitimate elections with international observers.

This time, however, the Communists won a bit too much for credibility. They managed to win exactly the number of legislative seats needed to elect the next president without recourse to other parties, and that is a tad suspicious. This is especially the case as the current president, Vladimir Voronin, is blocked by term limits from a third term but is clearly determined to continue running the country through a hand-picked successor from the Communist Party he founded and heads. Nobody imagines Voronin unwilling to cook the electoral books enough to get the outcome he wanted.

The opposition parties have cried foul, although they have not offered the voters much themselves. The major opposition groups win big in the capital, Chisinau, but are weak in the countryside. In addition, the municipality of Chisinau has been a tribute to the pluralism of democracy but certainly not to competent or coherent governance. The Communists have been at least more competent than the opposition and have made some slight economic progress.

At the same time, Voronin as president has waffled decisively (if that is possible) between a pro-Moscow and pro-Europe orientation for Moldova in seeking a deal on Transdniestria (a topic beyond the scope of this post). Recently, Voronin has been very tight with Russia, seeing Moscow as the only force able actually to deliver a settlement (which is probably right). In doing, so Voronin has deeply offended the pro-Romanian elements of the country’s politics, who are either pro-EU or seek union with Romania.

Hence, the violence on the streets of Chisinau in the aftermath of the elections which put Moldova in the world news for the first time in years. The violence evidently had several components. First, opposition parties were demonstrating against claimed electoral fraud, but lost control of their people. Second, pro-Romanian nationalists who want Moldova to join Romania were out in force, planting Romanian flags on public buildings. Third, there were young people who are simply fed up with living in a country which has had the short end of the stick for as long as anyone can remember. Some of the more extreme violence was likely the anger of young people with nothing to look forward to in their own country and who blame the ruling party and president — not without considerable justification. If I were Moldovan and young, my first ambition would be to find another country; my second would be radical change in the way the country is run.

So, what are the prospects? Poor. There will likely be a recount of some of the voting returns, but expect Voronin to remain in charge, albeit with some compromises to parts of the opposition. Expect also that a European Union bailing water like mad to keep its own economies from capsizing will devote little attention or resources to a Moldova which persists in electing a Communist Party to power. Finally, expect Romania and Russia to continue to treat Moldova like a scrap of meat between two dogs.

Again, think you have problems?

Watch Pakistan long enough and one becomes almost immune to surprise. The constant waves of anxiety, frustration, despair, and anger are generally sufficient to dull one’s emotional response to tragedy. How else can one cope with a region where “friends” plot your demise and children are burned alive for attending school? But every once in a while a story, quote, or revelation comes along that shocks or surprises even the most jaded South Asia watcher. A detailed account of the Taliban’s recruitment of children for suicide missions about a year ago did the trick for me, as did a Der Spiegel interview in January with the new head of Pakistan’s military intelligence directorate, the ISI. Lt. Gen. Ahmad Shuja Pasha, publicly touted as a reformer who would break his organization’s historic links with the Taliban, was asked about extremist clerics preaching the gospel of jihad. Answering matter-of-factly, the general replied: “Shouldn’t they be allowed to think and say what they please? They believe that jihad is their obligation. Isn’t that freedom of opinion?”

Pasha’s counterpart, Gen. Ashfaq Kiyani, the new army chief and another Washington favorite, at least had the discretion to use a private conversation to refer to Jalalludin Haqqani, a top Taliban warlord, as Pakistan’s “strategic asset.” (I have been personally assured by U.S. officials who have met with Kiyani and Pasha that they are well intentioned, but forgive me for having trouble squaring this circle.) Then there were two doozies revealed by David Sanger, senior Washington correspondent for the New York Times, in his new book The Inheritance. The first explains how Adm. Mike Mullen, then Director of National Intelligence, had Pakistani generals admit to him in Islamabad that they were openly supporting the Taliban. America, they were convinced, would abandon Afghanistan just as it did in the 1990s, so it was only logical.

A second, equally warm tale involves Prime Minister Yousef Gillani’s first visit to Washington last year. In advance of the trip he ordered a notorious, Taliban-supporting mosque shut down to provide a juicy carrot to his Washington allies; a reaffirmation of their partnership in the War on Terror. President Bush might well have welcomed the gesture, had our intelligence agencies not intercepted the head’s-up call from Pakistan’s security services asking the jihadists to kindly vacate the premises before the raid. Leave some weapons behind though, they said. They had a show to put on.

These stories are but a chapter in a multi-volume textbook on how to play the double game. And yet, in spite of all this, Washington’s experts remain “divided” as to whether the Taliban is openly supported by the Pakistani security services and if so, to what extent. What nonsense. Analysts insist the Pakistani “state” is not culpable, ignoring that the distinction in this case is irrelevant. The civilian government in Pakistan may not be supporting the Taliban, but elements of the security services certainly are, and in Pakistan the security services are the state.

Caricaturing Pakistan as a malignant state-sponsor of terror obviously over-simplifies things. American officials believe, with some justification, that the help and harm provided by the Pakistani security services through our current “arrangement” is, in the aggregate, of more utility than if America were to openly confront them about their double-dealing. They may well be right. But please, let’s stop kidding ourselves. Most of these guys are not our “friends.” Anyone who funds, supports, instructs or even sympathizes with fanatical, child-killing zealots is no friend of America or humanity. Peace-loving, moderate, democratic Pakistanis, who thankfully are the majority, most certainly are. But the men behind many levers of power, particularly in the ISI, are responsible for the death of thousands of Americans, Pakistanis, Afghans and Indians.

For the moment these men proceed as if they are “untouchable,” but I wonder if they comprehend the fragility of the tightrope on which they walk. What do they assume will happen the next time one of their jihadist allies attacks the American homeland or the Indian parliament, let alone gets their hands on WMD? On whose door do they think we will come knocking? American presidents of all political stripes have but a single policy prescription to an overt attack on the homeland: a ferocious military response. The American public demands it. Remember, FDR won the campaign in 1940 on a single campaign pledge: to keep America out of WW II. Same with Woodrow Wilson in WWI (although it was the Zimmerman note and not the sinking of the Lusitania or domestic terrorism that led him to war). President Bush dreamed publicly of a humble foreign policy before 9/11 unearthed the war drums. Pakistan was given a choice after 9/11: cooperate against al-Qaeda or be bombed back into the Stone Age.  It’s unlikely they will be offered such a sweet deal the next time.

But alas, maybe we’re blowing this out of proportion. It hard to believe our premier ally in this fight would be in open cahoots with our bloodthirsty enemies, undermining our strategy, compromising our intelligence, and exploiting our weaknesses at every turn. Hard to believe so long as you ignore sentences like this, courtesy of the New York Times: “[T]he British government has sent several dispatches to Islamabad in recent months asking that the ISI use its strategy meetings with the Taliban to persuade its commanders to scale back violence in Afghanistan before the August presidential election there, according to one official.” Welcome to the Twilight Zone.

The War on Terror appears to be over — at least rhetorically. The Washington Post is reporting that the Obama administration has directed its officials and representatives to begin replacing the term “Global War on Terror” with the more anodyne “Overseas Contingency Operation” in their speeches and public pronouncements.

The move is not entirely unexpected. As the Post points out, the term has been used by the new administration “in a war context” for several weeks now, almost since it first took office at the end of January. But what does the change mean, on a practical level?

Here, it’s useful to remember that even the Bush administration had doubts about the phrase, despite having coined it. “We actually misnamed the war on terror, it ought to be the struggle against ideological extremists who do not believe in free societies who happen to use terror as a weapon to try to shake the conscience of the free world,” President Bush himself said back in 2004. Back then, Bush was responding to critics who said the GWOT was a misnomer, since “terrorism” is simply a tactic used by radicals to advance their agendas. But, at the end of the day, his administration knew full well that, whatever the official name, we were engaged in a long-term struggle against the forces of radical Islamic extremism.

So, I suspect, does this one. A great many dedicated public servants in the U.S. government, to say nothing of our armed forces, remain committed to the “long war,” irrespective of what it happens to be called these days. Of much greater concern, however, is that our allies, and our adversaries, may conclude that the change is not simply semantic — or benign. Rather, if the perception is that Washington has “gone wobbly” in the fight against radical Islam, the U.S. may soon face a reinvigorated challenge from a range of hostile actors, and a dwindling field of strategic partners to help it fight that threat.

If that turns out to be the case, we are liable to find out just how expensive semantics can be.

The brevity of the honeymoon between the European chattering classes and the new U.S. administration is striking,  even before President Obama has had a chance to work his charm on European soil.

First, European governments and elites were shocked and offended when Secretary of State Clinton made her first foreign trip to Japan, Korea, China and Indonesia rather than to Europe. Note this was the first time in half a century that a new U.S. foreign minister crossed the Pacific before crossing the Atlantic, and damn right too. Clinton’s trip signaled the true priorities of U.S. interests in the new century, especially in dealing with the global financial crisis which has provoked national and even provincial responses from most European governments.

Then, Europeans had to swallow the image of the first non-North American to visit the Oval Office of the new administration coming from Asia rather than Europe, with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown later delivering an embarrassing variant of the “special relationship.” Next, the most important meetings Secretary Clinton added to her agenda concerned the Middle East and Russia, with Europe clearly playing backup.

Now, with the planning for Obama’s first trans-Atlantic foray well advanced, the balancing act continues. Prague made the cut, as the Czechs have the rotating presidency of the European Union, thus giving the White House a chance to visit a non-Big Country on the first trip. Adding Turkey to the schedule was clearly important, not for its European role but rather in relation to U.S. interests in Iraq, Iran and the Middle East (with almost certainly some effort to prepare Turkey for eventual Obama administration recognition of the Armenian genocide). However, the Greeks have their noses out of joint at the “snub” by Obama in visiting Ankara but not Athens. Greek diplomats now are working overtime to get a bilateral meeting for Prime Minister Karamanlis with the President at the NATO summit in April, before Obama arrives in Turkey.

Childish, you might ask? A constant in Aegean diplomacy, say I. The efforts to balance new Secretary of State James Baker’s visits to Ankara and Athens in 1989 were painful (truth in advertising: I was the control officer in Athens for that event, a true diplomatic comedy of errors). Later, there was a major brouhaha over Bill Clinton’s state visits to the two countries, as anti-American riots in Athens caused the White House to reduce a planned three-day visit to one day, while maintaining a multi-day visit to Turkey (truth in advertising again: some of the rioting was in response to an Op-Ed of mine about the very real problem of Greek official tolerance of anti-American terrorism). The Greeks then complained about the imbalance, which was due to their own inability to provide a suitable environment for the visit.

Stay tuned. When President Obama actually lands in Europe in April, the contrast between European expectations that he must be a Europhile social democrat and the reality of American statesmanship will increase. Twas ever thus.

A lot can happen in three weeks. Back in early February, few had ever heard of Charles “Chas” Freeman. All that changed mid-month, when Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair formally nominated the former Clinton-era Ambassador to Saudi Arabia to serve as the new head of the intelligence community’s top analytical body, the National Intelligence Council.

The nomination touched off a firestorm of controversy, with critics in the media and on Capitol Hill highlighting his anti-Israeli animus, his apologia for the Chinese government’s brutal crackdown at Tiananmen, and his close links with Saudi Arabia’s corrupt, autocratic regime as signs that Freeman was unfit for duty. (See, for example, here, here and here.) As repugnant as they might be, however, Freeman’s personal views were not the real issue. Rather, it was his former service on the advisory board of China’s state-owned China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC), and the fact that the think tank he founded, the Middle East Policy Council, receives not insignificant sums of money from the Saudi government, which raised insurmountable conflicts of interest that ultimately torpedoed his nomination. It was publicly withdrawn yesterday.

That someone closely linked to two regimes of significant concern to the national security of the United States - one an emerging strategic competitor and potential military challenger, the other the world’s leading exporter of radical Islamist ideology - would raise red flags among policymakers should come as a surprise to no one, least of all a career diplomat. Freeman doesn’t see it that way, however. “The libels on me and their easily traceable email trails show conclusively that there is a powerful lobby determined to prevent any view other than its own from being aired, still less to factor in American understanding of trends and events in the Middle East,” he wrote in an email message to supporters. “The tactics of the Israel Lobby plumb the depths of dishonor and indecency and include character assassination, selective misquotation, the willful distortion of the record, the fabrication of falsehoods, and an utter disregard for the truth.” Never mind that the coalition opposing Freeman’s nomination was made up of much more than simply pro-Israel supporters, or that it was Freeman himself who had forged the commercial links to China and Saudi Arabia that ultimately disqualified him from being an impartial arbiter of intelligence.

In the grand scheme of things, the Freeman affair is a flash in the pan. The position for which the good ambassador was vying was not a confirmable one, or even one particularly well understood by those not versed in the ways of Beltway politics. But the lessons to be gleaned from it are significant, and international in scope. After years of their surrogates operating in Washington’s corridors of power with relative impunity, Riyadh and Beijing have both been put on notice that their ability to peddle influence will no longer be as uncritically accepted. And that, in the end, is an unequivocally good thing for an administration that came to power promising greater transparency and an end to politicized intelligence.

Dr. George Friedman is author of a newly-minted New York Times bestseller ambitiously titled The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century. As the head of Strategic Forecasting, Dr. Friedman is recognized for providing timely insight and analysis on a range of geopolitical issues spanning the economic and political spectrums. However, even Washington’s best can overreach  at times, and in a February 13th Podcast titled “Indian Dream Fading Fast,” Dr. Friedman appears to have done just that.

“India isn’t a country,” Dr. Friedman informs his questioner. “It is a British invention which tied together a bunch of competing states into one entity and gave it what appears to be a central government. But in fact except for foreign policy, India doesn’t have a central government, but an amalgam of smaller states forced together by the British. But the real power is not in the central government, economically. It is the various states.” Friedman goes on to condemn the regional politics, bureaucracies and regulations that frequently stifle India’s progress and he’s correct to note that it is often “very difficult to do business in India.” But taken as a whole, the statement is riddled with myths, misconceptions, and outright falsehoods. It begs to be challenged.

India is, of course, a country. It has a constitution (the longest in the world), as well as secure and (largely) defined borders. Crucially, the Indian state has a monopoly on the legitimate use of force, and its leaders are politically accountable to their people. Dr. Friedman’s implication - that India is a country in name only, akin to other colonial vestiges found in the Middle East and Africa - lacks any tangible evidence. India is a stable and liberal democracy in a neighborhood of repressive autocrats. Most unnatural colonial experiments, on the other hand, have required the fist of a dictator to maintain stability. Yet the Indian government does not need to assassinate journalists and imprison business leaders, as does its Russian neighbor to the north. Nor does it need to censor the internet and stifle religion and dissent, like its Chinese neighbor to the east.

Not only is India a country, it is a far more secure, peaceful, and open political entity than most of its peers, despite its neighbors having the benefit of linguistic, ethnic, and religious homogeneity. In many ways, India has proven the direct opposite of Dr. Friedman’s claim. It demonstrates that a people divided by culture, language, religion, and ethnicity can not only coexist under one political authority; they can do so peacefully and effectively under the most progressive and liberal governing structure available.

Friedman’s next claim is that India is a British invention. Far be it from me to deny the contributions Britain made to India’s administrative and political systems or its hard infrastructure (such as railroads and highways). But modern India was not, by any means, a “British invention.” In fact, most British never thought it would succeed.  History pages are filled with predictions by British leaders of India’s imminent demise. “India is a geographical term. It is no more a united nation than the equator,” once quipped Winston Churchill.

Nor were the “amalgam of smaller states forced together by the British.” When Britain left India nearly half of the country was ruled by several hundred autonomous “princely states” - states that India’s founding fathers had to convince, connive, and coerce to join the Union (sound familiar?). The British certainly had a role in uniting Indians residing in the territory they controlled – as did the Mughal empire before them – but they also sought to oppose and undermine India after independence, reflexively backing the position of India’s nemesis, Pakistan, at every international forum. India’s creation and successes as a state thereafter must be credited to the backbreaking work of India’s founding fathers, who defied history by building an inclusive and secular democracy built atop a divided and desperately poor people. Any claim to the contrary is, quite frankly, offensive.

Friedman’s last claim - that the central government is weak and real power lies in the various states - may be the least provocative of his assertions. But it is also the least defensible. Some Indian states do in fact enjoy considerable and unique autonomy, namely Jammu and Kashmir, the “seven sisters” of India’s northeast, and the “hill states” such as Uttarkhand and Himachal Pradesh. But despite their number, these states represent only a small portion of India’s population. On the whole, economic power in India’s federal system is very much focused within the Center. The Center distributes wealth to the states through the Planning Commission, Finance Commission, and the Central Ministries. The Center also has de facto control over the ability of state governments to borrow money. The ability of local governments to raise and disperse revenue, meanwhile, is almost negligible.

A graph I dug up of Fiscal Decentralization in India from 1997-1998 shows that the Center collected over 62 percent of total government revenue, while the states accounted for roughly 34.5 percent. More importantly, the States accounted for 49 percent of the revenue expenditure that year, meaning they spent almost 40 percent more than they generated in revenues. In other words, not only does the Center collect a far higher proportion of the taxes, the states are disproportionately dependent on central transfers to fill their considerable fiscal deficits. It was the Indian Center that reorganized the states along linguistic lines in 1956, and it is both houses of the national parliament that must initiate any redrawing of Indian state borders or renaming of Indian states, as they did in 2000. In short, India’s Center is very much the senior partner in India’s unique system of federalism.