South Asia Security Monitor: No. 206

December 18:

India and Russia, former Cold War allies, have begun to formalize plans for a joint moon mission sometime between 2011 and 2012, China’s Xinhua news agency reports. The Chandrayaan-II mission is being backed by the Indian Space Research Organization and Roskosmos, Russia’s Federal Space Agency. The mission will follow India’s first planned trip to the moon, Chandrayaan-I, which is slated to take place in 2008. Over a two year period, the maiden voyage will “survey the lunar surface to produce a complete map of its chemical characteristics and 3-dimensional topography,” the news agency reports.


December 19:

Defeat at the hands of the Taliban is a real possibility for NATO forces in Afghanistan. That, at least, is the conclusion of some NATO officials, who fear that the Coalition has been shackled by alliance restrictions, troop and equipment shortfalls, rising civilian casualties, and the Taliban’s resilience. The unstable security environment has hampered the work of UN development agencies, and NATO officials are increasingly concerned that while tactical victories pile up week after week, strategic victories remain elusive. According to Kees Rietvold a veteran consultant on Afghanistan, “It is now like 1984-85, we have lost the countryside, Afghans cannot work for us… and in the next couple of years, allied countries will start dropping out and then it will be the end.” Not all observers are as pessimistic, however. A senior Western diplomat admits to Reuters: “the signs are bad, but there is a growing awareness of what the remedies are.”


December 26:

After flirting with negotiations to settle the long-running conflict in Sri Lanka, President Mahinda Rajapaksa has opted for a hard-line approach toward the Tamil Tigers. Violence has escalated since the collapse of a ceasefire between the Tigers and the government in in Colombo back in 2005, and the Agence France Presse reports that government forces retook a contested eastern province earlier this year. Rajapaksa’s administration has vowed to press forward with the offensive, with an eye toward Tiger strongholds in the country’s north. At a recent ceremony, the president declared that “[t]here is no point in talking about a political solution without militarily crushing terrorism.”

South Korea has elected a new President and, like the latest elections in France and Germany, the prospects look to be good for Washington. Lee Myung Bak sailed to the presidency in Seoul on a campaign platform emphasizing pro-growth policies, stronger ties to the U.S., and a repudiation of his predecessor’s “sunshine” policy toward the North, according to the International Herald Tribune. Koreans from across the political spectrum had grown visibly tired of what Lee referred to as the former president’s strategy of “avoiding criticism of North Korea [while] unilaterally flattering it.” The new president, who has pledged to put North Korea’s human rights record back on the table, joins the regional diplomatic arena at a particularly sensitive time: the much-publicized denuclearization deal struck last year between the Washington and Pyongyang is under strain after a series of missed deadlines and backtracking from the North.


December 27:

British intelligence agents are at the center of a firestorm in Afghanistan following revelations that MI6 agents made secret attempts to contact, and negotiate with, the Taliban. The charges have been denied by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, but the London Telegraph reveals that intelligence sources familiar with the matter admit meetings took place with “up to a dozen Taliban or with Taliban who had only recently laid down their arms.” MI6 agents also reportedly offered “mentoring” for the Taliban in one of the half-dozen meetings that took place in Helmand province.