Parag Khanna maps the future of countries (描绘各国的未来)

Parag Khanna maps the future of countries -- Ted.com

This is a great lecture on geopolitics, border of countries and trends and how to avoid border conflicts in future. You can also choose the subtitle in 12 different languages (a drop button in lower left corner), and view the subtitles as well (click interactive transcript). Enjoy!

描绘各国的未来
         
许多人认为地图上的边界线已经无关紧要，但是 却持不同观点。借助于过去和现在的地图，他对世界范围内边界冲突的根源进行了剖析，也向各方提出了简单但是充满智慧的解决方法。
                                  
我们生活在一个无国界的世界吗？      在您回答这个问题前，请看一下这张地图。      当代政治地图显示      世界上现有超过个国家。      这或许是多个世纪以来国家数目最多的时期。      或许很多人会表示反对。      那么这可能是一张更能说服你的地图。      你可以把它称作之图。      在之图上，没有任何国界，      只存在相互连接的区域和毫不相连的区域。      大部分在座的或许都生活在荧幕中图示的个点中的某个点上，      这些只是许多个点中的一部分，      而却代表了世界经济的。      而我们要知道， 世界人口中的      永远都不会离开自己的出生地。      对他们来说，民族、国家、分界线和国界仍然关系重大，      甚至是至关重要。      而在，我们试图解开科学中      和宇宙中一些伟大的谜团。      而在这里我们有一个根本问题有待解决：      我们基本的政治地理学。      我们在地球上是如何分布的？      这个问题很重要，因为边界冲突      让世界上如此之多的军工联合体的存在合理化。      边界冲突能让我们期盼的许多进展      偏离轨道。      因此，我认为我们需要更加深刻的思考，      人口、财富、权力、      宗教、文化、科技      是如何相互作用，从而改变世界地图的面貌的。      我们也可以试着预测这些改变，      将他们导引至一个更加具有建设性的方向。      我们来看一下一些过去的和现在的地图，      还有一些你们从未见过的地图，      来初步感受一下世界的走向。      我们首先来看一下年的地图。      年的时候，世界上正好有个国家。      二次世界大战后，欧洲元气大伤，      但是仍然占有大量的海外殖民地：      法属西非、英属东非和南亚，等等。      接着年代末期，      年代、年代、年代和年代，      脱离殖民运动开始风气云涌。      诞生了多个新的国家。      你可以看到非洲被打碎了。      印度、巴基斯坦、孟加拉、东南亚国家建立了起来。      之后冷战结束。      冷战结束和苏联的解体。      我们又见证了东欧一些新的国家的成立，      前南斯拉夫共和国和巴尔干半岛诸国，      以及中亚的一些斯坦国。      今天世界上有多个国家。      整个地球都被      自治区、独立国家洲等所覆盖。      这是不是说一些人的得必然是另外一些人的 失呢？      让我们将焦点对准世界上最具战略意义的地区，      欧亚大陆东部。      从地图上可以看到，      俄罗斯仍然是世界上最大的国家。      大家也知道，中国是人口最多的国家。      这两个国家中间有一条漫长的陆地疆界。      而大家从这张地图上看不见的是      俄罗斯亿人口中的大部分      都集中在西部      靠近欧洲的省份和地区。      仅有万人口居住在东部地区。      事实上，世界银行预测      俄罗斯的人口正在减少      逐渐减少至亿。      此外还有一件事大家也无法从地图上得知。      斯大林、克鲁晓夫和其他苏联的领导人      曾经强迫俄罗斯人移居远东地区      的古拉格、劳动集中营、      核试验基地，等等。      但随着油价的上升，      俄罗斯政府投资建设了基础设施      以联结东部和西部。      但是很难再像以前那样强蛮地      影响俄罗斯的人口分布了。      因为东部地区的那些居民一直都不愿意呆在那里，      他们登上火车和汽车      返回了西部地区。      结果呢，现在的俄罗斯远东地区，      虽然面积是印度的两倍，      却只剩下了万人口。      那么让我们来了解一下这个地区现在正在发生什么。      我们先看一下蒙古国，也有人称呼它为矿之国。      为什么这么称呼它呢？      因为在矿之国，中国公司开采      和拥有那里的大部分矿藏  铜矿、锌矿、金矿       他们将这些资源用卡车运回中国大陆的南部和东部。      中国并没有在征服蒙古。      而是在购买蒙古。      过去殖民地是征服得来的，而今天国家是购买得到的。      同样的法则也适用于西伯利亚。      许多人可能都会认为西伯利亚      是个寒冷、荒芜和不适合居住的地方。      但事实上，随着全球暖化和温度上升，      忽然之间，那里出现了大片的麦田      农业贸易和谷物。      那么这些农产品是给谁消费的呢？      就在漠河的另外一边，      就是中国的黑龙江等省      那里居住着超过亿的人口。      这比整个俄罗斯的人口都要多。      每年，至少在过去多年里都是如此，      都有万人口用他们的脚投票，      穿越边界，移民北方，居住在这些荒凉的地带。      他们建立起了他们自己的百货市场和医疗诊所。      他们还接手了伐木业，      将木材往东运回中国。      和在蒙古发生的一样，      中国并不是在征服俄罗斯。只是在租赁而已。      这就是我所称的中国式全球化。      也许这就是这个区域的地图      在至年后的样子。      但有意思的是，这张地图已经岁了。      这正是中国元代的地图，      由忽必烈汗统治的朝代，成吉思汗的孙子。      历史并不一定会重复，      但却会重演。      这只是让大家稍微了解了一下这个地区正在发生什么。      同样，中国式的全球化。      因为全球化为我们带来了多种多样的可能性      来变革我们思考政治地理的方式。      因此，事实上在东亚的历史中，      人们并没有太过关注国家和疆界。      而更在意帝权和统治，      通常是中国人和日本人。      现在又轮到中国了。      让我们看一下中国是如何再次建立起      它在远东地区的统治地位的。      它首先从全球性的区域中心开始。      记得刚刚那张夜间地图中的多个亮点吗？      这些亮点标示出了全球经济的聚集区。      当今东亚地区拥有全世界最多的经济聚集区      比世界上任何其他地区都多。      东京、首尔、北京、上海、      香港、新加坡和悉尼。      这些区域是全球资金的过滤网和漏斗。      每年有 数以 兆计 的资金流入这个区域。      其中很多都投向了中国。      还有贸易。      这些指向线和箭头代表      中国与区域内各国的贸易关系      史无前例地紧密。      尤其是它对日本、      韩国和澳大利亚的贸易，      这些国家都是美国的密切盟友。      例如澳大利亚，非常依赖      向中国出口铁矿石和天然气。      而在与贫穷国家交易时，中国降低关税      因而老挝和柬埔寨可以以更便宜的价格销售他们的商品      随之也对向中国的出口产生依赖。      许多人都在新闻中看到      大家都很期待中国      引领复苏，经济复苏，不仅仅是对亚洲，而可能是对全世界。      亚洲自由贸易区，几乎已经是自由贸易区了，正逐步显现。      贸易额超过了跨太平洋的贸易额。      因此中国正成为该地区经济的靠山。      这一策略的另外一个支柱是外交。      中国与该地区内的许多国家都签署了军事协议。      它已成为一些国际关系组织的中心      例如东亚共同体。      有些组织甚至      将美国排除在外。      这些国家间达成了一个互不干涉条约，      因而如果中国与美国之间发生冲突，      大部分国家都会宣誓中立，      包括韩国和澳大利亚等美国盟友。      该策略的另外一个支柱，      例如针对俄罗斯，是人口。      中国向外输出商人、保姆、学生、      和老师，在整个区域内教授中文，      彼此通婚，以及在各个经济体中占据      史无前例的主导性地位。      已经可以看到中国人      在马来西亚、泰国和印尼等国家中      成为了当地经济不容忽视的      关键因素和推动力。      中国人的自豪感在这个区域也      再次复苏。      例如新加坡，曾经一度禁止利用中文教学。      而现在却大力提倡。      让我们综合来看，大家会得出什么结论？      如果你还记得二战前      日本曾有一个梦想      建立日本大东亚共荣圈。      而今一个我们可以称之为      大中国共荣圈的形态正逐步显现。      因此不管地图上的分界线是如何区隔      出国家和划出疆界的，      在远东地区正在呈现的      国家文化，      却是在一个流动的帝国区域里互通的。      这些都是在不发一颗子弹的情况下发生的。      而在中东地区却大相径庭，      这里的国家仍然对欧洲殖民者留下的疆界      感到非常不满。      那么我们怎样能够换一种方式来看待这个区域的疆界问题呢？      我们应该关注地图上的哪些线呢？      我要向大家展示的是一个我称之为      渐进式国家建立的概念。      让我们从伊拉克谈起。      美国入侵伊拉克年后，      地图上的这个国家仍然是比现实中的完整很多。      石油原本是将伊拉克各派势力团结在一起的因素。      而现在石油却是导致国家分裂的根源。      原因是库尔德人。      库尔德人年来      一直进行着追求独立的斗争。      现在是他们可以最终获取独立的机会。      这些是输油管道，源头从库尔德开始，      这是一个石油资源富饶的地区。      今天，如果你去库尔德，      你会看到库尔德“自由斗士”      正对伊拉克逊尼派军队进行自卫攻击。      他们所要守护的是什么呢？      仅仅是地图上的一条疆界吗      当然不是。是输油管道。      如果库尔德人掌控了他们的输油管道，他们就可以起草      建立他们自己的国家。      那么我们应该为之感到难过吗？因为伊拉克可能会被分裂。      我认为不然。      伊拉克仍然会是世界上第二大产油国，      仅次于沙特阿拉伯。      而且我们有机会解决一个存在年的纷争。      不要忘记库尔德是一个被陆地包围的地区。      它必须循规蹈矩。      要从它的石油中获取利益，      它必须取道土耳其或者叙利亚输出石油，      以及别的国家，包括伊拉克。      因而它必须要和他们保持友好关系。      现在我们看一下这个地区另外一个连年不断的冲突。      显而易见，这就是巴勒斯坦。      巴勒斯坦从地图上看是一个畸形儿，      因为它由两部分巴勒斯坦和一部分以色列组成。      年的玫瑰花园外交      并没有给这里的区域冲突中带来和平。      那有其他办法吗？我认为要这个      问题可以通过基础工程建设来解决。      今天，捐助者正花费数十亿美金在此项目上。      这两个箭头连成一条弧线，      一条由客运火车线和其它基础设施连成的弧线      连接西岸和加沙地带。      如果加沙有一个运营的港口      跟西岸连通起来，那么就可以切实可行地成立一个巴勒斯坦国，      以及巴勒斯坦经济体。      我相信这一举措可以给这个区域带来和平。      库尔德和巴勒斯坦的教训是      独立本身，如果没有基础建设的支持，      是没有意义的。      那么试想整个这个区域会呈现怎样一个面貌呢？      如果我们也去关注地图上除了边界线之外的其他界线的话。      那时候不稳定因素会大幅减少吗。      上一次和平时期已经是      一个世纪以前的事了，在奥斯曼帝国时期。      这是铁路线。      铁路线从斯坦布尔出发，途经大马士革，抵达麦地那。      它甚至有一条支线可以抵达海法，      位于今天的以色列，紧靠地中海。      但是今天的铁路线破败不堪。      如果我们可以将地图上这些曲线重新建造起来的话，      这些基础建设，穿越这些直线  疆界，      我相信中东会成为一个远比现在和平的地区。      让我们将目光转到地球上的另外一个区域，      位于中亚地区的前苏联地区，这些斯坦国。      这些国家的边界线来自于斯大林颁布的法令。      他故意将这些国家分割得七零八落。      他想让不同种族混居      这样他就可以进行分裂和统治。      而对这些国家来说幸运的是，他们大部分的油气资源      是在苏联垮台之后发现的。      我知道你们中的一些人肯定在想，“石油，石油，又是石油，      为什么他老在说石油呢？”      请注意，以前我们讨论石油的方式和      现在我们所讨论的方式是大不相同的。      以前，我们会讨论我们如何控制他们的石油。      而现在是，他们怎样利用自己的石油。      我敢保证，现在对他们来说任何一滴石油都十分重要，      和曾经对于殖民统治者和帝国主义者那样同样重要。      这里是一些计划中的输油管道      和一些可能的情况      以及线路，也许会在未来的几十年内得以实现。      非常之多。      对这个区域的一些国家来说，      拥有输油管到就等同于拿到了加入全球经济体中的门票      这对他们很有意义，      加之边界对他们来存在变数。      让我们举一下阿塞拜疆的例子。      阿塞拜疆是高加索地区被遗忘一个的角落。      但是随着输油管道通往土耳其，      它已重新将自己标榜为西方的前哨。      还有土库曼斯坦，在许多人的印象里      它就是一个天寒地冻的毫无希望之地。      但是现在它正穿越里海将天然气      输往欧洲，      甚至有可能建造土库曼      阿富汗巴基斯坦印度输油管道。      还有哈萨克斯坦，之前甚至没有一个正式的名字。      在苏联时期它更多地被称作南西部利亚。      而现在大部分人都认为哈萨克斯坦      是一个新兴的地缘政治角色。为什么呢？      因为它机智地设计了穿越里海的输油管道，      往北进入俄罗斯的管道，甚至向西进入中国的管道。      管道越多意味着“丝绸之路”也越多，而不再是大博弈。      大博弈意味着一个国家对另外一个国家的主导。      而丝绸之路意味着独立和互信。      输油管道越多，那么丝绸之路也会越多，      世纪的主导权争夺战      也会越来越少。      让我们来看一下这个世界上唯一真正放弃了边界的地区，      以及这一举动如何让它自身变得更加强大。      当然，这就是欧洲。      欧盟仅起源于个煤炭和钢铁联盟的国家。      他们的主要目的实际上是为了帮助德国      通过和平的方式得以复苏。      但是却逐渐扩大到个国家。      这些国家就是欧盟旗帜上的颗星。      欧盟也成为了一个货币联盟，      它是世界上现今最强大的贸易联盟。      欧盟以平均每年吸纳一个新成员的速度扩张      自从冷战以来。      事实上，许多新成员都是同一天加入的。      年，个新成员国家加入了欧盟。      现在，一个由      个国家和亿人口组成的公认的和平区域      呈现在我们面前。      那么下一步是什么？欧盟的未来会是怎样？      这个浅蓝色区域，你可以看到至少      的地方依赖于      与欧盟国家的      贸易和投资。      这又能说明什么呢？贸易和投资告诉我们      欧洲并不是在纸上谈兵，而是付出了实际的行动。      即使这些区域不是欧盟成员国，      他们正逐渐加入欧盟影响圈。      例如巴尔干半岛国家、克罗地亚、塞尔维亚、      波斯尼亚，它们还不是欧盟成员国。      但是你如果登上一辆德国火车      几乎可以到达阿尔巴尼亚。      在波斯尼亚，你可以使用欧元，      也许这将是他们从此以后使用的唯一货币。      让我们看一下欧洲的外围，例如北非。      平均每年或者每两年，      会有一条新的石油或者天然气运输管道穿越地中海，      将北非与欧洲连接到一起。      这不仅仅帮助欧洲减少了      对俄罗斯在能源上的依赖，      而且如果你今天去北非旅游，你会听到越来越多的人说      他们并不属于中东地区。      也就是说，我非常认同法国总统萨克齐      关于地中海联盟的观点。      再来看一下土耳其，和高加索国家。      我之前提到过阿塞拜疆。      土耳其和高加索地区的那条走廊      已经成为欧洲能源供应的      通道。      土耳其难道非得要成为欧盟成员国吗？      我认为不然。我认为它已经是      欧洲土耳其这个结构中的一个超级力量了。      那么接下来呢？我们会在哪些地方看到边界线的改变      以及新国家的诞生？      南亚中心地区，西南亚地区      是一个很有可能的地方。      在美国入侵阿富汗年之后      这个地区仍然充满了巨大的不稳定因素。      巴基斯坦和阿富汗仍然如此脆弱      以至于他们都没有实质性地处理      普什图人的民族主义问题。      这是存在于万普什图人      心目中的国旗，      他们住在阿富汗和巴基斯坦边界线的两边。      不要忘了在南部还有叛乱。      俾路支。两周前，      俾路支叛军对巴基斯坦的一个军事守备部队进行了攻击      这就是他们在攻击时举起的旗帜。      后殖民时期国家解体      在全球发生并在加速。      我预期地图上如此的改变会      随着这些国家的分解而越来越多。      当然我们不能忘了非洲。      个国家，拥有世界地图上最多的充满      疑问的直线型疆界的地方。      如果我们全盘地看一下非洲，      我们可以毫无异议地看到比其他地方多得多的      诸如部落纷争之类的冲突。      我就举苏丹的例子，非洲第二大国家。      它有三场连绵不断的内战，      达尔福尔的种族灭绝战，这大家都知道，      这个国家东部的内战，      还有苏丹南部地区的内战。      南部苏丹将在年举行公投      很可能这次投票的结果将是独立。      往北，到北极圈附近      这里正上演着一场对北极海床底下能源的      争夺战。      谁会胜利？加拿大？俄罗斯？还是美国？      事实上格陵兰岛将是赢家。      数周前，格陵兰岛的万居民      投票表决，取得了从丹麦独立的      自治权。      因而丹麦将会缩小很多。      这里得出的教训是什么呢？      地缘政治是一个非常冷酷的学科。      它不断地改变世界      好似气候变化。      正如我们与生态系统的关系一样，      我们总在寻找一种平衡      我们如何在这个星球上分布。      我们害怕地图上的这些改变。      我们害怕战争、死亡，      以及熟悉新诞生的国家的名字等。      但我认为， 我们今天边界线要是一直存在下去的话      更糟糕，会带来更多的暴力。      问题是我们该如何改变这些边界线，      那些线条是我们要关注的？      我认为我们应该关注那些跨越边界的线，      那些基础设施建设的线条，      我们就能打造一个我们所畅想的世界，一个无国界的世界。      谢谢！      （掌声）

World GDP per Labor capita

I have blogged about the comparison of economic potential of India and China before. One of the key issues I have raised is the underutilization of labor in India.

But I didn't have data to do real comparison 3 years ago. I made some very rough estimates that the relative labor utilization ('relative' because age profile was not counted, i.e., the factors of child labor and retirement age was ignored) that the relative labor utilization between China and India is 85:65=1.31.

Recently I came across the new CIA World Factbook (the major error in PPP was corrected after Zoellick went to World Bank, though many data still needs to be read with a grain of salt, e.g. the military spending ranking where China's number was manipulated to be above that of US, by (1) converting the hard currency paid for Russian import into PPP, hence inconsistency in numerator and denominator (2) used per capita so that US does not rank at the top, etc.) and I found it had a handy compilation of Labor force statistics.

The labor utilization rate (base on this CIA Factbook) for China is 60.4%, vs 45% for India. The relative ratio is 1.342. My estimate was actually VERY close !!!

Then, I did a very simple calculation to the CIA data: I calculated GDP/labor capita. (i.e. instead of the whole population, I divided GDP by the total workforce number) This ignored the fact that the non-working population may also contribute to the economy (eg by freeing up the time for the working person in the family, etc). But the results are still very interesting, despite its various faults (on top of the problem with PPP).



I have made a correction on CIA data for Niger (CIA's 70k labor is obviously wrong for the 13M strong Niger( the non-wage earning labor are also labors and they produce GDP). It basically ignored everyone who works in subsistence farming). There are other errors in CIA data that I did not bother to fix (all for small countries, e.g. Kiribati; and the mistake for Malta from IMF)

A few interesting facts

• The gap between China and India narrows significantly if measured by GDP/labor (8775 vs 6002). With GDP/cap it is 5300 vs 2700.
• China and Pakistan (which has even lower labor rate due to unemployment and the Islam restriction on women labor) comparison is even more striking. Pakistan's GDP/labor ranks just above that of China, at 8869. i.e. If Pakistan free up its women labor, and provided that they can find a job at similar pay as others today, Pakistan's GDP/cap will be the same as that of China (and higher than India's)! Mongolia is another surprise, just above Pakistan!
• I speculated about Islam factor, which is demonstrated by the low labor rate for countries such as Indonesia (46.3%), Bengladesh (45.2%), Egypt (27%), Turkey (32.7%) and Pakistan (29.3%). But it would be wrong to simplify matters as such. Because one cannot then explain the fact that Pakistan/Eqwgypt have much lower rate than other Islamic countries. And Kazakhstan's 53.6% cannot be explained at all. (OTOH the gulf states rich in oil have higher labor rate merely because of the foreign labors)
• DPRK (North Korea) has the highest labor rate. I know it is probably because its full employment due to socialism (and short life span so that there is no retiree?) but I am a bit skeptical of the numbers. Anyway, the productivity is very low because as many as 100k people would be practicing Mass Game for a few month in the years before this year (apparently they stopped the function this year! when I wanted to visit). Liechtenstein's high labor rate is probably a result of foreign workers (in its financial industry) as well. Same for Monaco.
• Japan has higher (PPP_measured) GDP/cap than Taiwan only because more Japanese worked! This is another major surprise.
• The gap between HK and Singapore has widened, with Singapore leading by almost 20% in GDP/cap. However, in terms of per labor they are next to each other again.
• Bostwana, the star of Africa, ranked number 6 in the world, just behind financial/tax havens Luxembourg/Bermuda, and oil states Qatar/Brunei -- But I am not sure if the CIA labor rate of 15.7% is right. However, even if not, Bostwana's GDP performance is still very impressive.
  
  

Revelation of an American Hawk, about Myanmar

Robert Kaplan is an American hawk, a journalist pretending to be a politician/strategist, who knows absolutely nothing about strategy, but extremely 'patriotic' (or 'nationalistic', depending on your political stance). From his essay on "How we would fight China" I suspect he is a enthusiast of a board game called Risk. If he has read Sun Zi, I am pretty sure he has skipped the first 3 chapters for the lessons on tactics which he could begin to comprehend.

He is despised by the great American strategist Thomas Barnett, who often ridicules⁽¹⁾ Kaplan's lack of strategic insight. However, he has also gathered some fans, including some very intelligent bloggers who I have much respect for (and IMHO, understands the world and 'strategy' much better than whom they admire). Unfortunately, these bloggers had chosen their pseudonym from those of the most brutal British colonists, the British version of Pizarro, who had massacred thousands of disarmed Tibetans in their aggression to Tibet more than a century ago.

• The British today, still tried to euphemise this massacre as a result of a certain Tibetan who "mistakenly" opened the "first shot", i.e. deep inside Tibetan's homeland to a heavily armed invading army
• In 1995, the Chinese made a movie of this bloody massacre, but made many stupid mistake (perhaps for commercial need, after all the Han market is much bigger) of using a Han Chinese actress to play the Tibetan heroine (and the role of a lady in the battle is most likely fictitious). Picture of this movie in the making was later used by His Holiness to accuse the PAP of dsiguising as lama a month ago

Anyway, back to Kaplan's new revelation, here are some quotes (the full article is replicated in cominganarch.com, plus the comment from adamu below), which offers a glimpse into the motivation behind the bickering between US and the Myanmar junta in aiding the victim

• France’s foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, has spoken of the possibility of an armed humanitarian intervention, and there is an increasing degree of chatter about the possibility of an American-led invasion of the Irrawaddy River Delta.
• As it happens, American armed forces are now gathered in large numbers in Thailand for the annual multinational military exercise known as Cobra Gold. This means that Navy warships could pass from the Gulf of Thailand through the Strait of Malacca and north up the Bay of Bengal to the Irrawaddy Delta. It was a similar circumstance that had allowed for Navy intervention after the Indian Ocean tsunami of December 2004.
• Because oceans are vast and even warships travel comparatively slowly, one should not underestimate the advantage that fate has once again handed us. For example, a carrier strike group, or even a smaller Marine-dominated expeditionary strike group headed by an amphibious ship, could get close to shore and ferry troops and supplies to the most devastated areas on land
• In other words, this is militarily doable. The challenge is the politics, both internationally and inside Myanmar. Because one can never assume an operation will go smoothly, it is vital that the United States carry out such a mission only as part of a coalition including France, Australia and other Western powers. Of course, the approval of the United Nations Security Council would be best, but China — the junta’s best friend — would likely veto it.
• And yet China — along with India, Thailand and, to a lesser extent, Singapore — has been put in a very uncomfortable diplomatic situation. China and India are invested in port enlargement and energy deals with Myanmar. Thailand’s democratic government has moved closer to the junta for the sake of logging and other business ventures. Singapore, a city-state that must get along with everybody in the region, is suspected of acting as a banker for the Burmese generals. All these countries quietly resent the ineffectual moral absolutes with which the United States, a half a world away, approaches Myanmar. Nonetheless, the disaster represents an opportunity for Washington. By just threatening intervention, the United States puts pressure on Beijing, New Delhi and Bangkok to, in turn, pressure the Burmese generals to open their country to a full-fledged foreign relief effort. We could do a lot of good merely by holding out the possibility of an invasion
• About a third of Myanmar’s 47 million people are ethnic minorities, who have a troubled historical relationship with the dominant group, the Burmans. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the heroine of the democracy movement, is an ethnic Burman just like the generals, and her supporters are largely focused on the Burman homeland. Meanwhile, the Chins, Kachins, Karennis, Karens, Shans and other hill tribes have been fighting against the government. The real issue in Myanmar, should the regime fall, would be less about forging democracy than a compromise between the Burmans and the other ethnic groups.

The lives of the victim were never what came first to the mind of the American hawk, "opening their country" is what they insist, plus the Balkanisation/Yugoslavation afterwards, which made them only a little better than the bloody Myanmar junta.

to Kaplan's credit, he concluded his essay with the Iraq lesson, "but make no mistake, the very act of our invasion could land us with the responsibility for fixing Burma afterward"

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(1) Thomas Barnett has this to say about Kaplan, "Kaplan offers no vision, no strategy, nothing beyond accurate descriptions of the current state of warfare inside the Gap. He is the global war on terror's best sideline reporter, but he's the wrong source to cite on how to run the entire franchise." "

Roach's Canaries in Beijing

Subprime: Canary in a Coal Mine?
January 31, 2008

Stephen Roach

"Morgan Stanley's Stephen Roach and Mary Meeker both recently presented at the Caijing Magazine Annual Conference in Beijing.

The conference - a leading forum on the Chinese economy - addressed the major challenges and opportunities for China in 2008.

Roach kicked off his remarks by providing a comparision between the dotcom bubble burst of 1999 and the recent subprime mortgage crisis; he then focused on trends in global consumerism and the myth of Asia decoupling. He explored the challenges facing a growing China, as well as the increase in protectionism and currency risks that are playing out with Asia economic expansion."

right click to download - a very insightful set of charts.

Steve Job and Li Kashing

What I want to say is, they are pretty much the same.

Li Kashing is clever, rational, made a lot of money selling Orange. But failed in "3", because he failed to realize that 3G is just an ISP with a mobile premium. He is too greedy. He wants to control the content.

I got my iPhone yesterday, was told of the availability but had not much time to do research on the internet. It turns out that Steve Job is even greedier. He forbids us from using a normal music track as ringtone. He wants us to pay him $2 for every ringtone we use! This may work in US, where consumers are relative generous. But he will fail in Asia and Europe. Even in US many hacks have become available.

Lessons from the Golden Triangle

The IHT (and the NYT) ran an excellent article of the transformation of the “Notorious” Golden Triangle, around the shared border of Myanmar, Thailand and Laos, where economic opportunity and development has almost eradicated the opium production in the area, of which the diffusion effect of China’s economic growth played a pivoted role.

The story runs in parallel with that of Afghanistan. According to IHT, [the Golden Triangle], “once the epicenter of [opium] trade, has been eclipsed by Afghanistan. Despite the accusation that Al Qaeda has been funded by opium planting and that the American invasion would correct Afghanistan’s agricultural practice, the chart showed that Afghanistan’s opium production tripled under American control, while that of the Golden Triangle reduced by over 80%.

This is another proof of Barnett’s theory of “economic connectedness”. If situation in Iraq persist, and oil price drops, I am not surprised to see Iraqi start growing pop in large scale. On the other hand, if we encourage economic growth and integration of the neighboring country, i.e. Pakistan, UAE, Iran or China, the problem of Afghanistan and Iraq might disappear gradually without external inference. The question is then, of course, whether the power hungry are content to let things develop without interfering them. A good strategy means to achieve one’s objective with minimum cost, this is often in conflict with the lobby groups who wants business by forcing the governments to spend more, and in conflict with the power hungry who has the addiction to do more.

China's strategic objective: 富國！強兵？

The brightest politican of the modern era is perhaps Lee Kuan Yew. It is a major shame that he was only allowed to run the tiny city state of Singapore. Had he been given the mandate to run Malaysia, or ASEAN, or even China, I wonder how different this world will be today.

My respect for Mr Lee is not only from what he has accomplished, but also from how he has reasoned and what he has deduced. There are critics who discounted Lee's achievement by saying that Singapore is easy to manage because it is small. I do not agree. If you read what he writes and hear what he says, you would know that he makes decision based on reasons. Reasoned decision making goes a long way. It will bring him success whereever he is.

Since Lee has also openly asked for US presence in the area, continuously, it make his analysis on China's strategic objectives even more credible (especially to the "China-skeptics").

Below is an essay Mr Lee has written on Forbes about a month ago. He has explained why China's strategic's objective is in improving the country's general economic and technological (which are related) competitiveness, and why it does not make sense to challenge US militarily. He then backed it up with his conversation with different generations of Chinese leaders who had demonstrated that they understand this.

The example of the USSR was quoted. The reasoning is actually quite simple, especially after the lesson of the USSR, so simple that I do not think anyone would disagree, as follows,

1. Technology determines modern warfare, investing in military means investing in technology
2. Technology changes fast, and becomes obsolete quickly
3. It does not make sense to invest in military technology if you are not going to use it soon (this is like buying the top of the line PC and put it into storage for a few years)
4. Therefore, one should only invest in technology know-how, and where technology could bring you more wealth/resources so that you could further improve on your technology

In other words, the traditional Chinese proverb of "enrich the country and strengthen the army(富國強兵)" is one that is probably mis-understood by most. What it really mean is "only after one enriches the country and can one strengthen the army(先富國而後能強兵)". It has never meant to be two parallel objectives (except, perhaps when it was "pretended" to convince a king who is eager to defend his country). If you read the original writing in the Spring-Autumn era such as Shang Yang, you would see the logical sequence of the two. In other words "strengthen the military" is only a secondary objective, or a result of "enriching the country". With the current speed in technology advance, it cannot be "pretended" any more.

That is why the increase in China's military spending has mainly gone into paying for salaries of its staff (they are underpaid) and a small portion in keeping abreast of modern technology (in the spirit of marginal return, analogous to buying a low end PC "just in case"), or low (but strategic) investments such as 'shooting down its own satellite from the ground'.

What my readers (or the China-skeptics) may not agree is probably that the leaders in Beijing are rational in their judgment. Lee said they are, through his personal experience with them. IMO It would be ignorant to think that the Chinese leaders do not understand this basic element of ancient Chinese "statecraft". Read the whole essay below.

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Contest for Influence in Asia-Pacific
Lee Kuan Yew

18 June 2007
Forbes Asia
Volume 3 Issue 11

China has been courting its neighbors, and although the Chinese did not coin the phrase "soft power," they have exercised it with consummate skill. Only the U.S. and Japan have expressed concern and asked China what its intentions are regarding its increased military spending and its firing of a missile into space to shoot down one of its own satellites. China's other neighbors appear unconcerned, a measure of its soft-power success. Most of these countries are focused on China's growth, anticipating the economic benefits in trade and investment it will bring them. For example, China's voracious appetite for energy and other natural resources is feeding an economic boom in Australia, and, like other countries in the Asia-Pacific region, Australia wants China's growth to continue without disruption by conflicts over Taiwan.

China has concluded a free trade agreement with the ASEAN countries. But because of domestic pressures, Japan and India have so far been unable to match the ASEAN-China FTA. China's decision making is based on strategic considerations that override such competing domestic interests as importers versus exporters and agriculturists versus industrialists. China wants ASEAN countries to link up, to ride its boom and hitch their economic futures to China's, but Japan's and India's decision-making processes don't allow their governments to override such internal conflicts of interest.

China has been taking steps to avoid conflicts and improve relations with its neighbors. For instance, Premier Wen Jiabao visited Japan and addressed the Diet, knowing that Japan's Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, wants to remove pacifist clauses in the constitution so Japan can adopt a more assertive foreign policy. Using warm and conciliatory language, Wen invited Japan to join with China in realizing a "peaceful coexistence, friendship for generations, mutually beneficial cooperation and common development." The Japanese media hailed his speech as "historic." Premier Wen told Chinese residents in Japan: "I did a lot of preparation. [I wrote] every sentence myself, and I did all the research work. Why? Because I feel our nation's development has reached a critical moment. We need to have a peaceful and conducive international environment."

Despite these words, Japan and the U.S. worry that China's increased military spending heralds a more aggressive foreign policy. However, I don't believe China will blunder into competing against the U.S. militarily.

In the mid-1990s China's General Liu Huaqing, then deputy chairman to Chairman Jiang Zemin at the Central Military Commission, told me that he had gone to Leningrad in the 1950s to learn how to build a navy. I commented that the Soviets made clumsy weapons. He corrected me, saying that the Russians made weapons that were as powerful as any made in the West. The Soviets' mistake, he said, was in investing too much in military technology at the expense of general technology and the civilian economy. Hence, the U.S.S.R.'s collapse. Vice Premier Qian Qichen underscored this view in his memoirs, Ten Episodes in China's Diplomacy, when he cited a former Soviet Central Committee leader, Yegor Ligachev, as saying that the Soviet Union had "wasted large amounts of capital on strengthening national defense and assigned its best brains with the best equipment and materials to this unproductive sector."

Striving for Competitive Advantage
To become competitive China is focused on educating its young people, selecting the brightest for science and technology, followed by economics, business management and the English language. Its goal: to become a modern technological power by the second half of this century. But China knows it is well behind the U.S. in R&D and lacks the entrepreneurial culture that drives a creative and dynamic economy.

Other leaders in Asia believe that the U.S. economy will remain the world's most powerful and vigorous economy and that its technology will remain the most advanced. They believe the balance of power will not change. However, because they expect China to become the world's biggest economy by 2030--with India not far behind--they want to avoid antagonizing the two giants.

In the competition for economic and political clout the U.S. has enormous strengths. Although its population (300 million) is less than a quarter of China's (1.3 billion), U.S. GDP ($12.4 trillion) is six times China's ($2.2 trillion). Moreover, private consumption constitutes 70% of U.S. GDP but only 38% of China's. More FTAs would further open the U.S.' more attractive market. However, the recent protectionist mood in Congress will likely hobble the Administration once President Bush's fast-track Trade Promotion Authority expires July 1.

Juxtaposition: We are all _______

Here is the juxtaposition

A) Kill Us, Too: We Are Also Americans
B) Kill Us, Too: We Are Also Al Qaeda (Get a salon site pass and click on this link again)

Except that,
1) it took millions of Americans - the great men who wrote the constitution, Abraham Lincoln, millions who died in the two world wars to liberate the world - more than 200 years to win the good will of Mr. Aslam Abdullah to say (A), voluntarily.
2) it took just a few cone-heads from Washington to -- to force the 27.6M Iraqi, and potentially much more in the neighboring countries to say (B), involuntarily, but they were given no other option

Can't find our enemy? create some so that we have a war to fight. This is the dreamland for arms dealers.

How was Sun Zi taught in West Point? Go figure.

Short eBay for its failed Skype acquisition

1. eBay bought Skype at $2.6bn, plus another $1.6bn earn-out, i.e. if some performace target is met in future
2. Skype founder moved on to found video start up
3. Implication: Skype failed to deliver promise, no body cares about tht $1.6bn earn-out, not even the VC who invested in Skype!

No surprise, not the first time eBay's strategy team failed. Those uncritical MBA minds......

Iraqi lesson - Fareed Zakaria - gradualism - Great Nation?

If one follows Sun Zi's doctrine (or that of von Klausewicz), military solution is just an extension of politics. So if one does not solve the more fundamental problem, which is political, even the best military solution treats only symptoms, not the cause.

W Bush now follows the second best (or second worse) direction as per Barnett's (sort of), which is a military, by increasing the size of the invading troops. (Barnett may not agree with this, as Bush only did half of what he suggested, by not leveraging on the international effort in the occupation)

We already have a conclusion on what would have worked and what failed, as discussed by Faheed Zakaria in Newsweek, who showed that a poitical problem requires a political solution.

The lesson of Iraq reinforces our believe that sometimes the apparently dumb and risk averse solution to a problem may be the most appropriate one. Here I am referring to the Gradualism (Feeling the stone to cross a river) approach by Deng Xiaoping. There are good reasons that there is probably no better way. Because these problems at the national level are so large and complex, and there are so many ways to get it wrong with so many variables from the beginning situation and as it evolves, that perhaps there is no other way than taking a self-correcting path and walk on it step by step.

Such solution only comes from humble minds. When one becomes over-confident, even a hyperpower like the US suffers its Waterloo. As China's GDP grows and people begin to talk about "Great Nations", "Bush in Iraq" serves as a good remind for President Hu, about Deng's teaching of Tao Guang Yang Hui.

Maps of the 9 "Great Nations"

The "Great Nations" series chose 9 nations. Only nations in the modern world were selected (i.e. after 1500s). This is significant, because, as the narrative said, the year 1500 defines the first time that different disparate parts of the world finally met and compete (and conflict) with each other.

Before that, China was the center of its part of the world, so the Chinese empire (and the Roman, Persia, Alexander, Mongolia, Ottoman Empires) did not count. The subtle message is also that, in this new order China should not be thinking about restoring its old hegemony, because that hegemony only extended to a small part of the world, i.e. NE Asia; as a result, the future objective for China is not to dominate the world, but become a major player like (the average of) what (the "three really qualified great nations") Britain, Holland and USA is playing today.

• Some Chinese commentator complained why the Qing empire was not included in the "Great Nations". After all, Qing still had over 1/4 of the world's GDP until mid-1800s. Qing was also a very effectively managed empire in terms of direct control. I think the key word is the the term "modern". The series was very adamant in stating that Britain was the FIRST modern nations in the world after Glorious Revolution, and Qing was definitely not a "modern" nation in this sense. The 3 nations preceded Britains all made contact with the whole earth (including Asia and the New World), while Qing was a local empire not different than Han or Persia of 2000 years ago.
  

Here are the extent of these empires at their apogee.

A few point worth noting

1. According to the series, cultural influence is important, so these colonial empires, even though largely disintegrated by now, still maintain cultural influences to the areas they once occupied
2. The influence (and contribution) to the world is one of the most important measure for a Great Nation given by the series, many of them (e.g. USA) influenced the world much more that what the map below paints
   
3. France was hailed as a nation that influenced the war much more than the hard power it projected (i.e. despite its total failure in all the major wars it participated, including the Napolean wars. However, the program acknowledged Napolean for spreading the spirits of French revolution across the European continent, and in its emphasis on rule of law, the Napolean Code)
   

1) Portuguese Empire (Brazil became much larger later)


2) Spanish Empire (only the red areas)


3) Dutch Empire (Dutch was hailed for its business achievement, i.e. expanded basically without the use of force (it was noted that Dutch ships did not have guns and were therefore much lighter and cost effective than the Spanish or British ships). The subtext is that Dutch basically was competing under the modern rule of globalization competition .)


4) British Empire


5) French Empire


6) German Empire (Colonial empire shown, short term occupation in WWI and WWII not counted)


7) Japanese Empire (areas outside red/pink are short-lived occupation in WWII and should not be counted)


8) Soviet Empire (Only red areas, includes satellite states)


9) American Empire (This is post Spanish-American war map, does not include NATO sphere of influence or Okinawa after WWII, or occupied Afghanistan and Iraq)


10) Other colonial empires in wiki.

Nov 8 in US, Dec 9 in Taiwan?

On November 8, US voters voted down Rummy indirectly.

Will this repeat on Dec 9 in Taiwan? Is the democracy in Taiwan maturing as we expected? Will the lesson in US be learned?

Economic solution to a political deadlock

A year ago, I wrote a short proposal to solve Iran's nuke problem, advocating an IAEA managed nuclear fuel stockpile.

I am glad to see now that it is finally becoming a solid plan.

• "Billionaire investor Warren Buffett, CNN creator Ted Turner and former Sen. Sam Nunn pledged $50 million to the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog agency Tuesday to create a uranium stockpile.
  
• The aim is to discourage countries from developing their own nuclear programs. The reserve would ensure supplies of low-grade fuel for nuclear power plants around the world. One example of a program they hope to discourage is in Iran, which critics fear is ultimately aimed at developing weapons."
  

Yes, I am aware of the fact that for the cases of Iran, nuclear power is probably just an excuse. For Pyongyang, even though it has declared nuke capability and intention, it is dying for energy. To provide them with affordable nuclear fuels in the form of low grade purified uranium and plutonium isotopes may not be the full recipe to dissuade them away from the nuclear program, but it removes a major excuse they could use. It would be useful to delay, if not suspend, their current project.

Much more important is that we should expect more countries (of which most will be on purely economic motive) expressing interests in developing their own nuclear program, especially when the price of fossil fuel (oil, gas, coal, etc) is becoming more and more expensive. Even if fossil fuel is abundant and cheap, nuclear energy, counter-intiutively, is a lot more cleaner option...

• Several life cycle analyses show similar emissions per kilowatt-hour from nuclear power and from renewables such as wind power [75]. According to one life cycle study (van Leeuwen and Smith 2001-2005 [source 1]), carbon dioxide emissions from nuclear power per kilowatt hour could range from 20% to 120% of those for natural gas-fired power stations depending on the availability of high grade ores.
  

...provided that proper safety management is exercised, both on the power plant construction and operation, and that of the fuel rods.

Since fossil fuel can only provide us for a few centuries (the number of depending on different estimates), and nuclear energy would provide us for many BILLIONS of year. So it is a matter of sustainability and inevitability that we have to switch to nuclear, sooner or later. (see also Wired Magazine and FAQ from Stanford Professor John McCarthy) Regarding the melt-down of a nuclear power plant (Chernobyl) vs damage from fossil fuel plants, a good analogy would be comparing the total casualties in accidents in flying a plane vs accidents in crashing a car.

Unfortunately, nuclear power should have been much cheaper than it is today, if more competition is introduced to the market. The new international stockpile effort will introduce new competition to the fuel rod supply, and hence boost the market size and scale of power plant construction, which will in turn lower the cost of building and operating a power plant. Since the fuel rods from this international stockpile will be more affordable than those available on the market today, an attached condition to the buyer could be a strict safety operating standard. This will ensure the safety of the plants.

All these benefits are, on top of what it will achieve for non-proliferation.

Categories:

• biz
• pol
• world

Video map: Yakko's world!

Pretty great song, but the names are not all for "nations" and the data and maps are quite old. (It was probably produced in the early 1990s, soon after Germany was united in Oct 1990. "soon" because you still see the USSR map. However, the author probably failed to notice that Yemens were united in May 1990) So these notes are needed if you are teaching the kids

• Carribean is a sea
• Puerto Rico, Guam are US territories; Tibet, HK, Taiwan are parts of China (HK probably was still a British colony at the time it was produced, Taiwan is officially a province of the Republic of China)
• San Juan is a city (capital of Puerto Rico)
• Czech and Slovakia split
• Middle East is not Europe (except if you buy a round-the-world ticket with the oneworld alliance), Scotland and England are not nations, UK is, Greenland is part of Denmark
• Instead of Yemens, there is only one Yemen now
  
• Kampuchea calls itself Cambodia again now
• Asia is a continent
• New Guinea has a full name, PNG
• Sumatra is an island of Indonesia
• Borneo hosts 3 countries, Malaysia, Brunei and Indonesia
• Algier is a city, capital of Algeria in the previous line
• Dahomey is the same as Benin in the previous line (name changed in 1975, before Cambodia was called Kampuchea)
  
• Zaire is now another Democratic Republic of Congo (But there is still a smaller Congo to its west - with a capital called Brazzaville, opposite to the other capital Kinshasa across the Congo river.
• I have no idea what Mahore is
• Cayman is a British Colony, so is Bermuda
• Abu Dhabi is an emirate within UAE
• We all know what happened to Yugoslavia now. There was a lesser Yugoslavia even after the Bosnia and Kosovo wars. But Montenegro declared independence, Serbia followed suit as there was no point in a Yugoslavia with only Serbia itself. So long to the imperialist winners of WWI
  
• Crete maybe a nation in 2500 years ago, it is just an island of Greece
• Transylvania is part of Romania (home of vampire)
• Palestine, unfortunately, is not a fully independent nation yet
  
• Finally, don't be offended if your nation has not been included
  
• There are also a number of irregularities in the map. e.g. Bhutan and Nepal were not shown. But I will leave this to our readers to explore

Despite all these faults, still an impressive task in puting them into an intersting song.

If you like it, there is also a flag version.


...and the solar system, american state capitals.

Categories:

• map
• geo

Definition of Terrorism: Israel is "only" half as bad as Al Qaeda?

The definition of terrorism is killing innocent civilian without targeting military target. There is no ambiguity in the case of Munich 1972, many of IRA activities, Bali/Madrid bombing, ETIM bombing of Chinese cities. All victims are civilians in these cases.

But things are not always black and white, as Israel and Hezbollah are accusing each other of terrorism in the recent conflict. Both side also claimed their striking of civilian targets are part of their act of war. Israel claimed the civilians are sheltering the Hezbollah militants. Hezbollah claimed since all Israeli need to serve in the army, their rockets are attacking legitimate enemy soldiers. Israel said it has reason to believe the targets are related to the rocket attacks but occasionally missed; Hezbollah said it is targetting military targets but its weapons are less accurate than Israel's.

There is no end to this argument. Even Al Qaeda can claim its attack on the Pentagon is an act of war, not terrorism, as the victims of UA175 were collateral. So I decided to calculate the collateral damage quantitatively, by computing the Terrorism Ratio (T.R.), which I define as #collateral/#enemy combatant. Here is the result I got (using the wiki data as of today - Aug 6),

	Killed				Total (casualty+capture)
	Enemy	Collateral	T.R.		Enemy	Collateral	T.R.
Israel	62	706	11.4		416	4,182	10.1
Hz	53
Amal	8
PFLP	1
Total (Israel claim)					400
Captured					16
Leb min/max		508				3,400
		828
Neutral soldier		34				73
UN		4				3
Hezbollah	58	38	0.7		249	1,331	5.3
wounded					189	incl shock
captured					2
Al Qaeda: 911	125	2,851	22.8
WTC		2,605
AA11		88
UA175		59
Pentagon	125
AA77		59
UA93		40
Al Qaeda: Pentagon	125	59	0.5
Axis: WWII (M)	17	33	1.9
Allies: WWII (M)	8	4	0.5
US: Gulf War (k)	63	200	3.2
low estimate	25	100	4.0
high estimate	100	300	3.0

Al Qaeda's TR in 9-11 is 22.8. WTC alone is a full terrorism attack by any definition. But if you look at the Pentagon attack alone, the TR is only 0.5. However, one could argue even inside the Pentagon, there may be civilians who were innocent to this "war", such as secretaries and janitors. But then Al Qaeda can argue that they are no different from army chefs and engineers. I think I will just use 22.8 as a reference. a TR of 22.8 is way too high for any reasonable war, as we can compare it with figures from the WWII and the Gulf War.

Israel has a TR of 11.4 in its assault in Israel. It is half as bad as Al Qaeda!

Hezbollah's number is surprising low, at only 0.5. But wait a minute, this is not fair for Israel, because invader usually causes more civilian damage, as we can see in the TR number of the 2 sides in WWII (Axis invasion lasted a lot longer than Allies invasion, though the Axis did killed innocents on purpose). But even if you take this into account and multiple Hezbollah's number by a factor of 4 or 6, it is still no comparison to Israel's atrocity.

Wait another minute, the TR in discussion is calculated using the number of dead. If we use the total casuaty number (include enemy captured and wounded soldier and civilians), Israel's TR is 10.1 and Hezbollah's 5.3. The TR's are both higher than the TR of any other war (0.5-4).

I think Al Qaeda's act in 9-11 was definitely terrorism. I think Hezbollah was also guilty of terrorism, although most of what it has done was normal guerilla warfare until the rocket race. Israel's TR number in this conflict is sandwiched between Hezbollah's and Al Qaeda's. Israel is either extremely inefficient at achieving its goal (if such thing exists at all), or it purposedly planned to "punish" the Lebanese civilian by creating terror. So, is Israel guilty of terrorism?

---
Related: INTERVIEW WITH ISRAELI AUTHOR MEIR SHALEV

• At the beginning of the war you could see from the declarations of various Lebanese leaders that even they were quite satisfied that Israel took care of the Hezbollah. But we went into Lebanon like angry bulls into the arena, attacking anything that moved.
• Olmert should have defined the objectives of the war from the beginning. But all he said was: "We will be victorious" without defining what victory means...What does [the destruction of the Hezbollah] mean? Is it getting all of them to crawl on their hands and knees and hand over their weapons?
• We lost, when Olmert said, we will win. Despite that, we will win at the end, because the Israeli society is smarter than its political leaders.

---
Update (Aug 14 ceasefire #, no fundamental change in the terror ratios)

	Killed				Total (casualty+capture)
	Enemy	Collateral	T.R.		Enemy	Collateral	T.R.
Israel	127	908	7.1		498	4,611	9.3
Hz	65
Amal	8
PFLP	1
Total (Israel claim)	180				530
Captured					21
Leb min/max		727				3,600
		1,009
Neutral soldier		36				100
UN		4				3
Hezbollah	114	52	0.5		518	150	0.3
wounded					402	1200 lightly
captured					2

Categories:

• world
• pol