It is Hard to Imagine What Peace with the Taliban would Look Like

Afghanistan is getting a new defense minister. Gen. John Campbell is being replaced by Lt. Gen. John "Mick" Nicholson, who will likely preside over whatever ignominious demise is in store for the Ghani-Abdullah government. Here is the blurb that appears in this morning's Foreign Policy "Situation Report":

Fourteen years of war, and a new General steps up. One place in particular where American special operators have been making headlines is Afghanistan. And the 9,800 U.S. troops there are about to get a new boss. If confirmed by the Senate, Army Lt. Gen. John “Mick” Nicholson will pin on a fourth star and head to Kabul in coming months to replace Gen. John Campbell, who is expected to retire. Nicholson, a veteran of multiple deployments to Afghanistan, is currently commander of NATO’s Allied Land Command in Izmir, Turkey. He’ll also appear before the Senate Armed Services Committee Thursday morning at 9:30 a.m. for a hearing on his nomination. Watch it live here.

Campbell took over the war in the summer of 2014, and was expected to be the general to close up shop on the U.S. and NATO presence in Afghanistan. But after shuttering hundreds of combat outposts across the country and ending the NATO combat mission on Jan. 1, 2015, Afghan security forces have faltered in the face of a consistent Taliban offensive. Despite Washington’s $60 billion investment in the Afghan army and police, Campbell has argued that they need several more years of training and support before they’re ready to stand alone. And now the next general steps up to take over the fight.

To get a sense of the contours of the Taliban offensive, there is David Jolly's "Taliban Sabotage Cuts Major Power Source for Afghanistan Capital." The Taliban blew up a transmission tower in Baghlan, the province next to Kunduz. The Taliban took control of Kunduz City for two weeks in October. Now they are engaged in an offensive in Baghlan.

One of the passages in Jolly's piece that really jumps out at the reader is his description of the Afghan power grid:

Afghanistan suffers from a chronic power shortage, with less than 40 percent of the population even connected to the grid, according to World Bank data. Three-quarters of the country’s electricity is imported from the neighboring countries of Uzbekistan, Iran, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan. The long transmission lines leave Kabul vulnerable to outages from sabotage. As a result, backup generators are de rigueur among those who can afford them.

After 14 years of U.S. occupation and hundreds of billions of dollars spent, two-thirds of the country is not connected to the power grid, and 75 percent of its electricity is imported. This tells you more about the failure of the U.S. mission in Afghanistan than the chronically dysfunctional Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police.

Jolly goes on to mention the Taliban offensive in Helmand Province in the country's south. Remember, it is winter, the season when fighting is supposed to wind down:

The unrest in the north is arguably not the worst of the government’s problems at the moment. Helmand Province, in the south, has been under siege for months, and officials say that only the timely dispatch of Afghan and American special forces kept it from completely falling under Taliban control toward the end of 2015.

On Wednesday morning, insurgents attacked a demining team in Nawabad village in the Greshk district of Helmand Province, killing at least three people, said Mohammad Ismail, the district police chief. He said the police quickly scattered the insurgents after a 30-minute gun battle. Had the police not arrived, he said, the insurgents would very likely have killed or kidnapped all of the deminers, employees of the Demining Agency for Afghanistan.

The Chinese are reportedly getting antsy ("China Urging Afghanistan to Restart Peace Talks With Taliban" by Ed Wong; "China Considers Larger Role in Afghanistan Peace Process" by Ed Wong and David Jolly), worried that a collapsed Afghanistan ruled by various Salafist groups would serve as a transmission belt for jihadi Uighurs to destabilize western China's Xinjiang region. Also, as long as Afghanistan remains an oozing ulcer, Xi Jinping's "One Belt, One Road" development plan for Central Asia will be unable to achieve its full potential. One Belt, One Road is vital to China because it is the Dragon's counter to Obama's militarized Asia pivot. Hence, the Chinese are putting pressure on Pakistan to reboot peace talks between the Taliban and the Ghani government.

But what would peace with the Taliban look like? Is such a thing even possible? Would the Taliban agree to serve within a U.S.-created Afghan government? Is partition of the country on the table? It all seems like nonsense, a sentiment basically echoed by U.S. Army Officer Lemar Farhad in "Why Peace with the Taliban Is a Bad Idea: What Needs to Happen Instead":

Pakistan’s view of peace with the Taliban entails the placement of actual, dyed-in-the-wool Taliban ideologues in the ranks of the Afghan civilian and military establishments. This would result in infiltration of Afghan military and civilian cadres, by pro-Wahhabi partisans from Hekmatyar’s Hezbi-Islami and the Haqqani network.

Unfortunately Farhad's solution is pure fantasy:

Establishing sustainable peace in Afghanistan, and the region at large, requires the total and unequivocal neutralization of the Taliban as a viable fighting force. This is because the Taliban and peace are antithetical to each other. Defeat of the Taliban requires a broad based international effort to dissuade the Pakistani government from supporting Taliban action in Afghanistan. The U.S. policy in particular should be geared at rendering Islamabad either incapable of aiding the Taliban or unwilling to do so. Declaring the Taliban as a foreign terrorist organization is the first step. After all, an insurgent force without protected safe-havens, financial institutions, resources, materiel, logistics capabilities, and a host-state will be unable to survive for long.

For this to happen, the United States would have to confront Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. Absent a revolution in the homeland, that is not going to happen.

Maybe the best that can be hoped for is a "frozen conflict" a la countries of the former Soviet Union. A set of ceasefires with international monitors.

Afghanistan Supports Pakistani Taliban

Last we mentioned Afghanistan was in a Wednesday post. The People's Republic of China hosted the Afghan Taliban in Beijing (Edward Wong, "Exploring a New Role: Peacemaker in Afghanistan"). I take this as a sign of the current "all-bets-are-off" atmosphere in Kabul. The combat mission of the U.S. military is officially over. The Ghani-Abdullah amalgam government finally announced the heads of its ministries (Joseph Goldstein, "Strains Show as Afghan Leaders Announce Long-Awaited Cabinet Nominees").

But what caught my eye was yesterday's story by Matthew Rosenberg, "Afghan Spy Chief Defies Labels, Usefully," and the admission in the august pages of The New York Times that the Afghan CIA, the National Directorate of Security, runs the Pakistani Taliban

Among [spy chief, Rahmatullah Nabil's] first tasks was resuming a sensitive project he had begun during his first turn at the N.D.S.: turning the No. 2 official in the Pakistani Taliban, Latif Mehsud, into a source — and possibly a proxy to be used against Pakistan.

Mr. Nabil said Mr. Mehsud had been cultivated primarily as a source of intelligence. But the Afghans also wanted “to send a message to Pakistan that if they can do this, we also can do it.”

No matter what it was, American officials were furious about the relationship when they discovered it in September 2013. They dispatched a Special Operations team to seize Mr. Mehsud from an N.D.S. convoy that was carrying him to Kabul last year. He was held by American forces until December, when he was turned over to the Pakistani authorities.

If Mr. Nabil is still angry about having his prize asset pried away at gunpoint, he betrayed no hint of it during the interview. And though he would not explicitly confirm that the N.D.S. had continued to develop other militant contacts, he strongly suggested that was the case.

For his part, Mr. Nabil said that the Americans “came to me, and I said that just like any other intelligence agency, we have the right to have sources.”

He added, “I think it is very important just to be very frank.”

Pakistan's Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) manages the Afghan Taliban; Afghanistan's National Directorate for Security maintains a close relationship with the Pakistani Taliban. The whole thing is a toxic swamp of death and destruction which will remain as long as the states of Pakistan and Afghanistan remain. The same can be said about the United States.

Dragon Rising

Despite the saturation coverage of the Charlie Hebdo massacre the Gray Lady managed yesterday to sneak in a story on the frontpage (right beneath a large color photo of a machine-gun toting French soldier beneath an iconic arch of the Eiffel Tower) about the amazing array of gargantuan civil engineering projects currently underway in China.

"In China, Projects to Make Great Wall Feel Small," by David Barboza, a reporter who specializes in a constant stream of criticism of Chinese society and the state (he is similar to William Neuman, whose portfolio is South America -- both might as well be employees of USG), the build-for-growth philosophy of the People's Republic of China is faulted for 1) being government driven, 2) fueled by debt, 3) adding capacity that is underutilized in a slowing economy and 4) damaging to the natural environment. But then at the end of the piece (a strong "tell" that one is consuming prestige-press propaganda) the undeniable benefits of an economy oriented around infrastructure construction are enumerated: efficiencies of scale, increased competitiveness, new scientific skills and engineering expertise acquired which can then be exported to other countries.

Reading Baroza's story and its description of enormous wind farms, offshore airports, an underwater tunnel twice the length of the one beneath the English Channel, a 26.4-mile sea-spanning bridge, canals, pipelines, high-speed rail, a freight rail line that runs from China to Spain in 20 days, new ports and commercial architecture provides proof of a nation ascending. Here is the positive part of Barboza's article, the paragraphs at the end:

Proponents say the giant projects can bring greater efficiencies. Big dams and wind farms can cut carbon emissions, while mass transit can help reduce oil consumption, thus delivering greener solutions.

Other huge projects could bolster China’s position as a manufacturing and trading powerhouse. In November, the government said its freight rail link between eastern China and Spain had opened, allowing factory goods to reach Spain in just over 20 days. It is now the world’s longest rail journey, far surpassing the route of the famed Trans-Siberian Railway.

China also sees hidden benefits in such projects, including the ability to gain new scientific and technical expertise.

As a result, bridge-building in China has become something akin to an Olympic event. In 2007, after China completed the longest sea-crossing bridge, in Hangzhou, the nation has regularly broken records. China now claims the longest bridge of any kind, the highest bridge and, in 2011, a new successor to the longest sea-crossing bridge, 26.4 miles long, in the eastern city of Qingdao.

“For China, a lot of this is about building a national identity. Mega-projects are suited for that,” said Bent Flyvbjerg, an authority on mega-projects who teaches at Oxford University. “It’s a lighthouse for all to see what the Chinese nation can do.”

It is the type of engineering expertise the government wants its state-owned enterprises to export — and that is already happening. Boston is buying subway cars from China. Argentina, Pakistan and Russia have asked China to upgrade their infrastructure. Last month, Chinese construction teams began work on an ambitious $50 billion canal across Nicaragua that could some day rival the Panama Canal.

“They have the idea that they’re going to be doing infrastructure for the rest of the world,” said Mr. Huang at the Carnegie Institute.

In doing so, China is pushing the boundaries of infrastructure-building, with ever bolder proposals. The Dalian tunnel looks small compared with the latest idea to build an “international railway” that would link China to the United States by burrowing under the Bering Strait and creating a tunnel between Russia and Alaska.

“The technology is already there,” said Wang Mengshu, a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and an adviser on the Dalian tunnel proposal. “Think about it. If we can build a railway to the North Pole, it would be convenient for us to go to the North Pole.”

The United States, bearer of the global currency, could be doing the same thing, building infrastructure for future growth. But the nation's political class is dominated by the rich who are interested only in plunder not development.

No better example of China's rise and U.S. decline is Ed Wong's story this morning, "Exploring a New Role: Peacemaker in Afghanistan." The PRC is talking to the Afghan Taliban. Realizing Uighur unrest is steered by the usual suspects out of Pakistan, China is trying to talk and cut a deal rather going the military-first route the U.S. favors:

BEIJING — No stranger to engaging in power politics with its Asian neighbors, China’s diplomatic corps has in recent months been trying on a new role: talking with the Afghan Taliban in an effort to play peacemaker.

Late last year, two Afghan Taliban officials traveled with Pakistani officials to Beijing to discuss a potential peace process among Afghanistan’s warring parties, according to three current and former Afghan officials. And that may not have been the first such meeting. Though his account could not be independently confirmed, one Pakistani journalist said that China’s special envoy to Afghanistan, Sun Yuxi, had traveled to Peshawar, Pakistan, to meet with Afghan Taliban representatives weeks earlier.

Despite years of war and turmoil in Afghanistan, China had long seemed reluctant to become directly involved. So what has changed to move it to try to mediate with Islamist militants now? According to Chinese and foreign analysts, the answer lies in three factors: China’s growing worries about a Uighur uprising on its own frontier; concern about more instability on its western border after the main American troop withdrawal from Afghanistan; and urgency to secure access to Afghan mineral and oil deposits where Chinese companies have already made large investments.

“Under the new situation, China is more willing to take on greater responsibility and more willing to proactively promote conciliation,” said Zhao Huasheng, a professor and director of the Center for Russian and Central Asian Studies at Fudan University in Shanghai.

He added that China was in a good position to help shepherd a peace process, now only in the proposal stage, “because China is not involved in Afghanistan’s domestic fights and, comparatively speaking, is pretty broadly accepted.”

***

There are signs that Uighur militants have been making use of training bases in the Pakistani tribal belt. In November, Afghan and Western officials said in interviews that the Afghan intelligence agency had shown China evidence that dozens of militant Uighurs caught inside Afghanistan in the past year had been trained in camps in Pakistan. 

Last March, Reuters did a telephone interview with Abdullah Mansour, who said he was the leader of the Turkistan Islamic Party, which seeks to free Xinjiang from Chinese rule. Abdullah Mansour said Uighurs were training in the mountainous tribal areas of Pakistan and planning “many attacks” on China.

Wong has another story this morning, "10 Turks Said to Be Under Arrest for Aiding Terrorist Suspects in China," that ties Turkey to terrorism in Xinjiang. It reminds one of the role Turkey played in the rise of the jihadis in Syria:

BEIJING — The police in Shanghai have arrested 10 Turkish citizens and two Chinese citizens and accused them of providing altered Turkish passports to terrorist suspects from the western region of Xinjiang, a state-run newspaper reported on Wednesday. 

The people trying to use the passports — nine ethnic Uighurs trying to leave China illegally through a Shanghai airport — are also under arrest, according to the newspaper, Global Times. 

All the suspects were detained in November and formally charged recently, the report said. It added that the nine Uighurs were planning to go to Afghanistan, Pakistan and Syria after leaving China. Audio and video materials with content related to terrorism were found on those trying to leave, the report said. 

Those involved in providing the forged passports have been charged with smuggling terrorists and altering legal documents, Global Times reported. On Wednesday afternoon, calls made to the Shanghai police seeking comment were not immediately answered.

Hopefully Chinese talks with the Afghan Taliban will bear fruit. But I am skeptical. The U.S. and its principal allies among the Gulf monarchies are entirely committed to the spread of destabilizing jihadi violence. It keeps them control.

The Big Lie of Occupy Central With Love and Peace

A good distillation of the Western perspective on the pro-Democracy protests underway in Hong Kong can be found today in an unsigned Gray Lady editorial, "China’s Crackdown in Hong Kong."

So far USG has been reticent to lecture China in the usual hectoring and hypocritical American fashion. No need to. The talking points can be disseminated through the Fourth Estate; and here the Gray Lady editorial board does the job.

First, the central falsity must be peddled: Beijing has reneged on its commitment to hold free and fair elections in Hong Kong by 2017 because candidates for chief executive must be screened for pre-approval by a PRC-friendly nominating committee:

If China had honored the political commitments it made before taking control of Hong Kong from Britain in 1997, it is likely there would be no protests in the city streets and no crackdown over the weekend by riot police using tear gas, pepper spray and batons against pro-democracy demonstrators. 

Instead, the government in Beijing, ever fearful of its people, reneged on promises and allowed or ordered Hong Kong authorities to attack students and other citizens demanding democratic elections in Hong Kong. The pro-democracy protesters were so enraged that thousands defied a government call on Monday to abandon street blockades across the city. On Tuesday morning, tens of thousands, including many new recruits angered by the police actions, had again filled the city center.

*** 

. . . China also promised free elections for Hong Kong’s chief executive in 2017, but, late last month, China’s legislature called for limiting the candidates who would be allowed to run, among other restrictions. With the government insisting on controlling the nomination process, the protesters’ demand for fully democratic elections looked to be slipping away, so they took to the streets.

Next, the editorial goes on to fire the other talking-points bullets found in the Western arsenal: 1) Chinese president Xi Jinping is a ruthless autocrat itching to bring a bloody Tianamen crackdown to the good folks of Occupy Central with Love and Peace (this is the entire focus of a story today by Ed Wong and Chris Buckley), and 2) such a crackdown would be devastating for corporate stability and would threaten the independence of Taiwan.

Peter Lee's story yesterday in Asia Times Online, "Beijing reaps bitter fruit in Hong Kong," directly refutes the whole "Beijing reneged on its commitment to full democracy" mantra. The PRC never imagined a situation where candidates to lead Hong Kong's government would not be vetted:

Selective memory has also found its way into reporting (or at least headline-writing) Occupy's claims that the current democracy movement was triggered by Beijing "reneging" on its promise of democracy for Hong Kong by scheduling universal suffrage for 2017, but insisting that only candidates vetted by the commission could run for office.

As far as I understand it, the commission set-up was integral to Beijing's foundational plan for Hong Kong. In other words, the PRC would commit to 50 years of free rein for business/society only if the direct democracy genie could be kept in the bottle by controlling the list of candidates eligible for office.

I also suspect that the PRC told the Thatcher government that, if the UK tried to belatedly introduce full direct democracy in Hong Kong prior to 1997 (as Chris Patten championed) and burden the PRC with the unpleasant task of rolling back a democratic status quo when it claimed sovereignty over the territory, that would be a trigger for the real Occupy Hong Kong - by China. 

As noted above, Deng Xiaoping was the conceptual architect of the strategy to install a "kill switch" on Hong Kong democracy and balance Hong Kong's economic and social freedoms under the "one country two systems" formula with political control by keeping hostile administrators out of the Hong Kong political mix. 

Here's what Deng Xiaoping said about the Hong Kong rule in 1984:

"Some requirements or qualifications should be established with regard to the administration of Hong Kong affairs by the people of Hong Kong. It must be required that patriots form the main body of administrators, that is, of the future government of the Hong Kong special region. Of course it should include other Chinese, too, as well as foreigners invited to serve as advisers. What is a patriot? A patriot is one who respects the Chinese nation, sincerely supports the motherland's resumption of sovereignty over Hong Kong and wishes not to impair Hong Kong's prosperity and stability. Those who meet these requirements are patriots, whether they believe in capitalism or feudalism or even slavery. We don't demand that they be in favour of China's socialist system; we only ask them to love the motherland and Hong Kong." 

And here's how that intention was implemented in Article 45 of the Hong Kong Basic Law, which became the effective constitution of Hong Kong upon reversion in 1997:

"The Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region shall be selected by election or through consultations held locally and be appointed by the Central People's Government. 

"The method for selecting the Chief Executive shall be specified in the light of the actual situation in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and in accordance with the principle of gradual and orderly progress. The ultimate aim is the selection of the Chief Executive by universal suffrage upon nomination by a broadly representative nominating committee in accordance with democratic procedures."

Clearly, the PRC's envisioned terminus (the "ultimate aim") of the democratic reform line is universal suffrage to vote for candidates put forth by a nominating committee, not universal suffrage in the nomination as well as election process, which is the Occupy Hong Kong movement's demand. 

If the PRC government revised, promised to revise, or hinted it would revise this understanding to do away with its most important tool for controlling electoral politics in Hong Kong, the nominating committee, please let me know. Until then, I will regard the "China reneged/broke its democracy promise" line as a canard peddled to provide unnatural enhancement to the legitimacy of the Occupy movement.

"We don't like the Basic Law and want to overturn it after 17 years through street action" is, I suppose, a tougher sell than "China broke its promise" but, in my opinion, it's more honest.

Of course the most obvious point in all of this is that we here in the United States, the "fountainhead of democracy," pre-screen candidates by select committee as well. These select committees are called either "Republican Party" or "Democratic Party." Concentrated wealth calls the shots for both.

Islamic State, the Secret Weapon in Obama's Asia Pivot

Secretary of State John Kerry was in Beijing yesterday meeting with Chinese officials. Many topics were discussed, foremost of which from the U.S. perspective was the promulgation of some sort of national code of conduct in maritime disputes in the South China Sea and East China Sea. The august Jane Perlez, spouse of Ray Bonner, has the story, "Kerry Presses China to Abide by Maritime Laws to Ease Tensions":

BEIJING — In a closed-door session at a high-level gathering of Chinese and American officials here on Wednesday, Secretary of State John Kerry urged China to follow maritime law in nearby seas to reduce regional tensions, a senior American official said. 

Mr. Kerry called on China to support the creation of a legally binding code of conduct that other Asian nations are considering to enforce rules of navigation and inhibit unilateral actions in the South China and East China Seas, said the official, who briefed reporters on the condition of anonymity under standard protocol. 

The secretary met with Yang Jiechi, a state councilor who deals with foreign policy, on the first day of the Strategic and Economic Dialogue, an annual gathering of senior officials from both countries where differences on issues including national security, the economy, climate change and human rights are aired.

“The secretary emphasized this is not a situation in which countries should or can be permitted simply to act unilaterally to advance their territorial claims or interests,” said the official, alluding to China’s dispatch of a huge oil rig to disputed waters off the coast of Vietnam in May and the virtual takeover in 2012 of a reef, the Scarborough Shoal, that is claimed by the Philippines.

Mr. Kerry also said efforts to create a “new status quo” at the expense of regional harmony were “unacceptable,” the official said. 

Maneuvers by China to assert claims over islands and waters in the South China Sea, and to slow the efforts of a regional group, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, to complete a code of conduct that would govern maritime rules have become a major point of friction between Washington and Beijing. The South China Sea is one of the world’s busiest trading routes.

The best thing I've read that allows one to get a handle on what Obama's "pivot to Asia" is all about is a story by Ed Wong and Jonathan Ansfield from last month, "To Bolster Its Claims, China Plants Islands in Disputed Waters." A lot is made of the commercial aspects of the Asia pivot, that the U.S. is reasserting it guardianship of the China Sea to reassure its allies that they won't be blocked by the Chinese behemoth from reaping any bonanza to be had from oil and natural gas reserves in the region's waters. But what is really going on is a U.S. effort to keep the Chinese Dragon penned within the first island chain. If the Chinese are successful at asserting a strategic presence in the Spratlys or the Paracels, this can be used to project power to the second island chain. This would be a game-changer since the second island chain essentially encompasses the principal islands of Japan, something that the United States will not abide.

And when the United States needs to solve a geopolitical problem these days, who does it turn to? Yes, you guessed it -- Islamic State, formerly the group known as ISIS. It was easy to miss Keith Bradsher's story yesterday, "Recent Tanker Hijackings Add to Problems in the South China Sea," about a spate of pirate activity off the coast of Malaysia reminiscent of what has been well publicized in the waters of Somalia:

The hijackings raise geopolitical issues. Seven have taken place close to Malaysia and one close to the Anambas Islands of Indonesia. But two of the hijackings close to Malaysia occurred in waters near James Shoal, a disputed, submerged reef near the north coast of Malaysian Borneo. 

Malaysia has had commercial activities there for many years, and it is a center of the country’s extensive offshore oil and gas industry. Oil and gas revenues cover nearly half of the Malaysian government’s budget. 

But China has been increasingly assertive over the past several years in claiming that James Shoal lies inside its so-called nine-dash line, a huge expanse of the South China Sea that Beijing has been claiming with increasing boldness, particularly this year. A small flotilla of Chinese naval vessels went to James Shoal in January, and Chinese officers held an oath-swearing ceremony there to pledge that they would defend China’s sovereignty. 

Malaysia glossed over the matter, saying that the Chinese vessels had stayed in international waters during their activities. Malaysia has tried to maintain a nearly neutral stance toward China within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, but it could find the balancing act more difficult next year, when it assumes the rotating chairmanship of the association. 

The hijackings also come at a time of considerable nervousness about jihadist recruiting efforts in Malaysia, which is heavily Sunni Muslim. The Malaysian authorities have detained more than a dozen people in the past month, reportedly including a Malaysian naval officer, in an investigation into recruiting and other support activities on behalf of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, the militant group that has seized control of a large part of northwestern Iraq.

The International Maritime Bureau, which is part of the International Chamber of Commerce and works closely with the United Nations on shipping issues, has been quietly tracking the hijacking problem and plans to issue a detailed report next week calling for further international attention to the problem, Mr. Choong said. The Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency has said that it is trying to solve the crimes and increase security at sea. 

Cmdr. William J. Marks, a spokesman for the United States Navy’s Seventh Fleet, said the fleet had not received a request for antipiracy help in more than two years, but generally worked closely with countries in the region, including conducting a joint exercise last year with Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. 

In a typical year, one tanker is hijacked in the South China Sea or the adjacent Strait of Malacca, or none at all. Freighters and pleasure boats are sometimes stopped and their crews and passengers robbed and, on rare occasions, kidnapped. From $1 million to $2 million worth of fuel has been stolen from each of six tankers that have lost part or all of their cargos in the South China Sea since mid-April. 

Pirates briefly seized two other tankers but did not try to steal their cargos after discovering that they were carrying chemicals that were not readily salable. One of the tankers was carrying methanol, used in making paints and plastics, and the other was carrying bitumen, a thick fuel used for firing boilers.

Malaysia goes from one-to-no incidents of piracy to eight at the same time that Islamic State is busy recruiting. This is how it works nowadays. Islamic State is the point of the spear for the United States not only in Syria and Iraq but also potentially the South China Sea. It is something to watch.