Damaged Goods Left Behind in Afghanistan

We all like to get new gadgets, buy new vehicles & collect implements that make our lives easier. The shine of a new phone, the smell of a new car & the sound of a new machine always lifts us. However, as someone who spent the last few decades maintaining, repairing & restoring stuff, I am a firm believer that something that doesn’t work when needed, is as good as not there.

After overtaking Afghanistan, the Taliban were delighted to discover the spoils of war. Billions of dollars worth of military equipment left behind by the Americans & allies. From a sheer scale point of view, this made the Taliban the best-equipped terror group in the world. Reality hit when they realized that most of the higher-tech equipment like aircraft, helicopters & other weapon systems were rendered unserviceable before discarding them into the hands of the Taliban. 

While rudimentary small weapons like the Russian AKs hardly need any care, to keep a helicopter air-worthy or a radar/radio mission reliable is a technical & logistical ballet, pretty hard to master. 

One may wonder why anyone will leave such expensive & sophisticated war machinery on their way out of the battle zone, knowing fully well that it will find its way into the hands of the enemy? It all boils down to time & cost. While it took two decades to accumulate the equipment in Afghanistan, the decision to withdraw gave the allies just months to extricate soldiers, material & even afghans who were embedded into the operations. Pakistan had reaped many benefits extracting transit fees from over-land convoys supporting IASF till 2014 & the Americans thereafter, the same routes were not prudent for going back. Faced with the high cost & limited lift capacities of aircraft, it made more sense to leave the equipment behind than to haul it back.

While managing the lifecycle of any equipment, the decision to discard is quantified in terms of the economics of sustainment. Once inducted in the battlefield, the equipment value depreciates with use and if the cost of maintaining the system exceeds half of its residual value, it makes less sense to sustain the system. Media reports are full of coverage on damaged hardware left over by the American forces and how the Taliban must be regretting their premature celebrations on inheriting the latest war toys. As of now, it appears that the Taliban has limited capacity to make these weapon systems fit-for-use, but I would not disregard the ingenuity of self-taught technicians in innovating repairs. They may not be Tony Stark, but the influence of places like Darra Adam Khel is always lurking.

The disintegration of the USSR taught us that weapon stockpiles coupled with crippled economies make perfect targets for weapons trafficking. The situation in Afghanistan & the unfastened control of various Taliban warlords gives a direct pipeline for Pakistan to do what it does best. Export terror. 

At a very broad level, military logistics is a system of activities, capabilities & processes that connect a nation’s economy to the battlefield. The outcome of this process is the establishment of a ‘well’ from which the forces draw their combat potential. It is certainly an expensive well.  Obsessed with ruling through the barrel of a gun, the Taliban leadership will dedicate substantial resources to operationalize the military equipment & infrastructure sidelining national needs expected from governments. It remains to be seen who moves into this business with the Taliban since the real value of any conflict is the debt that it produces. 

The Americans may have lost a big stockpile of hardware, but from a simple cost-benefit, they gained a trouble-free exit while their opposite side was rejoicing the illusion of gains. Smaller weapons that were taken over do not pose any major threat to the west and a peaceful Afghanistan is far too complicated a game. But in the optics of it all, the US not only displaced Russians as the last empire to retreat from Afghanistan but also changed the image of terror from a traditionally dressed man holding an AK-47 to a Taliban in modern combat gear holding an M4. Sometimes we are collateral damage in our war against ourselves.

What is 'not' being said on Afghanistan

For thousands of years, life in Afghanistan flourished. Geography dictated lifestyles with vast valleys and barren stretches, grouping tribes with different takes on living. The imposition of modern social constructs started with this collection of tribal identities being defined in the boundary of the nation-state of Afghanistan. Empires thereafter tried their best to ‘manage’ this landlocked place, only to add entropy and leave. Today, the world is live-viewing a human calamity with the Afghans having the illusion of freedom as a choice.  

In a very cold and callous way, countries are doing in / for Afghanistan whatever is necessary (for them). It may be an over-simplification, but this simple statement can be injected with reality when we start defining ‘necessary’. Certainly, Peru is not in the field, but the customary suspects of the ‘perpetual great game’, are. The US, et al left because they did not want to focus on winning a game that will soon become irrelevant to domestic politics. Russia played the silent watch game, waiting for someone to remove them from the unwanted position of the last empire buried in Afghanistan. Pakistan gained from war profiteering in its Strategic Depth & its master China is now looking at an unavoidable involvement, even if just to prove that it is a superpower. 

It seems to be a checklist of superpower-ship; amassed wealth, powerful military, interventionist policies & involvement in Afghanistan. The Chinese hope not to repeat the mistakes of the Greeks, the Mongols, the British, the Soviets, and finally the Americans and their allies, but new mistakes will still be mistakes. If Afghanistan sinks into chaos, it could become a serious obstacle on the way to a stable and secure "Silk Road", China’s global infrastructure development strategy. Beyond serving as a sanctuary for anti-Western terrorists, unruly Muslim fundamentalists in power in Kabul might be eager to support the Uighur cause in China.

Stakeholders like United States, China, India, and Russia articulate two interests that justify allocating resources to stabilize Afghanistan:

• Preventing terrorist groups from establishing secure bases

• Promoting the economic rise of continental South Asia by securing investments in connectivity and integrating Afghanistan into those networks. (BRI, Rare-earths etc)

The best way to realize both of these objectives is to establish an effective state in Afghanistan, which raises the question of who will build it, pay for it, and fight for it. Taliban doesn’t seem to emerge as an answer to these questions. Even historically, No Afghan ruler or government has been able to build and sustain a state within its territory using solely domestic resources. The presence of foreign donors or security providers, as well as economic cooperation with some neighbours, can threaten other regional players.  While the stabilization of Afghanistan produces a partial public good for the international community, the actors who establish such stability eventually exploit the position they acquire in their own interest. Both the Soviets in the 1980s and the US since 2001 intended to “stabilize” Afghanistan in ways consistent with their interests. But rivals and adversaries such as Pakistan and Iran, the United States (against the Soviets), China (likewise), and Russia (versus the United States), perceived their efforts as threatening, even when those states also benefited from the limited stability imposed by the foreign presence.

Given Afghanistan’s economic and demographic profile as well as its linguistic, religious, ethnic, and economic links to neighbouring countries, virtually any neighbour or great power can destabilize the country at minimal cost by offering benefits to clients willing to fight. So how do you find common ground when the vector sum of individual interests is zero? Should the world let the Afghans find their path? 

It is too early to conclude the analysis. For now, away from the news, one might like to focus on what is ‘not’ being said on Afghanistan:

• China’s diplomatic dealings with Taliban

• Race for the Lithium deposits

• How the Taliban allowed all western (enemy)  military personnel to leave, unharmed.

• Should UNAMA now consider peacekeeping 

• Indo-Afghanistan trade through Chabahar

• Will the Taliban remain contended with Afghanistan or will they……

And finally, Pakistan. What new play does that bewilderment of a nation have to ensure that it continues to extort rent threatening its own collapse?

To Be Contd.....

Messaging in Troubled Times

The second wave amplified the lessons of the first. Some were learned. Some were not. Most were forgotten. There might be a shortage of medical supplies & many other things, but information overdose is a reality.

 Earlier, information sources were in the custody of a few then web 2.0 made everyone a ‘seeder & a leacher’ of information online. This democratized information but skewed data-to-noise ratio. There is a certain alienation in digital communication. Not being fact to face, delayed feedback, devoid of non-verbal aspects and easy anonymity are a few of the parts that take the feel away.

 Groups on community messaging services like WhatsApp, following on social media platforms like Instagram & Twitter etc make joining any conversation possible. The urge is understood but not bereft of responsibility. Platforms are full of false info, tangential conclusions and utter noise masking the critical factual data. The ‘Pandemic’ is now accompanied by the ‘Infodemic’.

 In the pandemic, people have been marked, stereotyped, discriminated against, viewed negatively, and suffered status loss due to a perceived contact with a disease. In addition, high levels of stress and anxiety was experienced by people due to significant changes in their day-to-day life, social structures and movements. To top that, information professing helplessness & fear might be a good ploy to sell products or modify offline behaviour, but is certainly not aligned to a nationally beneficial perspective.

 Did we get hit again? Yes! Is someone at fault? Yes! But purely in the realm of information management, the most important factor is to empower the people with the right information. Sadly, it is complex to be simple.

 Effective communication is proactive, polite, imaginative, innovative, creative, constructive, professional, progressive, energetic, enabling, transparent and technology-friendly. However, there are multiple factors playing a key role in accepting information, like social and cultural characteristics. Gender, generational contrasts, language inclinations, strict convictions, religious beliefs, and varying literacy influence the action of the masses. To package information in a way that it presents the needed facts, in time & conveyed in a way that it gets accepted and acted upon is the big win. This is the integral job of all the official Twitter handles, Facebook pages etc and they need to be manned by specialists who can keep up with technology & calamity.

 Information on oxygen shortage clutters information on oxygen availability. It would be prudent to have a setup informing the reality of medical support availability and even availability of first-care information on how to approach symptoms. Today, it is crowdsourcing that is the real source of info, a simple analytic tool can converge feeds, mine info and make user data available.

 Communicating responsibly is everyone’s job. Highlighting ills is important but so is selling hope. And somewhere in between lies the need of plain information away from all the padding of politics, marketing, greed & sometimes just habits. Crisis response communication setups are the need of the hour. They need not necessarily be government-run. The setup will encompass manpower, hardware, technology and cross-departmental chain-linking. Private players can add value, incorporate innovation & be commercially viable for long-term sustenance & growth. Data integrity & security can always be imposed based on law-of-the-land info governance.

 Deaths due to covid are human statistics & not just numbers. The narrative controls have blurred all responsibilities. From the originators, the spreaders, the faulty planners & opportunity grabbers to everyone who has been an accomplice in “forwarded as received” acts. The need for a specialist information dissemination mechanism is as critical as the spread of the virus.

Hope feels that this pandemic will be over soon, but it might not be our last. There are many things that we need to get right, information management is vital as it will always be the common thread, whatever the next wave or type of calamity be.

 

 

 

 

Force Preservation in the Online Social Domain – A Digital Camouflage

In this age of digital socialization, the digital realm increasingly becomes a significant dimension of the contemporary battle space. Much has been said and done about cyber threats; however, very limited attention is paid to the challenges arising from the malicious use of openly available digital information related to military organizations.

Today, adversaries do not require significant resources or advanced cyber capabilities to pose a threat. Social media and connected technologies are easily accessible, providing information and infrastructure that can be exploited by anyone with access to an internet-enabled computer.

Social media is a mix of human psychology—specifically social behavior—and the Internet of Things. While this assessment is largely accurate, it's essential to note that the human element accounts for approximately 70% of this dynamic, while the network comprises the remaining 30%. The personal internet was available even in the early 1990s, but it was the synthesis of the human urge to communicate—with a person (a face) rather than an IP address—that spurred the explosive growth of social media platforms. The arrival of the smartphone, a handheld connected computer, further placed the world in our palms. While this convergence brings numerous benefits, it also raises concerns. As devices—from phones to watches—become computers, they simultaneously transform into potential surveillance tools.

The survival of any military force is a primary concern in strategic planning and decision-making. This consideration extends well beyond military operations and involves issues such as public support and political cohesion. It is evident daily how the nation's military protects its members. Recently, the media highlighted steps taken by the Army to safeguard soldiers against the coronavirus, in addition to measures implemented by the government. We have also seen security efforts surrounding various bases and ports, which are vital military functions. Similar to physical security, digital security is another aspect that keeps military planners vigilant.

We have heard about measures such as app bans, smartphone bans, and wearable device bans mentioned in various reports concerning the military. While these measures can be effective, there is no silver bullet solution. With such pervasive technology, apps like Facebook and devices like smartphones and smartwatches have become integral to our daily lives. Their functionality has become a necessity, especially with e-banking, e-commerce, and crucial contact tracing platforms. Therefore, a completely non-implementable digital isolation as a protective measure offers limited value.

Separating mobile phones from defense personnel in official areas or during exercises and operations may be critical for operational security; however, it does not address the complex threats in the digital domain. An individual’s digital footprint is established over time, and the accumulated data points are collected through years of internet activity. These data points are processed through machine learning and artificial intelligence-based computational processes, creating an online profile. Leaving a smartphone outside a particular office five days a week simply indicates that an individual works inside that office. Subroutines transmitting location data from devices are embedded in basic map applications, and one does not need covert surveillance infrastructure to access this information. Similar conclusions can be drawn from the analysis of any other interfaced app. Services like Flightradar24 provide information on Air Force C-17 flights, while geotagged selfies can reveal even isolated border locations. It does not matter whether the photo is shared on Facebook, WhatsApp, or emailed; the location metadata is embedded within the image and is independent of the app used.

While the military may isolate individuals, open, crowd-sourced information has become a simpler method for obtaining critical inputs. Recently, a Twitter handle posted an old photograph featuring officers from an elite unit. Although many individuals in the image may have retired, comments on the tweet from people eager to engage in discussion or seek recognition revealed the identities of several individuals in the photograph. Cases of people identifying areas and commenting on their military significance are common and cannot simply be ignored. Information about military capabilities, such as personnel and equipment numbers, can even be gathered from civilian and commercial sensors, including footage captured by publicly available or misconfigured traffic and CCTV cameras. It is not one event that poses a security risk; rather, it is the long-term information matrix that can be woven from such data points that raises concerns.

Defeating an adversary, by whatever mechanism, is a cognitive outcome. It is the accumulated stresses of combat and perceptions of the situation that lead to fear, flight, and other psychological responses.

Active, adaptive digital camouflage may be a viable option in modern military operations.

Camouflage is often confused with concealment. To camouflage means to blend in with the surroundings, making one undetectable to an observer, while concealment is simply protecting something from view. Digital camouflage aims to integrate military digital information with various types of 'noise data,' thereby preventing the enemy from honing in on specific information and interpreting it as intelligence. For this strategy to be effective, it must be both pre-emptive and adaptive.

Implementing pre-emptive measures that establish systemic resilience against the malicious use of digital information is crucial. Raising awareness about the adversarial risks associated with the social media information environment is an essential first step, but this general awareness should be complemented by specific educational initiatives, internal communication strategies, and evolving regulations. Militaries are likely to favor these countermeasures as they rely on fundamental deception tactics. 

Effective measures should protect critical information in several ways: by minimizing predictable online behavior patterns and by camouflaging indicators that cannot be avoided, pairing them with meaningless changes that provide alternative interpretations. Once military commanders incorporate these elements into their mission plans, technical specialists can take on the responsibility of implementing them.

Extracting information from the open internet, especially given the abundance of social media posts, presents an opportunity where a small investment can yield significant returns. To counter an adversary effectively, keeping them occupied within the OODA (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act) loop is essential. A strategically planned denial of opportunities should be integrated into the operational philosophy; this approach represents a significant advancement on the horizon. Camouflage serves a functional role in concealment, but it should not be seen as a substitute for offensive capabilities. Preserving forces in the digital realm must be a core part of our strategic communication plan.

Agile Military

 In the study of considerations of various military operations the phrase “Flexibility” comes up often. The word assumes greater importance as it is a critical feature when we discuss offensive or defensive operations, counter insurgency or logistics & administration. In execution of any of these, the key is flexibility for a favorable result. The limitations in warfare are multifold complex and, in some ways, complicated when compared to writing concepts, even logical ones. People involved in defense force know that in hierarchical organisations like the services, flow of info, orders and authority is linear. Most documents and execution follow the waterfall concept where steps are sequential and quantified.

 

One would expect military organisations to be nimble and adaptive, for the simple reason that they plan for variable situations including the one which is least likely as a contingency. In the execution phase, these ‘set plans’ bring in a realm of order enabling ‘control’ and ‘predictability’ of successive phases. This attribute of planning actually changes the ‘design flexibility’ to a ‘constrained flexibility’.

 

We continue to evolve our concepts of operations by reeling in perspectives from the Age of Information. The ever-evolving technology in this age and its applications, plus connectivity, have evolved from the limited access to cross-linked information-based decision support systems.

 

The challenges of the 21^st Century like HADR, Non-State Actors, Nationless Corporations, Asymmetric Warfare & even Rogue States, are problems beyond the ability of any single actor or even a small set of very capable actors. For a successful handling of these challenges, the solution must involve a large, heterogeneous collective of entities working together. This collective is itself, complex and dynamic.

 

A more reasonable label for today’s world is the ‘Age of Interactions’. The Compounding technologies that layer above the framework of networks have given us unimaginable real-time interactions. Resultantly, events that may once have had isolated consequences, now generate consequences that have ripple effects and can quickly spin out of control. The viral nature of today’s interactions requires changes considering uncertainties and risks associated with complex endeavors. They cannot be reduced to manageable modules. What is needed is, both, a new mindset and problem-solving strategy. The most promising approach is to increase Agility. While agility is going to be an existential capability in the Age of Interactions, it is not an end unto itself and thus not a capability that should be maximized. Reasonable agility that can be sustainably scaled is the balance point between agile and traditional approaches.

 

Militaries seek hybrid structures and yet constrain the evolution with ‘command & control’. The word "control" does not describe it best because it indicates the philosophy that complex situations can be controlled; a sort of checklist giving options & actions to counter any emerging situations. This is a dangerous oversimplification. In the emerging multi-dimensional battlefield, the best that one can do is to create a set of conditions that improve the probability that a desirable outcome will occur and to change the condition when what is expected is not occurring. “Control” therefore is an emergent property, not an option to be selected.

 

Mapping from Scrum values, it appears that Focus & Convergence are more reasonable versions of Command and Control. They capture the essential aspects of command and control. They can also easily be understood by individuals without any prior knowledge of, or experience in the same. It appears more reasonable in situations of rapid grouping / regrouping of modular combat entities in maneuver warfare or any other entity that will be self-organizing as the operations progress.  These words do not carry any preconceived notions of how to achieve objectives. The focus hints directly at what is to be accomplished while being independent to the existence of someone in charge. Similarly, convergence denotes what the phrase “control” is meant to achieve without asserting the sequence / path.  

 

Incorporating agility cannot be a task. Change for change’s sake is not Agility. Agility implies effectiveness. An entity’s capabilities and behaviors cannot be agile unless they enable the entity to maintain or improve it’s measures of value. Being agile requires responsiveness. In order to be responsive, an entity must be able to recognize, in a timely manner, potentially significant changes in the external macro and microenvironment (read an adversary, or to itself). It should be able to recognize what would be a proportionate response. An appropriate response would include timely acting. In the context of military, agility will always be uniquely defined as per the threats & the capacities or the enablers & impediments exclusive to us. Given this, within the framework, how do we ingrain agility?

 

The first key to agility is “People”. To have an agile force, scrumming needs to be done on this resource, to etch agile practices. The upgrade to an agile manpower to the military is a complex problem.  HR teams will need to continuously deliver on this. It’s a military force; there can be no down time to process the changes.  It might be easy to change the way people work but extremely difficult to change the way people think. Militaries are virtually living microcosms drilled in battle procedures, which are exact opposite of agile. There are existing aspects that can be leveraged for easing in agility, for example hierarchy. In making organizational level changes, like theaterisation & joint commands, frameworks like Scrum (a modified version customized for target teams focused on envisaged desired structures) can be gradually incorporated in the hierarchy. This could be done on manageable collectives to eventually cover the entire services. This would be beneficial as these hierarchies are grouped to train, operate & deliver as units.

 

We are a successful military with sound principles. Why do we need to incorporate organisation-wide changes that are so radical to our fundamentals?

 

This is not a call for change. It is a case for adapting, improving and getting prepared to avoid a ‘future shock’. It may appear to be a conceptual journey across the landscape. It comprises of Complexity with variables of people, networks and the nature of command & control. In the end no structural or functional change in a military organisation can be called sustainable if it is not agile enough for mitigating continuous change. The exchequer would prefer Adaptive Organisations for Effect Based Operations. These aren’t possible while using world war constructs and yet this is not something out of the blue. Special Forces are the ready examples of an agile outfit. They place Individuals and interactions over processes, mission success over milestones, resource collaboration beyond designated tasks & responding to change over following a plan.

 

That’s an agile military manifesto.

Territorial Claims: China’s Greed

Time is analog. No country, that exists as today, has had a perfect run. History of the world, though the best chronology of our life on the planet, suffers from the flaw of human subjectivity. It ranges from being revealing and enlightening at times to just being a set of lies, agreed upon. So from what we have and what we can make out from it, civilizations, countries and nation states have had their ups and downs and those transitions have defined something bigger than just history; our evolution.

 

I had written about the obsolescence of imperialism in today’s world (https://lifeingigahertz.blogspot.com/2020/05/crimea-river.html) and how the same begets diminishing returns. But while the world maneuvers through challenging times, China, has started serving us it’s Revenge Soup, a dish served (cold) after brewing for a century (of humiliation). For those who like to maintain lists, the smallest one today would surely be titled: China’s Friends. With the middle kingdom, all that is needed to suffer a territorial dispute is physical proximity. If you live near China, then Beijing wants your land.

 

2020 has taught us how fragile our comfort zones are. The marvels of the last century, from industrialization, technology, globalization and digital prosperity, have all been proven weak in front of life threatening events like the corona virus spread. Fundamentals of economic demand and supply failed in the absence of emotional or psychological demand (i.e. People, with money refusing to buy goods / services). The business of excess, that boosted global consumerism and gave rise to double-digit growth, lies idle, shattering the virtual value bubble we had assumed as our datum. Fiat currencies served well for naturalizing virtual wealth derived from hedges and futures, fooling us into a manipulative transactional system. However, bereft of a gold standard, the same do not shoulder the strength to stabilize a real crash when the astronomical debt will need physical mitigation.

 

This is where China has modulated from imperialism to expansionism. Realizing that a majority of money wealth today is just bytes on a system and can be manipulated and controlled through democratic banking systems, the yearning of the “Real” estate as the scale of future power and influence is what china seeks. Be it through debt-traps, military posturing or straight buyouts, china is after land, the one resource completely out of production. In 2014, China supplanted Canada as the largest share of foreign buyers of US residential real estate, according to data from the National Association of Realtors. In 2018 dollars, Chinese buyers accounted for roughly 25% of total foreign investment in US residential real estate. The case is the same in other countries, like in Africa where large agricultural tracts now bear Han ownership to even military bases in Djibouti that fit the three considerations of property ownership: location, location and location.

 

As an emotional response, one would say it is instinctive that "the child who is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth” but this is where countries need to differ from individuals. It is complex to void responsibility of ills inflicted by past generations but once we graduate from individual to national consciousness, the current greater good deems higher precedence than past balance sheets. And if we all apply salt to historical hurt, then the whole humanity would be at conflict with itself and probably would have self destroyed by now. But with the passage of time, complicated human nature has accepted the reality of forgetting, even if not forgiving, history.

 

Coming back to time and it’s analog nature, we are all just in phases of our existence. Centuries ago, Rome was the biggest power, Greece in another time, Mongols once reigned the world, Cholas ruled the seas and Sun did not set under the Union Jack. Yet here we are today, a new phase with new players trying to rule the world.  A few millennia from now, this all will just be timestamps and faded memories.

 

If we apply the convoluted historical logic for claims, should India be asking for the Maurya Empire, or the Chola, or the Mughal? How far back do we go? As the fourth largest country in the world, a few or even a few thousand square miles will not change the geography of China and even a few million square miles wont douse its greed justified by the excuse of humiliation. Till China moves on to its next quest with the mindset of another phase of evolution, the world has no other way but to counter this animalistic urge with sticks and stones. India has a tough draw despite the Himalayan barrier and China’s assertions now border on humour with perpetual changing boundary claims and hankering on global media platforms, ironically banned in its own mainland. For a nation focused on human upliftment, we are doing well in handling these sideshows. We can just go ahead making more friends; it is for the Chinese to see how far do they want to go before being consumed by their own fire.

Anechoic Rescue

It is hard to say, whether there is an increase in the number of conflicts or just an increase in the number of conflicts being reported. The 21^st century might best be defined by the information revolution, but there is a long way to go and we still have another six months to survive 2020. The word ‘conflict’ primarily takes us into the realm of battles & wars, however, that aside, we today are facing conflicts of belief, accepted truths and perspectives that are getting eroded away because of our ever changing definition of life.

 

For a long time, living has been defined through quantized levels above survival. The genius of man, built upon a mammal that could stand on two feet, had opposable thumbs and proportionally the largest brain, gave this blue planet a civilization highly evolved in all sensory experiences. As true as the existence of matter & anti-matter, humans have balanced the tussle between their good and evil. Our development brought great value and learning, but everything that makes life easy is not necessarily good. We, today, have both the best medicines to cure and the worst weapons to hurt.

 

In such a scenario, it is information that makes each human more equal as the possession of the same bears no physical limits. Realized to be vital, the control of this democracy, bereft of rabble, is today the battlefield of Internet giants and governments alike. The simpler times that we reminisce had little info flow, limited options and thus the bliss of ignorance. Issues existed as much as today. The Moore’s Law growth has given us more but has started a fire that has become self-consuming in nature. A crucial part of information architecture is to design a user experience or user interface to ensure that just the right amount of information appears on a webpage or app screen: enough to make it relevant but not so much that it causes information anxiety which is not only a capitalistic side effect but also a symptom of our desire to not focus on the moment. The two combined are the reason and alibi for our ever-losing searches for facts on where we are today.

 

As the major focus on all news media nowadays, the data on Black Lives Matter on platforms like google search, AI driven articles, social media and commercial news (that is the closest I can phrase them) has muddled a social uprising into a cultural and political leverage for infructuous sloganeering leading towards everything except a rational path to the solution. The news on the clashes between the Indian and Chinese Armies on the Indo-Tibet Line of Actual Control too is so overloaded with expert-analyses that the small amount of official versions fade away in doubts. Corona Virus is holding on to relevance at a high cost of lives, but information flow on any of these issues has neither aided resolution nor aspired the confidence of truth. Then why do we fuel this?

 

·      We love being victims: While there is a psychological reason, but our addiction to bad news is the easy proof on this.

·      We are Bored: Event info is constantly updating giving us something to constantly consume. Just see the screen times we waste on just surfing.

·      Perpetual availability: The media has trained us to expect fast news and instant updates as the default way to stay informed.

·     Virtual Social Capital: By constantly consuming, we always have something new to share with friends and colleagues, thus positioning ourselves as being ‘in the know’. The number of people with the ‘I’ syndrome on social media is one indicator.

·      We ‘binge consume’ info: We approach info like the next episode of a Netflix Series. We are desperate to find out what happens next and follow the narrative to its conclusion, which keeps us clicking for more.

Information Overload is not the same as “Sensory Overload.” This is when your mind is bombarded with images, sounds and sensations that overload the brain. The brain can handle tens of millions of signals from our senses every second. Think of the number of light sensors within the eye, and equate this to the resolution of a digital camera (and the corresponding file size of the photos it produces). Then include the thousands of touch-sensitive areas of the body, and the range of our hearing. But we can still deal with all of this, because the brain has had tens of millions of years of evolution to deal with this. Compare those tens of millions of years to the few decades we’ve been dealing with information such as TV & Internet. Our brains are still learning to deal with this.

 

So in the scheme of things, there are the information controllers (facebook, google, news channels), the people who pay for that (advertisers / sovereign propaganda) and then there is ‘you’. Yes, you deserve to know. It is your right. But do you need to know? Is it relevant? And do you need it all the time? Most of the info we crave is “Just-In-Case” while it could even be acceptable “Just-In-Time”. De-clutter your life. Don’t let technology fool you into being in control of information. Your twitter notifications, or instagram likes are just added echoes to the noise you don’t need in the first place. They fog your thoughts and prevent you from listening to yourself. Make your space anechoic and listen to your thoughts. If god never wanted you to listen to yourself, the ears would have been far from the brain.

 

I don’t advise isolation, we are social animals. Internet media is a great platform with endless possibilities. Network news is a good check on the powers and open information is great empowerment. It is just that ‘you’ need to be in control. Like medicines, there is an ideal Minimal Effective Dose (MED). Every pill has an MED, and after that specific dose, no other positive effect occurs and overdose is obviously harmful. Consuming information is somewhat similar. You need just a precise amount of it to help you to achieve your goals and put your plans into action. Anything more than that won’t improve your results any further and overload is the bane we want to avoid.

 

In this age of information, “you” are the product and you, yourself, are the buyer. Value yourself.

Up Above the World. So High.

Air Travel, in the times of Corona is more like a necessary evil. Flying commercial still remains the fastest and the most convenient way to move around, especially after getting habitual of a few hour hops vs an overnighter on the road. We are still arguing that international flights, primarily from hotspots in China and other nations should have been stopped late last year only and saved us the agony of a rising curve that was predicted to flatten. The prudence of that aside, the ability of air travel in carrying the virus has certainly been accepted and has changed the airline industry for good.

 

Today, taking a flight implies masking up for the cab journey with a topping of gloves and healthy dollops of sanitizer till just the security check. One is then layered with a face shield and if you are unlucky in the middle row, a PPE gown to save you from your neighbours, in the socially cramped economy class. Fear, precaution or just instructions to follow, the feel of flights is history and it has also taken away the oddly satisfying meals and the seriously debatable coffee that kept you up but made the next seat guy snore away.

 

Emotions are strange chemical reactions. They make seemingly quantized events like going from Place A to B an experience to remember and letting go, a hard choice. The recent take off was ironically a sinking feeling. It was a “Surgical Strike” on the senses with the cabin smelling of strong disinfectant and the crew dressed like surgeons. From being a poly-sensory experience that I was looking for, the flight got downgraded to candy crush and a constant nagging in the head, “are we there yet?” It offends the human ego that nature is indifferent to us. However much we want, the mother elephant and her unborn are not coming back and this virus is not going away. Living with difficult truths, unfortunately, is normal.

 

Another view on this new reality of protective gear and sanitizing liquids is on the volume of discard these single use items create. Their medical-hazard aside, the pollution side-show itself is a big add, on the plastic choking of the planet. The 170 odd passengers and crew, after taking off from mom’s airport and landing at the son’s airport (Bless their souls. Great leaders), disposed 170 masks, face-shields and about 50 PPE gowns. And this happening with every flight presents a substantial source of the new-normal pollution.

 

Our country has shown great ingenuity in exponentially increasing the production of PPEs and sanitization chemicals. Currently, PPE manufacturers use materials such as polyester, polyamide, polyethylene and other polymers. As good citizens we may assume that PPEs, being primarily plastic conform to recycling processes, but PPE is not recyclable (with the existing processes) or biodegradable, and it needs to be treated as waste. Sanitization chemicals contain ethyl alcohol, isopropyl alcohol or both to kill bacteria and viruses on hands and surfaces. Alcohols have long been known to kill germs by denaturing the protective outer proteins of microbes and dissolving their membranes. However, the excessive use that we see today needs another look as the solvents are sure to find way into the water systems or even the food chain and may become a concern through bio-magnification.

 

So, what can we do about the PPE waste issue? Gloves, masks, and wipes are playing a vital role in our lives right now as a way to protect people from contracting and spreading the corona virus. Still, harming our environment and possibly polluting the already endangered water sources should not be a necessary consequence. Sustainability of production, use, discard processes and by-products needs to be the foremost focus in this case. Using biodegradable materials, adding end of service indicators and making multi-use items instead of ‘single-use and discard’ variants, come to mind as options for a better PPE. But these ideas require quite an investment from a manufacturer’s perspective and a deviation of the lowest bidder syndrome from the buyer’s side. The easiest and cheapest way to market is rarely, if ever, the most sustainable way.

 

An interesting thought here could be the Circular Economy for the PPEs. A Manufacturer-Distributor combine could cater for PPE supplies to major bulk breaking points like airports, hospitals etc and collect the used PPEs and ensure a systematic discard / recycling. It holds value, as the economics of scale will allow investments into retooling of manufacturing processes as well as recycling procedures, leading to an environmentally safer lifecycle for the now inescapable PPE. It is a major change in this recently booming industry as ‘Before-Corona’ the hand sanitizer or the PPE were more of an emergency requirement than a routine and that has brought a whole new scale to fore. We may wish or impose environmental prudence on industries, but realistically, corporate sustainable development is not environmental or ethical but economic; if it fails economically as a business concept, as an engine of innovation, then it fails.

 

How can you help? Simplify the problem, wipe away the propaganda, listen to experts and use common sense. Wear cloth mask in safer areas, an N-95 mask is not needed everywhere. Use and discard PPE in the proper way and please remember, just because it is from a public dispenser, you don’t need a ‘large’ of hand sanitizer; it’s a different type of alcohol. And yes, please wait for sometime before crushing social distancing as soon as the aircraft lands.

Disclaimer: This was not my flight. Image from Twitter

 

Take the World Environment Day as an excuse to start. Long after COVID-19 is solved, we still will have to protect the Earth.

Crimea River

China is the latest Honours Subject from the University of Social Media. The recent standoff reported from Ladakh and similar incidents in Sikkim etc seem to have taken some attention away from the overwhelming corona issue. However, a major realisation has occurred that, ‘boredom’ is a strong emotion. Barely a few months into the COVID crisis, with loss of lives and livelihood on the rise, we already have a bored Pakistan pushing in terrorists, while seeking loans and China playing the intimidation game at third party borders; India – Tibet and India - Nepal. While globally, Venezuela’s collapse, Hong Kong protests and the Taliban agreement also deserves focused attention, our immediate neighbourhood has plenty to fill our hands.

 

Papers, TV and the net is full of what allegedly happened, what might be happening, backgrounders, China’s Theatre Commands, Theaterisation of Indian forces and who said what. Serious operational matter for some, but Home Theatre for most. Disputes below a threshold, as an external policy have been a favourite amongst imbalanced relationships. Economic tinkering, Election meddling or territory slicing, the world has been seeing it all. Callously unconcerned, as long as it was someone else’s problem.

 

Annexation of land is not new. Despite being a taboo in recent international politics, territorial assertions have been happening. And while they do cause much heartburns and human plight, wars also have not brought decisive results for the same, except maybe the Falklands War. We still have the Line of Control with Pakistan after many wars. Even creation of Bangladesh and an all out defeat of Pakistan, did not lead to the integration of Jammu & Kashmir with Pakistan occupied J&K and Gilgit Baltistan, while Shaksgam Valley & Aksai Chin remained with China adding on to the unsettled borders of the Heaven on Earth.

To be clear, Borders have shifted throughout history and there will always be groups that, for ethnic or religious reasons, feel they are stranded in the wrong country. But allowing a new nation such as East Timor or South Sudan to break free, usually through a negotiated and internationally recognised referendum, is very different from allowing an existing nation to forcibly seize part of a neighbour’s territory. China has long threatened to militarily integrate Taiwan, Israel vs Palestine has been a continuous struggle but Crimea is the example that comes to mind when annexation is spoken of. Be it reasons of region, religion or access to the Black Sea, Crimea is now added to the list of disputed territories that everyone knows and cant do much about. These regions eventually harmonise to an equilibrium that enables life to go on with the notion of choice remaining an illusion created by the haves for the have-nots.

 

Every time there is a standoff with PLA in our northern borders, it is dealt with. How it gets reported, is another story. It is difficult to pin the reason or blame for that, as when the news is not raising patriotic fervour on the military’s work it is giving out analysis on how the budgets should be slashed for audit prudence, leaving both aspects reduced to symbolism for prime time. This gives little space to summarise simple facts:- We have threats on the borders. We need to contain them in the present and we need to build credible & effective deterrence for the future. Foreign policy can be based on intentions, but defence policy can only be based on capability.

 

Game of political optics aside, India today is not a push over. If this is a retribution for reducing imports, asking WHO did what, calling out OBOR a money trap and supporting countries troubled by Chinese imperialistic designs, then, it must be realised that, isolated military misadventures in Ladakh wont change the exposed public face of the Middle Kingdom. Yes, there are ways that China can hurt us, but there are also ways for us to act where China won’t like it. What and how much to do is best left to the experts on the ground.

 

Thing that baffles the most is, what does China get from all this? Bad relations with most neighbours, further worsening of international image, a synonym of everything cheap to buy but expensive to own and a friendless global playground. On the Indian side as well, the Himalayas are a natural watershed and Tibet a beyond economical pursuit. None of the southern neighbours have ever threatened the British drawn limits. It has always been the Chinese who have continued to nurture disputed areas, as if looking for excuses for disputes. Myanmar, Bhutan, Nepal and India, all have suffered the imposed superiority of Chinese through military incursions, leaving only Pakistan that has traded partial sovereignty for border peace while assuming enemy of my enemy is a friend.

 

As an aspiring superpower, China could have done better by leveraging its civilisation, culture and diversity towards a more symbiotic ecosystem with its neighbours and global partners. Taking a path of human inclusivity and mutual benefits for spreading the soft power of their oriental way of life and added to this its industrial powerhouse would have ushered a different century for the world, possibly bereft of a lot of infructuous exchanges.

 

Towards Ladakh or Sikkim, favourable weather incursions may be an effective ploy to temporarily channelize opinion, but it can’t serve any long-term gain. The second biggest standing armed forces won’t wither away like some Guangzhou Counterfeit Nike and the colder it gets, the harder it will be for the dragon to breathe fire. The buildup might cause political entropy here but that is only because a democracy affords that to its people. Being non-existent back in China, out of fear of the nature of free will, the people there don’t get to decide who will be their country’s enemies or friends.

 

Sometimes we are just collaterals in our wars against ourselves. Snatching away doesn’t work with kids and toys or with men and territory. History is not destiny and rules of Crimea don’t apply to  the Himalayas. If you are sad that the world does not take you well, change yourself. From being a poor and weak country that not many liked, you are now a rich and strong country that not many like. Fighting us won’t change that. Cry Me a River.

Netflixing Life

It has become ‘normal’ to say that we are headed towards a ‘new normal’. The most similar analogy I see is the query, ‘Who let the Dogs Out?  Nobody knows ‘who’, but it’s catchy! We can only try and conjecture as to what that new state will be, but then, what else are ‘lockdown analysts’ for? Being a digital warrior, the binary scenarios I play are, End of the World vs Evolutionary Prosperity. The real life will give us something in between, but it highlights the futility of worrying, as in either case choices remain a linear progression of options.

 

We may try holding on to the past, it is not a bad thing, but life has been changing anyway. The dusty old bazaars were sidelined by the convenient Superstores, then the malls pushed them aside and made shopping a getaway experience till eCommerce exploited our inertia and made our devices the market and us, a product. Entrepreneurship has also changed from the idea of just giving the people what they want, to design thinking; giving people a need they never knew they had and then selling goods and services to fulfill that. So apart from the fact that we are being forced to change in a short timeframe, this situation is just ‘normal’.

 

Fareed Zakaria, on this change said, in one of his shows, that this opportunity that we have got to formalize a new way of life can also be used to deviate from the ills of the past that had got ingrained in our lifestyles. Aspects like excessive burning of fossil fuels, meat production, wasteful electricity consumption and even population growth were never sustainable models and as we sit and decide about the future of our civilisation, cleaning up the canvas and harmonising with the earth just seems even more prudent. As far as us in India, it should be easy. For centuries, life on Jambudvipa was based on balance with nature and now when the multinationals (actually corporations beyond nations) package our ancient concoctions like Turmeric Latte, Toothpaste with Salt / Charcoal, disposable leaf plates, 9 Day fasting, Yoga etc. An endless list keeps scrolling on how fundamentally strong we, as a civilisation were and even today, are.

 

The change will neither be immediate nor easy. Years of vested interests and invested mindsets will friction the move, but they, like many others in the past, are likely to get ‘Netflixed’. The popular streaming service and many similar others today are hot-stocks and the story is same for most non-contact service providers. The twentieth century buzzword, “Globalisation” stands to shrink to such non-contact products while giving way to ‘regional self dependence’ in other physical consumer goods. Like it or not, democracy in manufacturing will define the next industrial wave. Intellectual Property will stay as the fundamental ownership, but growth will be in down-scaled factories catering to regional markets and eventual progression in 3D Printing may further lead to corporations like Amazon supplying substrates and people printing whatever they need in the comfort of their homes.

 

Still as social animals, we have been known to move mountains to be with each other. Can the idea of long-term isolation be sold to such a mind set? Or can we partially sacrifice privacy and develop individual sensor bands (like a Fitbit) that broadcast our real-time infection status and tag us and our surroundings, Go / No Go. Fear of misuse and stigma will always remain, but like hijackings and 9/11 changed Airport Security, this sensor based social life, might not be a distant future. Tracking apps, in a still nascent form, are already in use in many countries, including India (Arogya Setu). 5G bandwidth may just be the platform needed for billions of these active devices to talk to each other. The race to dominate this sector is about to explode.

 

 It is strange that solutions to life, Post Corona, being thought of today, lie at the extreme ends of the time spectrum. Ancient and futuristic ideas are converging for maintaining our average modern lives and this new cocktail may just be the cheers we need to welcome life as it will be known. Nature is divine in its ways, just when the caterpillar thought the world is over, it became a butterfly.

 

Where the Streets Have No Name

It is often said that migrants, like other ethnic minority workers, are the last hired and first fired. This is certainly the case today as a consequence of the global economic and financial crisis. Businesses are no longer hiring new staff and there are major lay-offs, generally starting with dismissal of temporary workers. Some companies are resorting to adhoc arrangements, such as reduced hours and pay for personnel remaining on the payroll or putting workers on part-time employment or unpaid leave, but, the growing uncertainty leaves more question marks than assurances.

It was a short period of ‘denial’ before the world woke up to Covidisation. Reality jumped many quantum levels with a still continuous redefining of the stable state. Those who risked being in the valence shell in hope of keeping connections, suffered the lack of nucleus protection and the nature of the virus that indiscriminately made all bonds, lethal. The lockdowns have emerged as the only prevention while we search for a cure, but #StayAtHome is not an option for everyone. Especially poor migrants for whom home is just a notion and not where the heart is.

Migrants tend to be among the workers most hit by economic downturns for several reasons. Migrant labour is often used, as a cyclical buffer and a skill balancer, like other macroeconomic policies aimed at maximising growth and minimising unemployment. From a social and political perspective, in times of economic insecurity, migrants easily become scapegoats to xenophobic sentiments and discrimination. Domestic migrants at all levels, at least have the security of nationhood and federal structures, it is the lower strata of trans-national migrants that suffers social and economic alienation without the safety net of social or governmental support.

However, many migrant workers are not returning home voluntarily. They tried keeping hope in the re-rise of their livelihoods but hope soon became a function of money, as no light could be seen across the tunnel and the voids that awaited them back home. This was the case even when they were offered financial incentives to voluntarily depart. Simply put, they were just choosing the bad option from the worse. As aircrafts return from all over the world, naval ships make Samudra Setu, trains carry interstate transients and the picture of families walking back home, on endless highways, becomes an uncomfortable routine, this ‘flight to safety’ is becoming a parallel pandemic.

This return ‘home’ process broadly has two major impacts; the likelihood of an import of corona virus infections and a major drop in international remittances. Policies and processes will try and offset the virus threat, but the drying up of money inflow will hurt ones who depend on it the most. India gets approximately $80 Billion in remittances, a big chunk of that has already started fading. This financial loss gets further amplified when the out of work migrants fall back on the system that depended largely on their contributions.

So whose problem is this migrant crisis? When there is lesser to go around, a different trait of human psychology comes to fore. Employers have no sales to save jobs, government has less tax to offer welfare and the society that had adopted the comforts of excess, wants to hold on to them. In India, the scale of the issue and the compassion fatigue caused by the over-exposure on all media platforms further worsens the case. We hardly remember the lifeless body of a Syrian boy Aylan Kurdi and the new generation is bereft of the wounds of Partition. Our society might not be at war but the pain of being displaced is the same.

Economic survival is also a fundamental right, more so for the invisible workforce that was such a vital contributor to it. The typical forced migrant breadwinner must find a good job, and quickly, to mitigate his or her family’s plight, and to overcome the poverty, uncertainty, and humiliation. At the same time, new investments occur too slowly or are deterred by a fragile investment climate or by economic instability, which is made even worse by a large inflow of migrants. The lethal effects corona virus on top of this job market mismatch is already severe and might become extreme and persistent. Economic revival being the only hope is the difficult need of the hour.

Since this is an ongoing transition, even when the lockdown opens, there will be migrants; stranded at their place of work, still moving on roads towards home or at their home towns, thus labour shortages will continue and would in turn threaten industries dependent on migrants, particularly agriculture where the crop seasons wait for none. There is also a feel that large distance migration may reduce, as people will be averse on getting stuck in far off places. This will severely impact the revival of the businesses, something we are counting on to offset the crisis. Breaking these circular (or cyclic) dependencies is where the national political will comes into play when at the cost of financial prudence, the government will have to bail out businesses and put money back into the hands of people and encourage spending instead of tilting towards regressive taxation policies.

And when you take focus on the individual who is migrating with his family or alone, maybe on a flight from Gulf or on a train from Mumbai or just walking on a highway in UP, the only thing that matters is reaching home safe. The other battles seem distant as the journey converges all socio-economic realms and becomes a humanitarian crisis. This is not something new to us, as migrant labour has seasonally been moving back home during holiday or harvesting times but it was hit by mobility lockdowns. The challenge now is to avoid human loss from this unprecedented and unplanned displacement as well as the disconcerting virus. The more we are able to manage this efficiently, the smaller would be the add-on crisis this movement of humanity brings.

This maybe a big catastrophe for us all, but drawing on ethnographies of poor migrants, there is often a ‘constant prospect’ of crisis woven into their social fabric in contemporary times. When you are neither where you are supposed to be nor where you want to be, the place has no meaning and the streets have no names. When Ralph Waldo Emerson said “Its the not the Destination, It's the journey,” he surely did not have migrants in mind.