Monthly Archives: March 2017

Kama Sutra

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Ever since my first visit to India back in 2001, I always have an illustrated translation of the Kama Sutra not far away. Today I want to explain why I keep it and what I see in it. Not for any a particular reason—but simply because it pleases me to do so.

(Note, you yahoos who may be out there: don’t expect any smutty stories, let alone steamy confessions. In case you have not yet noticed, that is not me.)

As some readers will know, the Kama Sutra (The Way of Pleasure or, as others translate it, Desire) dates back to the last centuries before the beginning of the Christian era. It is the oldest surviving Sanskrit text, a fact which may indicate its importance in the eyes of subsequent scribes who kept copying it. In the process various other bits, pieces and commentaries were added.

The best known English translation of the Kama Sutra was made by Sir Richard Francis Burton towards the end of the nineteenth century. Since then there have been many others, some by people whose native language was English, others by Indian scholars. Translations into other languages also abound. These editions vary considerably in what they include, what they exclude, and the number of pages they contain. For those who are interested, the one I have was published by Bookwise, New Delhi, in 1999.

Burton himself was a traveler, explorer, geographer diplomat, and occasional spy who worked first for the East Indian Company and then for the British Government. Above all, he was a demon linguist who often took only weeks to master a new language. By the time he died he had learnt no fewer than thirty, or so people said. Throughout his life he published a vast number of works on geography and ethnology, many of them heavily annotated.

The reason why he translated the Kama Sutra as well as some other erotic works is of some interest here. Today most of us are convinced that, when it comes to what is and not permitted in the bedroom, it is the West, having gone through the so-called “Sexual Revolution,” which is freer, less inhibited, and psychologically healthier than other civilizations. Aren’t the media full of stories about all the terrible things Moslems in particular do to their poor enslaved women? Burton’s view was exactly the opposite. Partly perhaps because he was married to a strictly Catholic wife, partly because he had his experiences over much of Africa and India, he saw his Victorian contemporaries as sexually ignorant, straight-laced and frustrated. In this view he was later joined by many others from Sigmund Freud down.

Freud’s method in trying to rid his patients of their neuroses and set them free was to put them on the couch and psychoanalyze them. Burton sought to achieve the same goal by having them read and savor oriental erotic literature. Not always with success, as it turns out. Some years ago I wrote a magazine article in which I quoted a couple of lines from the Sutra. Whereupon the editor, a good friend, asked why I was troubling him and myself with such smut. It turned out that he had never laid his eyes on the book. Whereupon I sent him an illustrated copy. What he did with it, if he did, I do not know.

Ever since Burton translated it, the Kama Sutra has owed its fame above all to the endless lists of sexual positions it contains. Each has a name, and each is explained in some detail. But two observations need to be made. First, only about one fifth of the book deals with the positions in question. Second, almost any non-fiction ancient Indian book one opens will be found to contain similar lists of various things. Why? Because dividing reality into different parts, categorizing it, slicing it (like a loaf of bread, so to speak) was the typical Indian method of coming to terms with it and understanding it. Not the most entertaining one, some might feel, but certainly one that is as valid as any other.

So let’s forget about the positions. The rest of the book consists of advice, less in sexual questions than in those that pertain to love. Presumably because most people could not read, much of the advice is aimed at well educated, well to do, men belonging to the upper classes. Some is aimed at women, particularly courtesans who have no man to feed and protect them and who must fend for themselves.

To explain why I admire the book as much as I do, here are some typical verses. The translation is by Indra Sinha, an English writer of Indian descent. His novel, Animal’s People, was shortlisted for the 2007 Man Booker Prize and winner of the 2008 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Europe and South Asia.

Never touch the wife of a relative,

Friend, high-priest or king.

Ignore [the] commonly quoted dictum

That these women may be enjoyed

If they have slept with five or more lovers.

Within the context of a society based on rigid class distinctions, this is sound, even tender, advice. However:

…adultery

corrupts both men and women

ruins their characters, destroys virtue and wealth.

Men and women with any wisdom

will never even think of doing these evil things.

Stress can cause any sort of problems as the mind will strengthen the body/mind connection once again. levitra tablets So even if you miss it give viagra pill for sale it away and take a new dose. You will get all sildenafil tablets india the proper knowledge on driving and license program. Pfizer placed orders at 22 websites that turned up in an online search for “about purchase generic viagra cialis 20mg no prescription.” Nearly 80% of all men suffer from BPH symptoms.

And what does a desirable woman look like?

Her heavy breasts

Are firm as ripened pomegranates,

like jars of beaten gold.

High they ride,

Twin bosses on the brow of Krishna’s elephant.

The image of pomegranates also occurs in the Song of Songs, though in a somewhat different context. I go on reading:

The wise know also that physical pleasure

Is not the sole end of lovemaking.

It can be like music, stirring the emotions,

quickening the senses, dissolving

Thought into rhythm, until only rhythm exists.

And here is what the Kama has to say about love blows, so beloved of the hucksters and fucksters that crowd the Net:

Try always to remember, therefore,

That your lover is much weaker than you are

and passion is much stronger.

Furthermore, since not all girls like being struck,

Think twice before you use the love blows.

Both tender and realistic, isn’t it? And now, to courtesans. The basic assumption is that women do not like to make love for money but are sometimes led by circumstances into doing so. To be successful, a courtesan must be clever without showing it too much and look after herself first without going too far in this direction. She must study and master the sixty-four arts including drawing, decorating a house, music, dancing, acting, conversation, using scents and perfumes, and playing a good party of chess (remember Miranda playing with Ferdinand in Shakespeare’s The Tempest?). However:

The greatest courtesans are beauties

With alluring youthful bodies,

Sweet voices and charming manners.

They adore lovemaking

And value a man’s character above his wealth.

Neither tricking nor deceiving their lovers

Faithful and self-possessed.

These girls are connoisseurs of the arts

Devoted to the gods

And welcome at every society gathering.

How absolutely wonderful.

Guest article: To Trump or Not to Trump

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By Peter Viggo Jakobsen*

Donald Trump’s election as U.S. president has rocked the U.S. security establishment and its allies around the world. Trump has claimed that allies are “ripping the United States off,” dismissed NATO for being “obsolete,” and mused that the time may have come for Japan and South Korea to develop their own nuclear weapons. He insists that U.S. allies have to pay and do more for their defense. Many in the United States and abroad have decried these statements as destabilizing and dangerous; The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists captured the general mood moving their doomsday clock 30 seconds closer to midnight in response to Trump’s inauguration.

This concern is massively overblown.

Trump’s aggressive statements and erratic behavior will most likely strengthen America’s web of alliances. Trump’s aggressive communications strategy and his “America First” approach to international negotiations have already frightened allies into doing something his predecessors could not: increase defense spending. The question in allied capitals is no longer whether defense spending should increase, but how much. In Europe allies are now scrambling to produce concrete plans for how they will increase defense spending in time for President Trump’s first visit to NATO in late May 2017. His perceived unpredictability is also making military provocations and risk-taking by America’s adversaries less likely.

The concern triggered by Trump’s election stems in no small part from the rise of what I call “Trumpology” – the incessant scrutiny of Trump’s personality, his statements, and his tweets. Trumpology is a new growth industry because Trump’s communications meet all the criteria journalists look for in a good story: anxiety, comedy, conflict, and outrage. Many experts now spend their time putting Trump’s words under the microscope to identify all the disasters they might create. In addition, psychologists are busy analyzing his personality and upbringing in order to explain why he is acting so weird.

The American intelligence community has used personality profiling since World War II to better understand how leaders in closed authoritarian systems think and act. The results have been useful on occasion, but the study of personalities and intentions is insufficient with respect to predicting foreign policy actions and outcomes. One must also analyze the consequences and the opposition that proposed actions are likely to generate.  If one considers the consequences of undermining existing U.S. alliances and how much opposition such action would trigger, one gets a far more positive picture of Trump’s impact on world security than the doomsday scenarios that Trumpologists have mass-produced since his election.

Since the late 1940s, U.S. allies in Europe and Asia have based their national security on the assumption that the United States will assist them in a crisis. This assumption and the post-Cold War downsizing of Europe’s military forces have rendered Europeans incapable of conducting even relatively small-scale military operations without substantial American support. The situation in the same in Asia: Australia, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan have all based their defense forces and defense spending on the assumption that the U.S. cavalry will come to their rescue if necessary.

If Trump withdraws these security guarantees, the allies will face a stark choice between deterrence and appeasement. In Europe, deterrence is the most likely choice because Germany, France, and the United Kingdom are strong enough to constitute the core of a new alliance that can deter Russia. In Asia, China will become so strong that most states bordering the East China Sea will have no choice but to appease Beijing and accept its hegemony. Regardless of the outcomes, Europe and Asia would face a period characterized by high instability and a heightened risk of war. Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan would likely develop nuclear weapons. Germany and Poland would have a strong incentive to do the same unless France and Britain offer them nuclear protection.

John Mearsheimer, Barry Posen, and Stephen Walt have long recommended that the United States withdraw most of its forces from Asia and Europe because the costs of the existing onshore presence dwarf the benefits. In their view, the existing security guarantees amount to “welfare for the rich” and increase the risk of entrapment in wars that do not involve American national interests. They believe that the United States would be much better off by copying the offshore balancing strategy that the British Empire employed in Europe before World War II.
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Offshore balancing did not serve the British well in the end, however. It threw them into two world wars that brought the empire to its knees. Britain’s fate highlights the weakness of offshore balancing: a loss of the ability to shape the security politics onshore decisively. The failure of British offshore balancing dragged the United States into both world wars.

The United States has benefitted tremendously from the onshore balancing strategy it adopted after World War II in Asia and Europe to deter Communist aggression. Its permanent military presence, coupled with the allies’ military dependence, enabled Washington to shape developments to align with U.S. interests. Washington repeatedly gave their allies Mafia-style offers they could not refuse. U.S. economic assistance programs provided to allies in the wake of World War II came with conditions that forced the recipients to buy American goods and liberalize their markets in ways that were highly beneficial to American firms. Washington forced Great Britain and France to withdraw their troops from Egypt during the Suez Crisis (1956), coerced Germany to support U.S. monetary policy (1966-1969), and thwarted nuclear weapons ambitions and programs of many allies, including Japan, Germany, South Korea, and Taiwan.

Military dependence on the United States also induced many allies to support American wars in faraway places that did not affect their national security directly. Since 9/11 allies have sent troops to Afghanistan and Iraq, closed their eyes to secret detention and extraordinary rendition programs, the use of torture, and the massive surveillance of their own citizens. Allies have given the United States access to bases, facilities, as well as their airspace and territorial waters. Finally, many allies buy American weapon systems to maintain inter-operability and their security guarantees. The F-35 is the latest example of this.

The consequences of a U.S. military withdrawal from Europe and Asia would be dramatic. The United States would lose most of its military bases, American firms would find it much harder to gain market access, the American defense industry would lose billions of dollars, and European allies would stop supporting the United States militarily in faraway conflicts. The United States would be reduced to a regional power with little say in the management of Asian and European affairs. This is why it will not happen. This outcome is not only at odds with America’s economic interests, it is also completely at odds with the widespread belief in American exceptionalism and greatness that Trump and his supporters also embrace.

But if the costs of abandoning allies are prohibitive, why is Trump threatening to do so? Schelling’s classic work on game theory suggests an answer: it shows that you can obtain greater concessions in negotiations by appearing mad or unpredictable. In this perspective, Trump’s statements and seemingly erratic behavior make a lot of sense as a negotiation tactic aimed at pressuring U.S. allies to increase their defense spending. His perceived unpredictability is adding credibility to the threat that he might actually withdraw U.S. forces even if it is not in the United States best interest to do so. There is genuine concern among U.S. allies about what Trump might do if they do not take immediate steps to increase their defense spending. The South Korean government reacted to Trump’s election by vowing to increase defense spending significantly if he insists on it. Likewise, the Danish Prime Minister promised to increase defense spending after his first phone conversation with Trump. In Germany Trump’s election triggered a hitherto unthinkable public debate on whether Germany should develop nuclear weapons.

President Trump’s unpredictability will also put America’s opponents on the defensive. President Obama’s reluctance to threaten and use force likely emboldened China and Russia to take greater military risks in Eastern Ukraine, Syria, and in the East and South China Seas. While Beijing and Moscow could be fairly confident that Obama would not take military counter-measures, they have no way of calculating what President Trump might do. It is easy to imagine him giving the order to down a Chinese or Russian plane to demonstrate that “America is great again.”

Paradoxically, Trump’s tweets and theatrics are good news for world peace. They create unpredictability and anxiety that the United States can use to obtain greater concessions from friends and foes. The likely result is strengthened U.S. alliances and U.S. opponents that will favor negotiation over provocation in their efforts to settle differences with the United States and its allies.

A longer version of this article first appeared on War on the Rocks, March 2, 2017.

* Dr. Peter Viggo Jakobsen is an Associate Professor at the Royal Danish Defence College and a Professor (part-time) at the Center for War Studies at University of Southern Denmark.

Are You Listening, President Trump?

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Fifty-six years ago, President Kennedy entered office eager to show how weak his predecessor, Eisenhower, had been and how brave and decisive he himself was. He sent his troops to Vietnam, and the rest is history. Two months ago, President Trump entered office eager to do the same in respect to his predecessor, President Obama. To do so, he has hit on the brilliant idea of sending more American troops to Syria. In response, President Assad of Syria has told him that such troops, deployed without his permission, would not be welcome. Also that, over the last seventy years or so, almost every time Western, specifically American, troops went into the so-called developing world they failed to achieve their objectives. In quite a few cases the outcome was to open the gates of hell, as the Koran put it.

As the following, extremely partial, list of their failures shows, Assad is right.

1944-1948. A few hundred active “terrorists” hound the British out of Palestine, leading to the establishment of the State of Israel.

1946-1954. French troops are defeated in Indochina, leading to Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Laotian independence.

1948-1960. British troops fail to hold Malaya and end up by withdrawing from the country. Thanks to a masterpiece of propaganda, the Brits make most of the world believe that they had actually won the war. But this does not prevent Malaysia from becoming independent state.

1950-1953, Western forces, operating under UN auspices, wage against North Korea and China. The outcome, stalemate, is probably the best that could have been achieved.

1953-1960. British troops fail to defeat the Mau Mau Revolt in Kenya, ending up by withdrawing from the country, which gained its independence.

1954-1962. The War in Algeria, which had been a French colony for well over a century, ends with a humiliating defeat for France.

1955-1960. An insurgency forces the British to give up Cyprus, which becomes an independent country.

1963-1967. Another insurgency forces the British to surrender Aden. Ditto.

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1970-1975. As part of the Second Vietnam War, the US invaded Cambodia. In 1975 it had to throw in the towel. With the US cowed and decolonization all but complete, major Western attempts to intervene in the developing world came to a halt.

1982-1984. A small continent of US troops enters Lebanon, but quickly leaves again after terrorists start blowing them up.

1991-1992. The US and its allies, provoked by Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait, go to war. In almost seventy years, this is the only campaign that resulted in a clear victory. As a result, President George Bush declares that the US “has overcome the Vietnam Syndrome.”

  1. The US and its allies send troops into Somalia. To absolutely no avail, except for turning that country into an even worse hell than it already was.

2002-present. To avenge 9-11, the US and its allies invade Afghanistan. The resulting mess is still waiting to be cleared up.

2003-present. The US and its allies invade Iraq. Saddam Hussein is overthrown and, ultimately, killed. However, once again the outcome is a mess that has still not been resolved.

2005-present. French and British forces, initially supported by US cruise missiles, assist local militias in overthrowing Dictator Muammar Gadhafi. The outcome is the same as in Iraq.

2011-present. Small NATO contingents take part in Syria’s murderous civil war, but achieve practically nothing. Thanks in part to Russian aid, the side whom the US and its allies oppose, i.e. President Assad, seems to be gaining the upper hand.

Are you listening, President Trump?

Just Published!

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Martin van Creveld, More on War, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2017

When the chips are down, the survival of every country, government and individual is ultimately dependent on war. That is why, though war may come but once in a hundred years, it must be prepared for every day. When it is too late—when the bodies lay stiff and people weep over them—those in charge have failed in their duty.

In almost every field of human thought and action, good philosophers abound. They have examined their subjects, be they aesthetics or ethics or logic or the existence of God, and dissected them into their component parts. Next they re-assembled them, often in new and surprising ways that helped students to expand their knowledge and gain understanding. Some even helped improve the ability of the rest of us to cope with real-world problems. Yet in two and-a half millennia there have only been two really important military theoreticians: Sun Tzu (544-496 BCE) and Carl von Clausewitz (1779-1831). All the rest, including quite a few who were famous in their own times, have been more or less forgotten. Today they are of interest, if at all, almost exclusively to the military historian.

Both Sun Tzu’s the Art of War and Clausewitz’s On War have had praise heaped on them by generations of soldiers and scholars. With very good reason, needless to say. Nevertheless, both are marked by serious problems. In part, that is because there are entire fields which they address hardly if at all. Including the causes of war, the relationship between economics and war, the technology of war, and the law of war. This even applies to naval warfare, an age-old but critically important topic that neither of them mentions in a single word. In part, it is simply because they are old. Being old, they have nothing to say about the many forms of war that have emerged since they were written and whose role in contemporary conflict is often decisive. Such as nuclear war, air- and space war, cyberwar, and asymmetric war.

As far as the dielectric prism coatings are concerned, they do their job by bringing on deck bright, clear, color accurate cialis 5 mg images that the shooter would be proud of. Home remedies for Leucorrhea: Take the root of the amaranth and chafed it in cialis professional cipla a cup of water. Eat viagra in stores 30 grams of pumpkin seeds everyday or taking pumpkin capsules is very effective. Men suffering from erectile dysfunction lack in self-confidence and are cheap sildenafil uk http://amerikabulteni.com/2011/11/17/u-s-can-strike-anywhere-on-earth-in-hour/ unhappy with everything that they do. What is needed, in other words, is a new theory of war. One that is succinct, comprehensive, and easy to read and understand. And one that, by taking a contemporary approach, filling the gaps, and expanding into new fields can take the place of the above texts both in military and civilian life, both in- and out of the classroom.

The purpose of More on War is to provide just such a theory.

 

“Van Creveld is incapable of writing an uninteresting book.”

Prof. Lawrence Friedman, Foreign Affairs.

Yes, They (Sometimes) Can

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I have in front of me a book by a British scholar, Peter Greenhalgh, named Early Greek Warfare. Published by Cambridge University Press as far back as 1973, it is a scholarly treatment of the topic clearly aimed at the specialist. On the cover there is a sixth- or early fifth-century BC image of a two men amicably riding side by side. Originally it was painted on a vase now at the Martin-von-Wagner Museum in Wuerzburg. The vase shows the couple twice, once from the right and once from the left. As you can see, the older man is a warrior with powerful shoulders. He is wearing a tall helmet of the so-called Chalcidian type as well as greaves; he is also carrying a shield and two spears. The younger looks more like a teenager and is not nearly as strongly built. Unarmed, all he wears is a light tunic with very short sleeves, showing his slender, immature arms.

The men are probably on their way to war, and the eagle at their back was meant as an auspicious omen. Never mind. To anyone at all familiar with ancient Greek history, the image—in my view, a beautiful one indeed—strikes a chord. What we see is neither a casual encounter nor a so-called “Platonic” one. It is a homosexual couple consisting of the lover, or erastes (from eros, sexual attraction), and his beloved, or eromenos. The latter was usually a young boy in his teens. Modern scholars agree that such relationships were socially approved. In some cases they may even have formed part of a semi-official initiation rite. One not too different, say, from those practiced until not so long ago by some tribal societies in Papua-New Guinea during which the novices were made to fellate grown men as part of obtaining the essence of masculinity. Provided only the relationships were consensual—there was, nota bene, no age of consent—Athenian law allowed them. Indeed one scholar has claimed that they formed “the principal cultural model” for what a free relationship between citizens could and should be.

The Summer of 1942, a 1971 novel that was later made into a film, told the story of an affair between an American teenager and a woman several years older than he. It was based on real events; however, so considerable are the differences between the film and the book (by Herman Raucher) on which it is based that it is hard to say what really happened. Hence I shall not discuss it here.

Fast forward to 1998. In Germany the book, “Wir waren Hitlers eliteschueler” (“We used to be Hitler’s Elite Students) was published. It is a collection of short essays, each written by a former student at one of the so-called Napolas, short for Nazional-Sozialistische Politische Erziehungsanstalten. Taking the place of the old Kadettensschuelen, or schools for cadets, which the Allies after World War I ordered closed, the Napolas enlisted twelve-year olds and graduated them six years later. Somewhat similar to America’s military academies, they emphasized history, “racial science,” drill, and sports. Competition to enter them was keen, and looking back on their experience many of their absolvents had little but praise for them.

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Four years later another book made tis appearance. The author was the world-famous Israeli writer Amos Oz; the title, A Tale of Love and Darkness. It, too, has been made into a movie, albeit one that never attracted as many viewers as The Summer of 1942 did. Oz, who was born in 1939, moved to a kibbutz after his mother killed herself. There while still a teenager, he either seduced or was seduced by—it is hard to tell—a female teacher twice his age. In the end it was she who put an end to the affair. Decades later, while on a lecture tour in the US, Oz met a woman who looked strikingly like her. Going up to greet her, it turned out that she was his former teacher’s daughter who had come to listen to him. The mother was also present. She was, however, in a wheelchair. Suffering from Alzheimer, she did not recognize her former student.

Any number of similar episodes, some involving boys, others girls, could be cited. Let me make myself absolutely clear: I am not saying that people should start breaking the law and have sex, even consensual sex, with minors. The law is the law, and it has to be obeyed. Still it is useful to know that in Japan, not exactly the most backward country on earth, the age of consent is 13. In China, Brazil, and several other South American countries it is 14. The same applies to Austria, Estonia, Hungary, Italy Liechtenstein, Macedonia, Montenegro, Portugal, Serbia, and Germany. The total number of people who live under these laws, as well as in some “developing” countries I did not list, must be little short of two billion. The German case is particularly interesting. As long as a person over the age of 21 does not “exploit” a 14- to 15-year-old youth, there is no problem. For such a person to be put on trial, a complaint from the younger individual is required; in which respect German law resembles ancient Athenian one.

As the above examples show, there is some evidence that having sex with older people, whether hetero-or homosexual, can be good, or at any rate not bad, for at least some boys. As to the law, not only is it quite arbitrary but it is rooted in social attitudes. Attitudes which, since they vary from one civilization to the next, have little if anything to do with what young people do or do not understand, can or cannot do, want or do not want. Let alone with “basic” human nature at this age or that. Such being the case, it is quite possible that, in at least some cases, the “cure,” which today usually consists of punishing the older partner and actively compelling the younger one to assume the role of a victim, does more harm than good.

As to girls, there seems to be a near-universal consensus that they develop faster, and reach maturity earlier than boys do. So draw your own conclusions.