Dive into the archives.
- What Kaplan observed, in practice
In partial response to Chirol’s post on colonizing Nepal—which I suspect was provocative in part to elicit good comments—look what picture and caption the New York Times has on the front page today:
A Nepalese police officer tried to stop his men from beating demonstrators in Katmandu Saturday.
This is exactly what Kaplan has been talking about [...]
- Colonize Nepal!
The West must step in and take control of Nepal! Though politics is usually the study of picking the lesser evil, I’d like to propose my own to Nepal’s continuing anarchy. When it comes to choosing between the Maoists or the King, most debates end up going nowhere with misguided idealists attacking the King’s [...]
- Coming Anarchy in Nepal?
Almost a year ago, I predicted that without serious aid from India and the West, the regime in Nepal would eventually collapse, giving way to a Maoist horror equivalent to what we’ve previously seen in Cambodia, Ethiopia, and Afghanistan. As I write this, demonstrations are taking over the streets of Kathmandu in Nepal. [...]
- Hot from the Presses
Thanks to Miami Mafia: Kaplan’s latest is hot off the presses from the May issue of the Atlantic Monthly. In brief, the article interviews an ancient British colonial officer still living in Nepal, and Kaplan talks about the Gurkhas and what Nepal’s 20th century history can tell us about today’s Royalist-Maoist struggle. Subscribers [...]
- History & Morality
An elementary understanding of the 20th century should make this easy to understand.
How would you have described Pol-Pot in the early 1970s or Mao Zedong in the late 1940s? Better yet, how would you have compared them to the competition?
The BBC’s general ignorance of the last century came out when they recently [...]
- Sri Lanka & Nepal: The dangers of Ceasefires
Many rejoice when they hear of a ceasefire declaration between two warring parties in a civil conflict. Not me—ceasefires are bad things. Like it or not, one side must wipe out the enemy, beat them into submission, and demand an unconditional surrender. Sound nasty? That’s why Germany and Japan are powerful [...]
- Nepal’s Ethnic Divide
Did you know what Nepal was divided into six ethnic groups? Because I sure didn’t.
And no, I don’t think this is relevant to the Maoist insurgency in Nepal, at least not looking at maps of Maoist-controlled territory—although I’m speculating.
- Buffer States, Part 1: The Himalayas
Whether it be immigration, smuggling, resources, or just a raw struggle for power, borders are notoriously difficult to manage. This is no secret. For the past few centuries, powerful states have set up smaller and weaker “Ëœbuffer states’ to create ipso facto demilitarized zones and preserve their security. I’m going to shine a light [...]
- Enslaving the peasants to save them
Nepal’s Maoists are growing bolder and abducting increasingly numbers of the country’s rural young.
Suspected Maoist rebels have abducted 60 students from a secondary school in Northwest Nepal, the police said on Thursday, reports `The Asian Age’.
The students were abducted on Wednesday from Saraswati Secondary school in Dolpa district, 475 kilometers northwest of Kathmandu, and forcibly [...]
- Keep Nepal Free
It’s been quite a while since I first wrote about the appalling state of affairs in Nepal. The situation remains grim. The King continues his brutal crackdown on dissent, opposition parties have gone so far as to meet with the Maoist guerillas to plan joint protests against the king, relations with the US [...]
