Reply #28: A strategic consideration I can't believe no one's mentioned [View All]

Natural disasters like this (and there hasn't been anything on this scale since perhaps the Bangladesh cyclone of 1970 - something like 300,000 killed - a conservative estimate) can destabilize entire countries. I find it unbelievable that no one at the White House has even apparently thought about this.

Look at the last time Indonesia's geology went ape-shit. When Krakatoa blew, the effects were so devastating, and the response so ineffective in the face of absolute devastation, that it produced a slow-burning Muslim religious insurrection across a big chunk of the (then) Dutch East Indies, especially in western Java and Eastern Sumatra. It went on for years in a long and hopeless war against the Dutch, and thousands died.

Krakatoa killed about 35,000, most in Indonesia. This time around, I'd be willing to bet that we'll be talking about at least 100,000 dead before it's all done, and I think that's probably a lowball estimate.

So let's look at the countries involved:

Sri Lanka - in the middle of a slow-motion civil war in which 10s of thousands have already died.

Thailand & Malaysia - both facing Islamic radicals

India - Staggering poverty, staggering corruption and a calcified bureaucracy which is probably not going to come out of this smelling too sweet, especially considering their response to the Orissa cyclone a few years back.

Burma - a corrupt military dictatorship trying to hold the lid on a whole lot of pissed-off people.

Indonesia - the worst-hit region is Aceh, where there's already an insurrection against both the central government and foreign oil companies underway.

So, what we're looking at is a whole lot of stress on social and government systems striking governments that are not too well equipped to handle that stress. This is a serious geopolitical regional kick in the pants, and all the Crawford Chimpanzee can do is hurl sticks and fruit while emitting sporadic sympathetic hoots. Not good enough, Chimpass.