-Caveat Lector- from: http://www.aci.net/kalliste/ Click Here: <A HREF="http://www.aci.net/kalliste/">The Home Page of J. Orlin Grabbe</A> ----- Chechnya vs. Russia Chechens Dig In for a Long Fight One country's "terrorists" are another country's "freedom fighters". RUSSIA'S army moved closer to its first setpiece battle of the campaign in Chechnya yesterday, tightening its grip on two major rebel strongholds, Grozny and Urus Martan. After luring the Russian military ever deeper into their territory without putting up significant resistance, Chechen guerrillas were at last preparing to make a stand in the two cities. Russian forces now have the Chechen capital, Grozny, 80 per cent surrounded, and have intensified air strikes on Urus Martan, the Defence Ministry in Moscow said. Apart from Grozny, Urus Martan is the largest population centre on the Chechen plains still outside Russian control. Its fall would allow Russian troops to advance towards the capital from the south-west, completing its encirclement and setting the scene for a siege or an all-out assault on the city. Russian tactics in the seven-week offensive have been to avoid head-on clashes with rebel forces, hitting enemy positions with long-range artillery, ground-to-ground missiles and air power. Russia denies attacking civilian targets, but the testimony of countless refugees suggests that the real victims of the bombardments have been ordinary Chechens. The Russian plan has involved armoured columns speeding into the interior, leaving behind villages which are later searched house-to-house by Interior Ministry troops in so called cleansing operations. The approach has allowed the Russian military to seize control of most of the lowlands and to boast of capturing the cities of Gudermes and Achkhoi Martan "without a shot being fired". According to Moscow, people in both cities forced guerrillas to leave, a claim consistent with Russia's argument that it is "liberating" the Chechen people from a criminal regime. But it is unclear how many rebels were based in the places that have fallen so far, the suspicion being that they simply withdrew to fight in surroundings less favourable to Russian tanks. Chechen forces, now thought to include well-trained army units as well as guerrillas, have been fortifying Grozny for weeks by digging trenches, laying mines and building tank traps. Reports from Urus Martan suggested that hundreds of fighters have also been preparing a hostile reception for the Russian army there. Before the war, Urus Martan was a centre of resistance to Aslan Maskhadov, the moderate Chechen president, and a stronghold of Islamic fundamentalists. In the face of fierce Western criticism, Moscow has justified its offensive as a campaign to eliminate "terrorists and bandits" of the kind who have ruled Urus Martan for years. Residents of Urus Martan who have fled to the neighbouring republic of Ingushetia complained last week that none of the Wahabis, as the extremists are known, had suffered in the heavy bombardment of the city. The London Telegraph, November 22, 1999 European Socialism Beware "Chemically Pure Capitalism" Oh, the horror! FLORENCE - America, the practical, and Europe, the rather more theoretical, looked at the future and how to govern it on Sunday, and came out with characteristic answers for the management of economies and nations that seem less and less responsive to ideology. ''Get more cell phones and computers into the hands of smart people in the Third World,'' said President Bill Clinton. Have the rich countries give 200 million to 300 million microloans a year to the world's poor. Support debt relief, fight child labor, continue to reform international financial institutions, but do nothing to block the daily flow of the trillions of dollars needed to keep the global economy turning, he went on. It was New World pragmatism, a list kicked off with the the directness of a municipal council's millennium resolutions of Five Ways to Improve Our Town, and it contrasted clearly with the other end of the European spectrum present for a seminar here on ''Progressive Governance for the XXI Century'' that brought together six major political leaders of the trans-Atlantic center-left. At the opposite outskirts was the voice of Prime Minister Lionel Jospin of France, who dealt with the common theme of how countries could combine rapidly changing economies and social justice. He suggested a much less reflexive acceptance of capitalism than Mr. Clinton and advocated no hesitation in limiting its excesses. ''We've got to watch for what I call a chemically pure capitalism that would put the market's brand on every fear of society'' and challenge democracy, Mr. Jospin said. ''I don't want to go into the 21st century with 19th-century liberalism,'' he said. That meant new values, talking of rules, regulations and institutions to make sure that the world was not going to be directed by what Mr. Jospin called ''networks'' of business interests. Among his counterparts meeting in the Salone Dei Cinquecento of the Palazzo Vecchio - Mr. Clinton, Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain, Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder of Germany, Prime Minister Massimo d'Alema of Italy, and President Fernando Enrique Cardoso of Brazil - Mr. Jospin was the leader most obviously doubting of a society in which the values of the market increasingly were preeminent. Mr. Clinton, at his most pragmatic, even suggested that a main concern of the future was somewhere else than at the debate on economic approaches that made up the leaders' agenda. Rather, in a speech Saturday night, President Clinton said: ''I believe that the biggest problems to our security in the 21st century and to this whole modern form of governance will probably come not from rogue states or people with competing views of the worlds in governments but from the enemies of the nation-state, from terrorists and drug runners and organized criminals who, I predict, will increasingly work together and increasingly use the same things that are fueling our prosperity: open borders, the Internet, the miniaturization of all sophisticated technology, which will manifest itself in smaller and more dangerous weapons. And we have to find ways to cooperate, to deal with the enemies of the nation-states, if we expect progressive governments to succeed.'' The meeting here was a successor to one of center-left leaders in New York last year that come together under the loose heading of the Third Way, or a program for sustaining social cohesion at the same time as support for open labor and financial markets and diminished state intervention in business. With the election of Mr. Schroeder in Germany in September 1998, the center-left appeared at a high point in its influence in Europe. Since then, it has experienced at least partial defeats in voting in Belgium, Austria and Germany, as well as the European Parliament. Underscored by the Asian, Russian and Brazilian financial crises, issues have emerged that involved the lack of effective controls of the movement of money internationally, the incapacity of individual governments to balance the influence of companies and markets, and the dismantling of social services in the face of a drive to balance budgets. Mr. Cardoso said that his decisions involving these themes were difficult ones for developed countries, and in the Third World they represented ''terrible struggles to push through reforms without falling into market fundamentalism or excessive authoritarianism.'' He asked why rich countries were not thinking for the new century of new regulatory banking institutions in the manner of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, which emerged at the end of World War II. Following this line, Mr. d'Alema, as moderator, gently needled Mr. Blair about his government's resistance to tax harmonization, control of competition and other regulatory proposals. Mr. Blair, who is closely associated with the Third Way concept, did not reject new controls but fashioned a response that avoided any specific element. ''Our job as new progressors,'' he said, ''is defining new rules but being careful we don't slip backwards, and in having new rules, lose the dynamism of the new economy.'' Efforts, Mr. Blair argued, must be aimed at providing a climate of confidence in the international financial system and not attempting to stop money from moving around the world. Mr. Schroeder said he agreed with Mr. Blair but held that government's criteria could not be economic alone. ''Social issues have to be included in our economic considerations,'' he said. He also condemned ''social dumping,'' one country's undercutting another in tax, labor or wage costs. ''That ought to be considered as horrific a crime as dumping nuclear waste,'' Mr. Schroeder said. But for the most part, he sounded more like Mr. Blair is supposed to than the British prime minister himself. ''Instead of a caretaker state,'' Mr. Schroeder said, ''we want to get people on their feet.'' ''We're going to have to make people responsible, answerable for their own lives.'' And: ''A balanced budget isn't a conservative invention, because budget deficits are a social injustice.'' In saying that there should be continued reform of international monetary institutions such as the IMF, Mr. Clinton insisted nonetheless that the best way of getting money to poor countries was through rich countries being able to run budgetary surpluses. It was therefore the liberal-left parties, he said, ''that should be the parties of fiscal discipline.'' In practical terms the six governments, Mr. Clinton said, should be active in raising the skill levels of the least-advantaged parts of their populations. He recommended setting up special banks, on the model of U.S. export-import institutions, to bring capital into the poorest of their regions. Each of the developed countries, according to the president, should have the goal of making Internet access as complete as that of telephones. International Herald Tribune, November 22, 1999 Digital Society Company Execs Get Hep to the Internet Not too old to change their habits (and habitats). William Harrison of Chase Manhattan surfs the internet for an hour after work every evening; Thomas Frist of Columbia/HCA realised the healthcare group had to shape up when his 27-year-old son told him: "Your web-page is out of date so I know the rest of your company isn't up to speed"; and Jacques Nasser of Ford says he has spent more time recently in e-commerce meetings than he has on planning products. Across the US, the internet is forcing middle-aged men to change the habits of a lifetime. The difference is that these are not conservative middle managers but the chief executives of some of America's biggest corporations, used to leading rather than following. "A year ago, I clearly didn't get it," Mr Harrison admitted this month as he launched an internal campaign to overhaul the bank for the internet age. Something is stirring in the boardrooms of the US corporate establishment. "The defensiveness that you might have heard in some companies a year ago - believe me, it's not there any longer," said Larry Bossidy, chief executive of Allied Signal, the technology and manufacturing group, at last month's meeting of the Business Council, the chief executive think-tank, where the internet was the main topic of discussion. Or as Denis Nayden, chief executive of GE Capital, the financial services arm of GE, put it in a speech to the British-American Chamber of Commerce: "It's time to use [older companies'] brand equity in this new arena: the internet won't establish its credentials until then." In the past few weeks, companies have started to roll out far-reaching plans to put the internet at the core of their strategy. In addition to Chase Manhattan's shake-up, General Motors and Ford have announced plans for large-scale internet exchanges to handle transactions with their suppliers worldwide. And Allstate, the US insurer, announced this month it would for the first time allow purchases of insurance products over the internet, a move that could undermine the commissions of more than 15,000 Allstate agents. But this is a world where new dot-com companies can go from initial funding to launch in as little as three or four months, and where established companies as diverse as Time-Warner in the media sector and Wal-Mart in retailing have been caught on the hop. There are still doubts about whether chief executives are moving quickly enough. Sam Ginn, chairman of Vodafone AirTouch, the UK-based telecoms group, reckons many chief executives have so much support from senior staff that "they were probably a little late getting into the internet". A survey by IDC, the information technology research group, which looked at nearly 100 US companies with more than 10,000 employees, seems to bear this out. IDC found that chief executives take direct responsibility for internet strategy only in 21 per cent of large companies. In nearly 40 per cent of those companies, e-business is still overseen by chief technology or information officers, and the marketing chief looks after e-business in 20 per cent. Some 28 per cent have spun off responsibility to the manager of a separate internet business unit. Fear is the main reason chief executives are now taking direct responsibility. "Nothing changes behaviour like survival," says John Chambers, chief executive of Cisco Systems, the computer networking company. "You can talk about new competition and leadership but it's the realisation that you are going to be left behind that changes things - and good CEOs have an instinct for when there's a sea-change." Another reason is that as the popularity and useability of the internet have grown, the medium has come to affect more areas of business. Realisation of the potential threat - and opportunity - of the web has hit US boardrooms in three waves. The first broke over companies that were directly involved in information technology and networks. Cisco was in that first group, along with other computer and software manufacturers, equipment suppliers and telecommunications companies. The second wave hit companies whose core product, although not immediately linked to the web's growth, was certain to be profoundly affected. Eastman Kodak, the photographic products group, was one of them. "It has been much more obvious for a long time that transformation of pictures over network communication systems - whether it's the internet or any other type of network - was possible," says chief executive George Fisher. "Pictures aren't like bars of soap or shampoo; pictures you can digitise and put into the electronic domain - so the whole way of doing business or delivering product to a customer changes." But only in the past year have the third and largest group of companies - manufacturers, big retailers and banks, for which the internet might have seemed at first a cheap way of distributing the annual report or sales catalogue - realised that the internet will transform the way they do business. "If you had this discussion a year ago a lot of businesses would say, 'I have high margin products and I'm not going to put them on the web because it might commoditise them'. You don't hear that now," says Mr Bossidy of Allied Signal. General Electric threw itself wholeheartedly at the challenge only this year, making the transformation of the conglomerate for e-business its main objective. Jack Welch, chief executive, now reckons GE is "ahead of the competitive wave, but not ahead of the overall wave [of e-commerce]". Bank chief executives - usually among the most conservative of US corporate leaders - are also experimenting. The profitability of e-banking may be unproven but the internet's most evangelical advocates believe the whole function could be replaced by an online software program, and probably be done better. "Banking is changing a lot because of the internet and what that does in changing the way people can get information," says Sandy Weill, chief executive of Citigroup, which is working on delivering internet-ready products to corporate treasurers, consumers and investors. The next big transformation will be in the way companies deal with their suppliers, chief executives say. "That's the part where there's unbelieveable potential when you look at the number of suppliers around the world and the range of our products," says Ralph Larsen, chief executive of Johnson & Johnson, the pharmaceuticals group. "In placing orders, watching inventory levels, and arranging for payment, we can make it a paperless transaction. But we have just scratched the surface." Business-to-business use of the internet has the potential to convert even the most conservative of companies to the internet because otherwise they will be cut out of the commercial relationship. That poses a particular challenge for established US companies because it will affect a number of intermediaries - from insurance agents to the middlemen distributing drugs to the healthcare industry. Persuading employees to accept such upheaval may be the toughest job chief executives face. "If you see it coming ahead of time, you can position yourself. But if you wait for the revolution to happen then most likely you will be overthrown," says John Chambers of Cisco. But despite such talk of revolution, there is still evidence of reactionary thinking. At last month's Business Council summit, several chief executives referred to dot-com entrepreneurs as though they were well outside the mainstream of industry. "I think the major risk is thinking you can feel comfortable for the next five years with what you have done," says Sandy Weill of Citigroup. Or as Kodak's George Fisher puts it: "Nobody's smart enough to know what the services are that some kid out of high school is going to invent or dream up. You have to be open-minded to ideas from everywhere." William Esrey, chief executive of Sprint, the telecoms group, points out that "internet traffic is doubling every 100 days". In a few years, "now will look like the horse-and-buggy era in terms of what can be done". The buggy manufacturers are beginning to shift their strategy; the question is whether they are moving fast enough. The Financial Times, November 22, 1999 ----- ----- Aloha, He'Ping, Om, Shalom, Salaam. Em Hotep, Peace Be, Omnia Bona Bonis, All My Relations. Adieu, Adios, Aloha. Amen. Roads End DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. 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