Experts, Prognosticators, and Fools

Prognosticators. I suppose everyone is right at some point.


What makes an expert an expert?

Electrician - they have a license in electrical stuff, they learned about currents and how they work and how to sort them out.

Mechanics - the auto dealership mechanics have licenses, they went to school and presumably learned about the vehicles - from the electrical to the air bags to the steering wheel to the mats on the floor.

What makes an individual who works for CIA as an analyst on, say, South East Asia generally, an expert?

How does an Ambassador become an expert?

The answer is, I think, a little humorous. With people like Wilson who ran around lecturing the world about Iraq and nuclear to his wife Plame, an expert in what, and how did she get to be an expert? How does an analyst become an expert in terrorism?

I would assume they read the tracts published or available/discovered from the groups. That is easy enough - most are available to us online.

I assume they speak the languages of the area they are experts - this helps, although many of the groups publish in English or translate into English.

They speak to other people who do what they do and they bounce ideas off each other - yes, and where is the 'expert' in that?

Presumably this writer worked in the Indian government and has insight - but in that case, Jimmy Carter has insight into the US government - and he clearly does not. Wilson worked as an Ambassador to something or other - worked for the US government, so he presumably understand the functions of the US government ... and the Senate decided he was a liar.

So what makes someone an expert?

How does CIA officer Bob become an expert in al qaida? He talks to al qaida, reads everything they have written, talks to people who talk to al qaida, watches al qaida, studies their culture and traditions ... but when he makes an assessment, it is an opinion, based upon his 'expertise' ...






South Asia descends into terror's vortex
By M K Bhadrakumar
December 25, 2008
East Asia Times


South Asians will watch the year end in a pall of gloom. The region is fast getting sucked into the vortex of terrorism. The Afghan war has crossed the Khyber and is stealthily advancing towards the fertile Indo-Gangetic plains. Whatever hopes might have lingered that Barack Obama would be a harbinger of "change", have also been dashed by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. The Financial Times of London reported on Monday that in an exclusive interview Rice prophesied that the incoming Obama administration might have little option but to follow the current US approach on a range of foreign policy issues. Significantly, her prognosis figured in the course of a foreign policy review that primarily focused on Russia, Iran and Afghanistan.

[This Indian ambassador, understand the intricacies of US Foreign Policy ... and has concluded based upon one statement by Rice that Obama will be, very likely, locked into Bush's foreign policy! Brilliant. He used the words "may have little option" which leaves open the possibility that Obama chooses the sliver of option that is contrary to Bush's foreign policy and this Indian fellow is able to claim he was correct, even when he was incorrect - as an expert on US policy. It is likely Obama will be tied to Bush's policy - something Bush worked hard at creating for the last ten months - a lock on policy!]


South Asian security is at a crossroads. On the one hand, the United States made great strides in getting embedded in the region on a long-term footing. South Asia must figure as a rare exception in the George W Bush era's dismal foreign policy legacy. On other hand, the big pawn on the South Asian chessboard, India, is heading for parliamentary elections. Almost certainly, a new government with new thinking will assume office in Delhi by May. US-India ties will also come under scrutiny.

[Once again, this Indian politician has concluded that Bush's legacy is a dismal failure ... based upon - his viewing of a policy that has 100 components and he is only privy at this point to 30 of them and based upon that expertise, he assesses Bush's foreign policy as a failure. I hope it was not too taxing on him to arrive at that conclusion. The New York Times made that argument several years ago.]

[clipped]

India signed up with a "quadrilateral alliance" involving the US, Japan, Australia and India in a bizarre containment strategy toward China, which, of course, annoyed Beijing. Some in the Indian strategic community openly threatened to play a "Tibet card" against China, confident in the strength of the US-India strategic partnership. Hubris crept into the Indian mindset, which was indeed a startling sight, altogether new to the millennia-old largely benign Indian civilizational temper.

[Brahmin class - and how can I tell? He stereotypes Indians, and how can he get away with this - it is very racist ... he gets away with it because, that class he is born to, is deeply racist and stereotypical in its approach to very nearly everything and toward everyone - including the Uzbeks or Kuwaitis. But he is an expert - he and his racially driven attitudes and far reaching foreign policy understanding of the US system.]

[clipped]

But all indications are that Pakistan is not impressed by the Indian rhetoric. It seems to think Indian politicians are grandstanding in an election year. But, just in case Delhi may spring a surprise, Pakistani army chief General Ashfaq Kiani has warned that the armed forces would give an equal response "within few minutes" if India carried out any surgical military strikes.

"The armed forces are fully prepared to meet any eventuality, and the men are ready to sacrifice for their country," he reportedly said. As Delhi and Islamabad dig in, Obama will have a hard time balancing the US's regional policy. However, one positive outcome will be that the US-India relationship will emerge out of this phase as a more mature process, having shed the false expectations and the rhetorical hype of recent years. A new government will also be assuming office in Delhi by next May and it is bound to take a fresh look at the "strategic partnership" with the US. It is highly unlikely that any new leadership in Delhi will emulate current Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's ardor for India's strategic partnership with the US. India will also have drawn its lessons from the current crisis. The return to an independent foreign policy may become necessary - almost unavoidable. The year 2009 may well prove to be a formative year of readjustment in India's post-Cold War foreign policy.


Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar was a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service. His assignments included the Soviet Union, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Germany, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kuwait and Turkey.




I wouldn't hire him. But, I'm not Indian.






India