Marine spatial planning
Insights into ocean management and the embedded resources a must
Not so long ago, talk of South China Sea dominated the focus of international relations. Landlocked countries were either relegated to columns of lesser attention or seen in stereo type phrases or expressions of traditional aberrations in statecraft. All the while, however, confidential negotiations were on somewhere in Doha between the US and Taliban. Nobody exactly knew what it was all about other than how serious the US was about withdrawing from Afghanistan. There was verbal peace because the ‘conventionalmoney games’ were on. Millions of dollars of US aid, reportedly, to ‘secure democracy’ in Afghanistan, strengthen its defences and create a so-called ‘stable nation State’ were at stake. The truth was that the influential entrepreneurs of both US origin and central Asian origin were laughing all the way to the bank. Some are arguing that even the business of setting up a modernised Afghan army had been outsourced to the advantage of American business men. Illustratively, it appears, some of them were making battle fatigues for the soldiers of the Afghan army pointless for desert warfare. This is symbolic and important because similar processes were reportedly happening […]