Play The Diplomat’s Quiz: December 4, 2016 Edition

On Saturday, Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif finalized his choice for the next person to lead the country’s armed forces. Lieutenant General Qamar Javed Bajwa was appointed to the role of chief of army staff, where he will succeed General Raheel Sharif (no relation to the prime minister). General Sharif’s term ends on November 29.

General Sharif was appointed in November 2013 and is stepping down at the conclusion of his three year term without seeking an extension like his predecessor, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani. Kayani’s term lasted from 2007 to 2013; he succeeded Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan’s former president, in the role.

It’s a ridiculous story, to be frank. Afghanistan’s First Vice President Abdul Rashid Dostum — a former warlord and general who still likes to ride out with his army to fight the Taliban — allegedly beat up Ahmad Ishchi, a political rival, on the sidelines of a buzkashi match and took him hostage last Friday. At the time, Dostum was technically the country’s acting president as President Ashraf Ghani was in Turkmenistan.

Two days later, according to the New York Times, hundreds of protesters gathered near Dostum’s residence, described as a “pink palace” in Shibarghan, in Jowzjan Province.

The governor of Jowzjan Province, Lutfullah Azizi, told the NYT he was working on calming the situation. “I organized the tribal elders and sent them to talk with General Dostum to release Ahmad… They are currently meeting General Dostum, and we are emphasizing Ahmad’s release tonight, as he is sick.”

Dostum rejected the allegation that he had attacked or abducted Ishchi. Instead, he said Ishchi had been arrested for “financing militant groups” and “contributing to insecurity in the province.”

The World Economic Forum’s annual gender equality rankings are one telling measure of the extent to which the Abe administration’s top-down efforts at reform in Japan have failed. In 2015, Japan’s ranking rose slightly to 101 out of 145 countries, placing it below several emerging and developing countries. In the 2016 rankings,though, Japan’s ranking declined to 111. The drop was mostly attributed to the gender gap among professional and technical workers in Japan, the Forum noted.

The Indian Navy commissioned its latest warship, the stealth guided missile destroyer INS Chennai, at a ceremony held at the Mazagon naval dockyards in Mumbai on November 21, according to an Indian Ministry of Defense (MoD) press release.

Thai Crown Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn was proclaimed king on December 1, becoming King Rama X of the Chakri Dynasty of the Kingdom of Thailand. He will be coronated some time next year, after his father’s remains are cremated. He comes to the throne amid unease rippling the country in the aftermath of the demise of King Bhumibol Adulyadej and in the context of deep sociopolitical divide that has been simmering in Thailand. From an absolute monarchy, Thailand transformed into a constitutional monarchy in 1932 in a coup. Since then, the country has witnessed cyclical alterations between democracy and military authoritarianism.

King Bhumibol ascended to the throne in 1946 when his brother King Ananda Mahidol died (from a gunshot wound received in still-mysterious circumstances). But the new monarch wasn’t officially crowned until four years later and started performing his kingly duties only in 1951 as he was away in Europe for studies. King Bhumibol successfully revived the role and influence of the monarchy in alliance with the military-dominated government. Throughout his reign, Thailand witnessed a number of coups, 20 constitutions, and two popular uprisings, reflecting a high level of political instability.

November 2016 has been particularly bad for New Delhi in terms of its general air quality, with high levels of smoke, low visibility, and dangerous levels of air pollution. Some days last month were recorded as the worst in 10 years. After the festival of Diwali earlier this month, PM 2.5 levels — the concentration of tiny pollutive and disease inducing particles within the air — soared to record highs. While initially there was suspicion that this was a direct result of the bursting of firecrackers that accompanies the festival, a pollution heat map released by the World Health Organization (WHO) earlier this year placed New Delhi as the 11th  most polluted city in the world, indicating a more deep-seated problem.

The Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) pegged the increase in pollutants to a drop in mean wind speeds and a reversal in the normal wind direction. While the WHO has recommended that these levels be contained to below 10 on an annual average, the rates went up to 119 in 2015 for the city. In the context of the events of this November, the risk of contracting respiratory diseases has been on a steady increase, on days visibility went to below 50 meters and the smog does not seem to be letting up. Regularly updated indices of air pollution have become a constant source of information for concerned citizens, as a lack of a reliable centralized system has been widely noted.

During his campaign, President-elect Donald Trump promised to increase the size of the U.S. Navy to 350 ships. Since the election, senior campaign advisors Alexander Gray and Peter Navarro have laid out what they say his Asia-Pacific strategy will be, a cornerstone of which is the 350-ship fleet. The Navy’s current 30-year shipbuilding plan is designed to grow to a 308-ship fleet, though it doesn’t achieve this goal until the 2020’s and projects that fleet size will drop back below that level for the last 20 years of the plan. Further, even this current plan faces strong challenges, as I wrote about earlier this fall.

As essays appear advocating visions for what Trump’s promised 350-ship fleet should look like, Franz-Stefan Gady recently posed strategic questions about what the Navy should be used for and how many ships it really needs. But to evaluate the coming debate over growing the fleet, it helps to have a baseline understanding of how big the U.S. Navy is today, where it is, what it does, and what it is for. What follows is meant to help orient readers along these lines. In Part II of this series, I will look more closely at the hurdles to achieving an even larger, notional 350-ship fleet.

By Monday, Uzbekistan will have a new president — something that hasn’t happened for longer than Uzbekistan has been an independent state. Islam Karimov became president of the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic in March 1990 and declared the state’s independence on September 1, 1991. Twenty-five years and a day later, if the official date of September 2, 2016 is believed, he died at the age of 78.

Things will have taken a very wild turn if the victor emerging from the December 4 election is anyone but acting President Shavkat Mirziyoyev. Mirziyoyev has been prime minister since 2003. Following Karimov’s death, the chairman of the Senate, Nigmatilla Yuldashev, should have become interim president, per the state’s constitution. But Yuldashev demurred, citing Mirziyoyev’s “many years of experience,” and proposed Mirziyoyev take over as interim president until elections could be organized.

The first foreign military sales (FMS) F-35A Lightning II fifth-generation stealth fighter jet was handed over to the Japan Air Self Defense Force (JASDF) at Luke Air Force Base in Arizona on November 29, according to a U.S. Air Force press release.

The JASDF will use the aircraft for training at Luke Air Force Base.

“Today is a great day for the U.S. Air Force Reserve Command, Luke AFB, the 944th Fighter Wing, and the Japanese Air Self Defense Forces,” said Colonel Kurt J. Gallegos, the commander of the 944 Fighter Wing. “We have a great team of Airmen who have worked hard to set up an outstanding training program and are ready to train our FMS counterparts.”