Traveling light in Asia

by philg

Here’s an article from New Delhi about an American’s three-day trip to India. Some highlights:

  • the U.S. Navy is sending “a fleet of 34 warships, including an aircraft carrier”
  • “800 rooms have been booked for the President and his entourage in Taj Hotel and Hyatt”
  • “13 heavy-lift aircraft with high-tech equipment, three helicopters and 500 US security personnel have arrived in India ahead of Obama’s visit”

[Thanks, Kishore, for sending me this link.]

A better illustrated and more nuanced account of the visit is available from The Daily Mail.

12 thoughts on “Traveling light in Asia”

  1. From Wikipedia:

    According to investigations, the attackers traveled by sea from Karachi, Pakistan, across the Arabian Sea, hijacked the Indian fishing trawler ‘Kuber’, killing the crew of four, and then forced the captain to sail to Mumbai. After killing the captain, the terrorists entered Mumbai on a rubber dinghy. The captain of ‘Kuber’, Amar Singh Solanki, had earlier been imprisoned for six months in a Pakistani jail for illegally fishing in Pakistani waters.[91] The attackers stayed and were trained by the Lashkar-e-Taiba in a safehouse at Azizabad near Karachi before boarding a small boat for Mumbai.[92]

    34 ships does seem a tad extreme to protect from rubber dinghies, but maybe I’m not creative enough to think how else terrorists could attack from the sea…

  3. This was one of a pair of reports out of the Press Trust of India (analogous, in principle, to the AP or Reuters) quoting some unnamed Indian government official. The other report (http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/us-to-spend-200-mn-a-day-on-obama-s-mumbai-visit-64106) claimed that the trip was going to cost $200 million per day.

    These numbers are not only baseless, but laughable:

    http://www.factcheck.org/2010/11/ask-factcheck-trip-to-mumbai/

    – Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell: “I will take the liberty this time of dismissing as absolutely absurd this notion that somehow we were deploying 10% of the Navy — some 34 ships and an aircraft carrier — in support of the President’s trip to Asia” (NB: it’s actually 12%)

    – the entire Afghanistan war campaign costs $190 million/day

    Some of the details of the story may in fact be true, e.g. they do appear to have bought out a fancy hotel or two. It’s hard to say exactly because the relevant agencies refuse to disclose numbers due to security concerns. Nevertheless, vast quantities of salt should be taken when considering these figures.

  5. Folks: Thanks for the links. I guess it is tough to sort out what exactly is true in the Indian story since the U.S. government won’t say anything other than “these numbers aren’t right”. The hotel room count does not seem inconsistent with, for example, http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw-act/bush-arrives-in-sydney-for-apec/story-e6freuzi-1111114345038 reporting that King Bush II arrived in Australia in 2007 with 1000 courtiers. All that we can say for sure is that the Asia trip did not in any way resemble David Cameron’s trip to Washington, D.C. (http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3060952/David-Camerons-flight-saves-200k.html ).

  6. Well one purpose these presidential visits is, right or wrong, to impress the natives. And a 747 with escorts is more impressive than flying commercial – or even a G-4. It just looks like someone in Indian was overly impressed.

  8. 800 rooms x $200 per night = $160,000 per day
    500 security people * $1000 per day ($250k/250 work days/yr) = $500,000 pd
    meals for 800 people * 100 per day = 80,000
    fuel = $50,000 per day
    misc. logistics = $25,000 per day
    total = $815,000 per day.

    Does not include pre-arrival scouting and logistics, nor flight there, flight back.
    Does not include lost productivity and wages for people interrupted by His visit.
    No idea what 2 C-5s and a 747 cost per hour.

    It’s still mighty expensive.

  9. President Clinton and Hillary visited Turkey in 1999. The hotel sales manager who was apologetically kicking me out of the Hilton told me that the President’s party would be around 2,000 people (I think this number included members of the press) and therefore was taking over the entire hotel, as well as the entire Sheraton next door.

    And yes, government people showed up at the hotel with loads of equipment a few days before the President’s arrival.

    Saw the Clintons pull out of the hotel one night in one of a few big black SUVs – those were flown in as well. Not sure what kind of aircraft they used for that, C141? C5A?

  10. RE jay cordaro:

    The entire Asia trip is 10 days, so that would come to ~$8.2 million for the trip, by your count. That is not counting the flights for these 800 people, which might sum to on-the-order-of $1 million, I guess.

    The actual non-military cost of Obamas trip is more like $10 million. The military cost may double that.

    Is there any other country that would shell out $20 million for a 10-day trip by its leader?

  12. Folks: The article linked to in the original post did not attempt to calculate any cost, but merely listed the scale of the trip in terms of planes, ships, people, etc. Based on my personal experience of visiting U.S. airports just before or after a brief Obama visit, the estimate of 11 cargo planes does not seem off (those Marine One helicopters are heavy and bulky and transporting enough SUVs for for hundreds of U.S. officials will also fill up cargo planes quickly). It is hard to evaluate the Navy ship estimate. Perhaps an existing group of ships in the Indian Ocean was redirected towards the coast of India. The author’s definition of “warship” may not be the same as the Navy’s (where a “ship” has to be pretty big).

    Separately, http://content.usatoday.com/communities/theoval/post/2010/11/obama-checks-out-a-gm-electric-car-in-lisbon/1 describes our favorite tourist stepping out of his fleet of cargo planes and 747s and singing the praises of an electric car in Portugal. (http://www.ehow.com/about_6171011_much-fuel-747-jet-burn_.html notes that a 747 holds about 50,000 gallons of fuel; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_C-5_Galaxy says that the C5 holds 51,150 gallons; so if Obama went to Portugal with two 747s and three C5s, that’s about 400,000 gallons of fuel round-trip, i.e., enough to power a Honda Odyssey minivan about 12 million highway miles).

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