Dive into the archives.
- Token Withdrawal?
Last week, the Jamestown Foundation discussed the escalating situation between Georgia and Abkhazia
MOSCOW UNLEASHES A MOUNTAIN CHIEFTAIN AGAINST GEORGIA
Russian authorities, having recently co-opted Kodori Gorge chieftain Emzar Kvitsiani, are now unleashing him against Georgia. The Georgian free mass media as well as Russia’s unfree ones are amply disseminating his message. Televised reports show him [...]
- America, COIN, CT and the QDR
The Australian Senior Officer Professional Digest provides a quick overview of recent military journal articles for today’s officer on the go. The June issue had an article synopsis that caught my eye. In Stability Operations in Strategic Perspective — A Skeptical View professor Colin Gray (Director of the Centre for Strategic Studies, University of [...]
- A Historic Friendship Forged
Hark! Join me for yet another story of my career as I recall my trip to the Afghan frontier at the end of the 19th century and my first meeting with the intrepid Captain Younghusband!
After several years as a junior member of the House of Commons, I decided to travel the world and see [...]
- The Decadent Society
Ran into an interesting quote today, from Sir Halford J. Mackinder:
Democracy refuses to think strategically unless and until compelled to do so for the purposes of defense.
This made me think of Rome, and how we also became an entertainment society. In Canada at least, I think some strategists have stood up, but still too many [...]
- A Recipe for Inaction
It seems that The Agonist has picked up on my previous post on Georgia and Abkhazia and dished out a little disagreement:
[...] Louis would have done well to heed the benefits of peace, the usefulness of ceasefires and the maintanence of the status quo, as those were the only things keeping him in power and [...]
- Prezzies for Chavez
Reuters reports that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been getting ready for Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s trip to Iran by preparing some birthday presents:
Ahmadinejad has lined up a medal and some oil investment deals for Chavez and there could always be a surprise party when these two unpredictable orators team up.
Glorious oil! What a birthday [...]
- Modern Argnonauts
Only two days ago, Georgian troops moved into the Kodori Gorge, a small area within the breakaway region of Abkhazia. The ostensible reason was “anti-criminal” operations that drew fire from both the unrecognized Abkhazian government as well as from Moscow. Yet, the actual reason is now clear. Georgia plans to relocate the legitimate Abkhazian government [...]
- The Embassy of Pakistan responds
In re this article comes a letter to the editor at the New York Times:
To the Editor:
Re “The Taliban’s Silent Partner”Â? (Op-Ed, July 20):
Robert D. Kaplan writes, “Pakistan is now supporting the Taliban in a manner similar to the way it supported the Afghan mujahedeen against the Soviets two decades ago.’’
This allegation is ill founded, [...]
- Chirol’s Clash of Civilizations
Today’s Victorian fact of the day is this:
In 1924, long before Samuel Huntington coined his catch-phrase the “clash of civilizations,” Sir Ignatius Valentine Chirol gave a lecture at the Harris Foundation in which he said that the discord and conflicts which divide east and west “arise out of a clash of different , and in [...]
- Spelling the Party of God
As a former linguist, I was always interested in the alternative transliterations of [Hizb/Hezb]+[allah/ollah/ullah]. News sources in the West all have different ways of spelling Hizballah. I always just went for the regular Arabic version of Hizb (party) + allah (God). I thought maybe the “i > e” and “a > o, u” changes were [...]
