Well, I am back. After spending 12 to 16 hours a day, 7 days a week on oil tanker barges for the past three months I am finally moving to part-time work which means I can start concentrating on my thesis and regular blogging. I will write up a proper post tomorrow about my experience boarding over 140 different ships since early January. In the meantime here is a round-up of a few things that came across my desk to keep you entertained until then:
- Freelance journo Michael J. Totten writes about an intriguing encounter with armed revolutionary Kurdish-Iranian communists at a Komalah compound in northern Iraq. Komalah is a minor Marxist political movement in Iran with the goal of ending the oppression of Kurds. Mr. Totten also has some brilliant photos to go along with the interviews. Wot wot! to Lexington Green for the link.
- About the Chinese secret aircraft carrier, see James Holmes and Toshi Yoshihara’s article “Mao Zedong, Meet Alfred Thayer Mahan: Strategic Theory and Chinese Sea Power” in the latest Australian Defence Force Journal for an interesting perspective on the future of Chinese naval strategy. Another Wot wot! to Lexington Green. (BONUS: See my post on Mahan from over a year ago).
- HBO’s Rome has finally come to an end. Showtime is unleasing its own historical drama The Tudors which I have yet to watch but am fearful as per this review Blazingly Gratuitous Sex. Though, you know what I think about Slate reviewers.
- Hey, remember 2006? Wot wot to Grendel.
Get the RSS
Comments to this entry
Curzon
March 31, 2007
11:56 am
1. How secret can an aircraft carrier really be? And I know Eddie's said this extensively, being that he was stationed on one for years, but in today's world, aircraft carriers are so vulnerable.
2. Jonathan Rhys Meyers is an excellent actor, so I look forward to seeing The Tutors very soon (thank you, torrent!). Speaking of Rome, in many ways the series is a biography of Marc Anthony -- seeing his character go from second in command in Gaul to quasi-Oriental king in Egypt is a pretty radical transformation seen over 22 episodes.
Ben Shobert
March 31, 2007
2:09 pm
The 8 new Kilo class submarines are clearly a big concern for the military, primarily because they create a real access problem for the US in the event of a conflict concerning Taiwan. Three of the panelists which focused on this specifically (Dr. Andrew S. Erickson from the US Naval War College, RADM Eric A. McVadon and Cortez Cooper from Hicks & Associates) seemed to see the aircraft carriers as more of a logistical nightmare than China may appreciate, in particular stressing that having a carrier is one thing, but being able to use it to project power is another, requiring a CVBG that China is still some way away from having). How close China is to having this I'm not sure as I type this comment, but it seems to me that having 100,000 tons of floating China sovereign territory, even when only in dry dock, is a form of soft power in and of itself!
I have felt this for some time, but I think the CVBG as a projection of power has to be revisited if only because of its vulnerability to the new generation of supersonic and hypersonic anti-ship missiles which can only be countered by attacking the launch platform and not really defending against the weapons post-launch. The panelists and commissioners returned to this particular aspect of the Chinese threat portfolio, which I would imagine reflects deeper insecurities about how CVBGs would stack up against this new type of threat. I'm sure CA's readers have a good bit of expertise to drop in on these questions which I'm eager to hear.
Dr. Erickson has an article on China's aircraft carrier program in the Naval War College Review here.
Eddie
March 31, 2007
4:30 pm
Ben notes several "truisms" about the floating taxis that China has to be keeping in mind.
There are also alternative uses to standard "launch and recover" operations; the floating joint-service "command & control" center (i.e. the Abraham Lincoln during the tsunami relief effort) and the special ops staging point (the USS Kitty Hawk in Enduring Freedom). If they still lack sufficient amphib ability, either set-up could be useful for operations in Taiwan or to claim disputed islands related to offshore resources.
YH, looking very forward to your detailed post about the 3 month gig you've just survived.
subadei
March 31, 2007
10:40 pm
Either way welcome back.
Younghusband
April 1, 2007
12:09 am
Soob, back to a regular schedule. I am still in Japan and plan on being here for about another year before returning to Canada.