Dive into the archives.
- Quality versus quantity
How do you prevent your interests from being hijacked when in an unequal partnership? This is a question I have been thinking about recently.
For example, America will often pressure smaller and weaker allies to increase their defence spending. It does this to offset its own responsibility for the defence of those allies, but also hopes [...]
- “The World’s Stupidest War”
Ethan at MHIA West Africa blog has a great post on the possible flaring up once again of the Eritrea-Ethiopia border war between two states over several miles of territory. The lengthy post is worth reading in its entirety, but in summary:
It’s probably instinctive to ask “Who are the good guys?” when contemplating international [...]
- I take it you didn’t like the book then?
A review by Michael Busch of Hog Pilots in the Brookyln Rail:
Numerous critics have taken Kaplan to task for his poor readings of history and literature. These accusations are well founded. Kaplan borrows liberally from a grab bag of literature, history, and political science references to frame his discussions of global events. But while this [...]
- King of Spain v.s. King of Spin
Spanish King Juan Carlos tells Chavez to “shut up”.
Chavez repeatedly interrupted Spanish PM Jose Luis Zapatero at the Ibero-American summit in Chile last weekend, calling former Spanish prime minister Jose Maria Aznar a “fascist.” Zapatero, a socialist who defeated Aznar at the polls after the Madrid bombings, argued with Chavez openly that Aznar was [...]
- You’re 65 years late, thank God
...and very lucky for us.
In an ironic twist, a British team operating a World War II code-breaking computer has been beaten in a cipher-breaking contest by a German.
In the Cipher Challenge, a competition run by the U.K.’s National Museum of Computing on Thursday and Friday, the cipher-breaking computer Colossus had to decode encrypted radio communications [...]
- Grand strategy
Is it prescriptive or descriptive?
In other words, is grand strategy a tangible policy developed by nations? Or is it an abstract tool of analysis imposed by observers?
- Traditional Japan, or just traditional politics?
Robert C. Angel gave a great rundown on how Japanese political scandals are traditionally played out on his Japan Considered Podcast.
He is speaking in reference to the Moriya scandal that is going on right now. Listen to the excerpt below. Text transcript here
I can here the collective derisive snort of a million raging gaijin.
- What I’m Reading II
Here’s the latest from my bookshelf for readers to peruse and suggest additions to.
Upcoming book:
At the top of my massive to-read pile at the moment is God and Gold by Walter Russel Mead.
Was turned on to this by a 2 hour radio interview the author gave on the Hugh Hewitt show. It dives into the [...]
- China’s green energy gap
China’s wind-energy industry has been troubled by years-long shortages of parts and contradictory regulatory policies.
From the IHT comes this article on China’s “green energy gap”:
By next autumn, a muddy construction site here in a rural part of eastern China will give way to a small power plant that burns corn stalks and cotton stalks [...]
- How do you say “peekaboo” in Chinese?
With regards to naval activity in northeast Asia check out this little piece of self-satisfaction that happened on exercise between Japan and Taiwan:
Chinese sub pops up in middle of U.S. Navy exercise, leaving military chiefs red-faced
... American military chiefs have been left dumbstruck by an undetected Chinese submarine popping up at the heart of a [...]
