News Brief, Our Love to Admire Edition

Cross-posted on The Conjecturer

Defense

• Hans Kristensen, who runs the Strategic Security Blog for FAS, keeps churning out essential reading after essential reading, this time on how Russia is really just playing the same ABM game it played in the Cold War. Because the more things change… SSB, by the way, should be in your RSS reader if it isn’t already.
• Nuclear secrets, schmecrets.
• Soon we shall pepper the world with robotic flies spying on our every move and finding the terrorists.
• The wars are approaching $800 billion. We will be well over $1 trillion by the time we pull out of Iraq; who knows how we’ll eventually pull out of Afghanistan if we don’t bother to pay attention there.

Around the World

• Apparently they grow the real punks in Turkey. Seriously. Henry Rollins, on the other hand? So not punk. Anyone who thinks a quickie trip to Tehran tells him anything about Iran aside from what the fascists in charge (of whom he is “not a fan”) want him to know, or (in my view, more eggregiously) that you can just “get” a film crew into North Korea (Lisa Ling had to travel undercover for her excellent documentary, and possibly placed future humanitarian journeys in jeopardy) is not operating on all cylinders. Turkey, by the way, has spent this week shelling supposed PKK strongholds in Northern Iraq. Because we didn’t have enough to deal with when they weren’t pushing Kurdistan to collapse as well.
• Prominent Marxists don’t like China’s capitalism. Perhaps they prefer the Cultural Revolution? The Great Leap Forward? I would guess not, as they probably prefer eating and not being denounced.
• I’ve been wondering what role China’s friendship with Pakistan may have had in the Las-Masjid mosque standoff. Given the recent terrorist attacks that could have been directed at Chinese citizens, and given the original incident with Chinese citizens that may have prompted the standoff, I think I might be on to something. Is China being baited in Pakistan? More interestingly, are these attacks in part inspired by China’s harsh treatment of the Uighurs?
• I sort of mentioned the other day that Kyrgyzstan detained the supposed local leader of Hizb-ut-Tahrir in Osh. Bonnie Boyd gives the background.
• neweurasia.net is not the only reason I’m convinced Central Asia has become the world’s most interesting case study in citizen-journalism. There is also the curious idea that, with the exception of Turkmenistan and to a degree Uzbekistan, the Internet isn’t very regulated. Which allows for a flowering of opinion online that does not exist in print.
• Karaganda is in Kazakhstan, not Russia.
• The World Bank has posted its latest study of Afghanistan, and it’s about what you’d expect: governance is terrible and unresponsive. Exactly what we’ve been saying for years. I hope people start to pay attention sometime soon.
• Moscow decided to respond to Britain’s PNG with its own. Meanwhile, Putin apparently has restarted the Pioneer Youth camps. Russia is in serious trouble, socially and politically. Meanwhile, Hugo Chavez bought some Kilos from Russia, which are advanced diesel-electric submarines. I’m not worried about the subs; even though they’re capable enough, we can handle them in the hands of the Chavistas. I’m more interested that Chavez was framing this in terms of supporting Russia, while Putin was busy snubbing him during his visit to Moscow earlier this month. The British, in the midst of all of this, claim to have intercepted some TU-95s on their way to buzz Britain’s airspace. I share Axe’s take on what this means: it’s more significant the bombers were deployed at all, and the the manner in which they were deployed isn’t nearly as important. Russia has extremely capable technology but no money, which makes it dangerous, but not for anything it might do… beyond selling advanced weaponry to our enemies.

Back at Home

• Things like this make me love Google, even though they’re slowly turning evil. I think, by allowing the public to easily search U.S. Patents, they can see how foolish our patent system is (like patenting swinging on a swing, congratulations Steve Otis!). Although, I would like to try a cheesecakesicle.
• “Is this really the best use of our prosecutorial resources?” Of course not.
• A rising boat satisfies all sorts of people. But not Democrats.
• Congress hates your my cigars.
• I got an email today announcing that a bar called Nellie’s Sports Bar is now open. From what I can tell, this might be only a tiny bit less embarrassing than the also unfortunately named Woofs, which I had the distinct pleasure of visiting this past November. Does that mean I’ll ever show up? Well, I do like that they show DC United games. So I just might sometime.
• …And on the third day, God created LOLBible.