Strategic dogma, that is. Thoughts by Joseph Fouche at The Committee of Public Safety.
Heh. Regarding the crappy and buggy formatting performance of the comment field here that JF terms “the worst on the internet”, I’ll be happy to take suggestions for a new, no-hassle, plug-in that works well with wordpress. There were trade-off issues involved with what [...]
The first “revelation” from the Wikileaks cache is something we already knew — that there are US nuclear weapons stored in Germany, Belgium, Netherlands and Turkey — at least, as of November 2009. That much is clear from a conversation between German Chancellery National Security Advisor Christoph Heusgen and Assistant Secretary Phil Gordon: TACTICAL NUCLEAR [...]
Many of New START’s harshest critics argue that the Treaty’s monitoring provisions are deficient. They have an odd way of demonstrating their commitment to verification — by systematically trying to kill off treaties with on-site inspections and clauses protective of monitoring satellites. This approach makes sense if you’re trying to weaponize space, not if you’re [...]
An important announcement from my colleague, Lexington Green:
Lexington Green - (1) RESTREPO Monday, 11/29/10 at 9PM ET/PT; (2) Maj.Gen. Scales on Small Unit Dominance
This is the television premier of this extraordinarily film. I wrote about seeing this film here.
Restrepo chronicles the deployment of a platoon of U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan’s Korengal Valley. The movie [...]
As Michael has recently reminded us, the possession of nuclear weapons by two adversaries may lessen the chances of all-out war, but it does not prevent — and may even encourage — more limited forms of conflict. Western strategists have held this view since at least the 1950s, and lately have used it to explain [...]Lost amidst President Obama’s announcement that the US would support permanent membership on the UN Security Council for India, was this little nugget in the India-US Joint Statement calling for a nuclear dialogue among nuclear weapons states: They affirmed the need for a meaningful dialogue among all states possessing nuclear weapons to build trust and [...]
It goes without saying that the mid-term elections were a disaster for Democrats: Republicans took control of the House of Representatives -- winning over 60 seats -- and also picked up six Senate seats. The Senate will remain in Democratic hands, while the House will have new leadership and committee chairs.
It goes without saying that the mid-term elections were a disaster for Democrats: Republicans took control of the House of Representatives -- winning over 60 seats -- and also picked up six Senate seats. The Senate will remain in Democratic hands, while the House will have new leadership and committee chairs.Here are the IAEA Director-General Reports on Iran (GOV/2010/62) and Syria (GOV/2010/63).To place a new nuclear facility at Yongbyon is to prepare it for exhibition. Nothing else makes that point as well as the easily overlooked third new building mentioned in Sig Hecker’s latest trip report, after the light-water reactor (LWR) and the gas centrifuge enrichment plant (GCEP): “the new three-story Guest House.” Decoded, the message [...]
Magic and Mayhem: The Delusions of American Foreign Policy From Korea to Afghanistan by Derek Leebaert
As I mentioned previously, I enjoyed Derek Leebaert’s earlier Cold War history, The Fifty Year Wound, so I was pleased to be sent a courtesy review copy of his latest work, Magic and Mayhem:The Delusions of American Foreign Policy from Korea to [...]
Well, well, well. It isn’t just a light water reactor that North Korea is constructing on the decaying Yongbyon site. The North Koreans also showed Sig Hecker a 2,000 centrifuge enrichment facility in what was the empty Fuel Fabrication Plant at Yongbyon Brazen, huh? David Sanger has the story, although he is vague about whether [...]
My iPhone didn’t really handle handle the tropical sun very well, but you get the idea — it’s a wonk’s life. I am here for a meeting co-hosted by the Stanley Foundation and the Centro Brasileiro de Relações Internacionais, entitled Global Leadership: Brazil and the US Confront the 21st Century Multilateral Agenda. For my part, [...]
Via John Hagel, a particularly interesting NYT article on the neroscience of metaphors. I have always considered metaphors and analogies to be a “spark” or a “catalyst” to insight but they appear to be potentially structural organizers or “signal switches” of information processing:
This Is Your Brain on Metaphors
….Symbols, metaphors, analogies, parables, synecdoche, figures of speech: [...]
Full text of the "Report to the Security Council from the Panel of Experts established Pursuant to Resolution 1874 (2009) (S/2010/517)."