George F. Kennan: An American Life by John Lewis Gaddis Zero History by William Gibson Just picked these up. Zero History will have to wait until I read Spook Country, which sits on my shelf. Gibson is good; along with Steven Pressfield he is one of the few living writers of fiction that I [...]
[ by Charles Cameron -- fictitious peoples (Israelis, Palestinians), approved and disapproved scriptures (Hindu, Falun Gong), religious violence (Afghanistan, Nigeria, Bethlehem) ] . So, is there some sort of contest going on between Iranian and American ex-Speakers? Perhaps Elliott Abrams‘s response to Gingrich, quoted in the Washington Post piece, applies equally well to Haddad-Adel? There [...]
A Terrorist’s Call to Global Jihad: Deciphering Abu Musab al-Suri’s Islamic Jihad Manifesto by Jim Lacey (Ed.) Previously, I read and reviewed Brynjar Lia’s Architect of Global Jihad, about Islamist terrorist and strategist Abu Musab al-Suri. A sometime collaborator with Osama bin Laden and the AQ inner circle, a trainer of terrorists in military tactics [...]
: skip to main skip to sidebar The Nuclear Abolitionist Working towards a nuclear weapons-free world Pages Home Video Photo Y-12 Witness Quotable America needs a new nuclear weapon as much as Lady Gaga needs another new . outfit Rep . Ed Markey D-MA Wednesday , December 28, 2011 Another 70 years of Trident Have you heard the news The U.S . Navy has been working on plans since 2007 to replace those aging Trident submarines with a new fleet of ballistic missile submarines . The Navy plans to replace the 14 Ohio class submarines currently in service with 12 new subs , each with 16 missile tubes the current subs have 24 and they will initially deploy the current Trident D-5 missile . Based on construction plans coupled with the new sub's projected lifespan the last one built will be on duty
Time for a bit of lighthearted, blogging fun. I spend a lot of time reading and writing and I do so primarily within a specific environment – my home office. The space reflects the man, to some degree. Surveying my office space here at home, I noticed that my desk has begun, like a coral [...]
[ by Charles Cameron - Iraq war, beginning and ending, analytic power of similarity ] . I’ve thanked Zen for his Iconic Compare and Contrast post already, but I’d like to run with his juxtaposition of images from the end of the Iraq war, and book-end it with an early DoubleQuote of mine from the beginning, [...]
I would like to depart from my usual style and take a leaf out of Charles Cameron’s playbook – notably his last post. Consider this a “Part II”. Here are my selections: Friendship Bridge, Afghanistan – February 16, 1989 ….Many troops wondered how the Iraqis, whom they had worked closely with and trained over the [...]
[ by Charles Cameron -- Ashby, the Law of Requisite Variety, Bateson, the arts and sciences ] Mapping from complexity to complexity. Access to a set of relationships … that we are not usually conscious of in ourselves. The depth and riches of imagination, of the arts and sciences, of the listening heart / mind, [...]
India remains thoroughly non-aligned, even after its civil nuclear deal with Washington. Pakistan, in contrast, needs patrons, and has succeeded in having two powerful ones — Washington and Beijing – to counterbalance India, a significant diplomatic accomplishment. No other country has managed to draw significant, concurrent support from Washington and Beijing, both before and after [...]
A Friend of Blog thoughtfully collected these specimens in Pyongyang last week: They are, of course, postage stamps commemorating the “successful” delivery into orbit of North Korea’s two satellites, Kwangmyongsong-1 (1998) and Kwangmyongsong-2 (2009). Maybe next time they should try the USPS. It could use the additional business, and the results couldn’t be any worse. [...]