DENIAL OF SERVICE. Estonia has been under assault: When Estonian authorities began removing a bronze statue of a World War II-era Soviet soldier from a park in this bustling Baltic seaport last month, they expected violent street protests by Estonians of Russian descent. What followed was what some here describe as the first war in […]
Robert Farley
Robert Farley is an assistant professor at the Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce, University of Kentucky. He contributes to the blogs Lawyers, Guns, and Money and TAPPED.
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POPE BLOGGING=PLOGGING?
POPE BLOGGING=PLOGGING? In addition to our own contributions on the Pope’s visit to Brazil, be sure to read Mr. Trend and Randy Paul. Observes Trend: However, what’s the most intersting to me is those individuals who are left out of the discussion altogether – the non-practicing (of any religion) in Brazil. I can’t tell you […]
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MRAP.
MRAP. There’s a front page article in today’s USA Today about the Pentagon’s decision to convert to the MRAP, or Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicle, as a replacement for the Humvee. The MRAP, it is argued, “provide twice as much protection against improvised explosive devices (IEDs), which cause 70 percent of all U.S. casualties in […]
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TERRORIST ON THE LOOSE.
TERRORIST ON THE LOOSE. Luis Posada Carriles, the Osama Bin Laden of the Western hemisphere, is now a free man. A federal judge dropped charges against former CIA operative and anti-Castro Cuban militant Luis Posada Carriles on Tuesday, blasting what she called government “fraud, deceit and trickery” in an interview with Posada that led to […]
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DOMESTIC PRE-EMPTION.
DOMESTIC PRE-EMPTION. This all seems rather draconian: Hundreds of German police on Wednesday raided the offices and apartments of left-wing activists suspected of planning to disrupt next month’s Group of Eight summit, leading security officials to tighten border controls ahead of the gathering. The crackdown was an attempt to ward off the violence that has […]
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YOU READ TAPPED, YOU KNOW THESE THINGS….
YOU READ TAPPED, YOU KNOW THESE THINGS…. As a brief update to this post, a new article in Kommersant (a Russian online daily) further details the problems that are developing in the Sino-Russian military relationship. Russia won’t sell its niftiest new weapons, and China doesn’t need to buy the same old stuff anymore: “The Russian […]
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NO NEW NUKES!
NO NEW NUKES! The Democrats are taking some positive steps on the Reliable Replacement Warhead program, an effort to modernize the U.S. nuclear arsenal: A U.S. House Armed Services subcommittee voted to slow the Reliable Replacement Warhead program and cut $764 million from missile defense programs during a budget-writing session May 2. Led by Rep. […]
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RELATIONSHIP GOING SOUR?
RELATIONSHIP GOING SOUR? There was a good Defense News article a couple weeks ago about the slow souring of the military export relationship between China and Russia. For the past ten years or so, Russia has sold extensively to China in various upper end military hardware, including fighter aircraft, warships, and missiles. This has been […]
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FRENCH CVF.
FRENCH CVF. The victory of Sarkozy also means that France will continue to pursue the CVF, a new aircraft carrier project that may be developed in association with the Royal Navy. Royal made noises toward the end of the campaign about canceling the CVF, which irritated the French military. In a few years the existing […]
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BEING PLAYED.
BEING PLAYED. Eric Martin continues his outstanding work on the Ethiopia-Somali conflict by highlighting this aspect of Andrew McGregor‘s fine report: TFG Prime Minister Gedi maintains that the relentless shelling of north Mogadishu is designed to clear out “terrorist groups.” Using the now familiar language of those seeking U.S. military support, Gedi referred to “al-Qaeda […]