Quotulatiousness

April 5, 2013

Is the North Korean government crazy like a fox or just plain crazy?

Filed under: Asia, Military, Russia — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:47

Tim Worstall has actually had dealings with North Korean military officials. On the basis of those experiences, he’s much more worried that things will go very, very wrong:

My experience comes from working in Russia. The Norks had a special deal on freight rates on the railways. So, if you had a metals deal that would only work if you got cheap rail freight (say, aluminium alloy from Chelyabinsk in the Urals to Japan) then you’d chat to the local Nork KGB guy and cut them in on the deal. Which is how one day I ended up wandering through the Nork embassy, past the mural of Kim Il Sung standing on the mountain top, to present $10,000 in fresh $100 bills to my freight rate fixer.

Do note this was a couple of decades ago when such shenanigans were indeed legal. Not necessarily moral, but legal. This then led to more contacts, including being asked to rewrite into real English the collected works of Il Sung (at $100 a volume, not me, matey) and a request to provide aluminium alloy into N Korea itself for “window frames”. That the purchasing commission for these “window frames” was to go to three generals made us think that perhaps the windows were going to be on the rockets that you can also make from aluminium alloy. Fortunately my lust for lucre was never really tested as this sovereign nation was unable to come up with a Letter of Credit for $250,000 as required. Their “western” bank simply didn’t think they were good for the cash so refused to issue it. Which is one interesting little fact about the place.

But it was that long-ago meeting with those generals that makes me worried about what the Norks might do now. For they were entirely, completely and totally unaware, ignorant, of how the wider world worked. Even my demand for an LoC surprised them. But surely I would just do what the State desired of me? And who could doubt that the State would indeed pay me if it was in my or the State’s interest to do so? Umm, yeah, right.

We’ve all heard of groupthink, even of brainwashing. And the problem is that the people at the top of this State really do seem to believe their own propaganda: that the world really is out to get them; that their army, were they to unleash it, would sweep all before them; and even that lobbing a nuclear bomb at wherever would make all quail before their mighty power. They seem not to have considered the option obvious to the rest of us: that doing so would turn Pyongyang into a shiny glass parking lot for the assembled armies of the world.

Update: Just a bit of context from Wikimedia:

North Korean missile ranges

April 2, 2013

Mistral in Russian is Vladivostok

Filed under: Europe, France, Military, Russia — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 08:44

Strategy Page on the largest purchase of Western military equipment by Russia since the end of the Second World War:

The Russian Navy intends to have its version of the French Mistral amphibious ships (the Vladivostok Class) carry 30 helicopters (compared to 16 on the French version) and have several other modifications to the ship itself. The Vladivostok Class ships will be armed with two AK-630 multibarrel 30mm autocannon for anti-missile defense. There will also be two quad-launchers of shoulder fired type anti-aircraft missiles (with a 5 kilometer range and good against helicopters) and two or more DP-65 55mm grenade launchers for defense against divers.

The Vladivostoks will also be winterized for use in arctic conditions. The hull with be strengthened to deal with ice and the well deck door will completely close. The flight deck will have a deicing system and the ship will be modified to operate for extended periods in arctic conditions. There is also different electronics and this means a different arrangement of radomes and antennae.

In the aircraft handling areas below the deck height will be higher for the taller Ka-52K and Ka-29 helicopters. The Ka-52K is a navalized version of the Ka-52 that went into production last year. In addition to being equipped with coatings to resist sea water corrosion, the K model will also have a lightweight version of the high-definition Zhuk-AE AESA radar used on jet fighters. This radar currently weighs 275 kg (605 pounds), but the helicopter version will weigh only 80 kg (176 pounds) and enables the Kh-52K to use the Kh-31 anti-ship missile. This weapon has a range of 110 kilometers and travels at high speed (about one kilometer a second.) The Kh-52K can also carry the sub-sonic Kh-31 missile, which has a range of 130 kilometers. Both of these missiles weigh about 600 kg (1,300 pounds) each.

[. . .]

Russia is buying two French Mistral class amphibious ships for $1.7 billion. This is the largest Russian purchase of Western weapons since World War II. The deal was delayed for a long time because the Russians demanded the transfer of shipbuilding and electronics technology (which is now agreed to).

The French navy received the first of the 21,500 ton Mistrals in 2006, with the second one arriving in 2007. Both were ordered in 2001. These two ships replaced two older amphibious landing ships. This gave France a force of four amphibious ships. The two Mistrals are also equipped to serve as command vessels for amphibious operations. The French have been very happy with how the Mistrals have performed.

The Mistrals are similar in design to the U.S. LPD 17 (San Antonio) class. Both classes are about 200 meters/620 feet long, but the LPD 17s displace 25,000 tons. The French ships are more highly automated, requiring a crew of only 180, versus 396 on the LPD 17. On long voyages on the open ocean, the Mistrals require as few as nine sailors and officers on duty (“standing watch”) to keep the ship going.

March 31, 2013

The deep strangeness of the Cyprus bank haircuts

Filed under: Economics, Europe, Greece, Russia — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 11:36

At Forbes, Tim Worstall has some thoughts on the oddities now apparent in how the Cyprus banking crisis has played out so far:

Now that we’re seeing the real numbers coming out about who loses what in the Cyprus haircut/bank consolidations there’s something very strange about the numbers. Whiffy even, and that’s not with a good odour to it either. For, as far as I can tell at least, the haircuts are far larger than they need to be in order to make good the damage that we were told about. I’m therefore coming around to the idea that this wasn’t what we’ve been told it was, a story of Russian offshore deposits and tax avoidance. Rather, it’s two banks which invested regular domestic deposits into just terrible opportunities and then lost it all.

I don’t think I can make the case absolutely but I think it’s a case worth at least investigating.

[. . .]

But back to the point I’m trying to work through here. We’ve been told that the immediate cause was all about all that foreign money which flooded the country’s banking system. Yet when we look at the amount that is being raised by the haircuts it doesn’t look as if the two bankrupt banks had all that much of those foreign deposits. It looks very much like the banks which had the deposits didn’t invest badly and thus didn’t go bankrupt. So the problem isn’t therefore one of all that foreign money.

Rather, it’s a problem of where those two banks invested their deposits. And it looks as if this was largely in Greek Government and Cypriot Government bonds. Which is why they are bust.

March 25, 2013

The Cyprus “deal” decoded

Filed under: Economics, Europe, Russia — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 09:04

With a blog post entitled “THE CYPRUS HEIST GOES THROUGH: And it’s an Orwellian masterpiece“, you could say that this is an unfair summary of the situation:

Somewhere, George Orwell is spinning in his grave — although he wouldn’t be even remotely surprised by the 1984-style nonsense being hailed as a compromise by the Troikanauts and Nicosia’s embarrassed leaders.

This is the deal: the levy is called something else scrapped, and none of the deposits below €100,000 will be stolen included.

The new lunacy idea sees Laiki Bank closed. The entirety of its €4.2bn in deposits over €100,000 will be placed in a “bad bank”: why you would put healthy deposits in a bad bank eludes me, but we’re really just moving the stash around here: the bad bank’s resources will be confiscated. We’re talk a 100% haircut for all these savers.

And don’t be fooled by the Berlin propaganda about Russian money-laundering. First up, being a rich Russian doesn’t automatically make you a crook; and secondly, nowhere near all — possibly under half — are Russian anyway: UBS, several Israeli banks, a number of French banks will have depositor’s money taken out of them to pay for the ambitions of Brussels-am-Berlin.

There’s more: all the bondholders in Laiki also take a 100% haircut.

[. . .]

Entirely appropriate however was the choice of Wolfgang Schäuble to face the cameras and ‘explain’ why none of this would need the approval of the Cypriot Parliament. Just “approved by the 17 eurozone finance ministers comparatively quickly, after about two hours of further deliberations”. As to why it needed FinMin approval (but not that of the citizens’ representatives) get a load of this for jargonised bollocks:

“This plan will not require the approval of the Cypriot parliament because the losses on large depositors will be achieved through a restructuring of the island’s two largest banks and not a tax.”

Update: I think Tyler Cowen gets it exactly correct here:

The capital controls will have to be strict. What will the price of a Cypriot euro be, relative to a German euro? 50%? I call this Cyprus leaving the euro but keeping the word “euro” to save face. And yet they fail to reap most of the advantages of leaving the euro, such as having an independent monetary policy.

Still “a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma”

Filed under: History, Military, Politics, Russia, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 08:44

Strategy Page on the psychological state of Russia:

Westerners are puzzled at the way Russian politicians are growing increasingly hostile to foreigners in general and the West in particular. Then there is the feud going on within the Defense Ministry over whether to import more Western weapons or rely instead on what Russian defense firms produce.

Scrounging up details from Russian media, discussions on the Internet and statements by the many members of the Duma (parliament) with access to the inner circle reveals a rather bizarre (to Westerners, and some Russians) state of affairs. Put simply, most of those currently running Russia really believe that the United States has formed an anti-Russian coalition that is surrounding Russia in preparation for an invasion. The motive behind this plot is the Western need for Russia’s many natural resources. The U.S. has been using pro-democracy and reform minded NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations) within Russia to cause turmoil and weaken the government and military.

[. . .]

Creating the idea that Russia is surrounded by enemies, led by the old Cold War arch foe America is something older Russians were exposed to most of their lives. It persuades Russians to keep electing Vladimir Putin and his cronies. But a growing number of Russians are noting that there’s no sign of this conspiracy in the West, only bewilderment over what the Russians are saying. Over time, the Putin paranoia program becomes less believable to more Russians. There is growing fear that, rather than face a majority of Russians who don’t believe in the conspiracy, the current rulers will try to turn Russian into a strict police state, without the trappings of Soviet–style communism or any other ism besides the greed of the small ruling class.

March 21, 2013

How Russians view American foreign policy moves

Filed under: Government, Middle East, Politics, Russia, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 00:01

In short, they don’t believe it’s mere ham-handedness, arrogance, and incompetence — they think it’s only supposed to look that way:

It’s instructive to view ourselves through a Russian mirror. The term “paranoid Russian” is a pleonasm. “The fact is that all Russian politicians are clever. The stupid ones are all dead. By contrast, America in its complacency promotes dullards. A deadly miscommunication arises from this asymmetry. The Russians cannot believe that the Americans are as stupid as they look, and conclude that Washington wants to destroy them,” I wrote in 2008 under the title “Americans play monopoly, Russians chess.” Russians have dominated chess most of the past century, for good reason: it is the ultimate exercise in paranoia. All the pieces on the board are guided by a single combative mind, and every move is significant. In the real world, human beings flail and blunder. For Russian officials who climbed the greasy pole in the intelligence services, mistakes are unthinkable, for those who made mistakes are long since buried.

From a paranoid perspective, it certainly might look as if Washington planned to unleash chaos. The wave of instability spreading through the Middle East from Syria is the direct result of American actions. [. . .]

If the Russians sound mad, consider this: there is another substantial body of opinion that sees an evil conspiracy behind American blundering in the Middle East, and it votes for Ron Paul and Rand Paul. I am not suggesting that Sen. Rand Paul is a paranoid, I hasten to clarify: I have never met the man and don’t presume to judge his state of mind. But his popularity stems in no small measure from conspiracy theorists who think that the U.S. government really is planning to criss-cross the continental United States with killer drones and pick off American citizens on their home soil. A lot of the same people think that America invaded Iraq on behalf of the oil companies (who would make a lot more money if Iraq were zapped by space aliens) or by the Israelis (who never liked the project from the outset). A fair sampling of such paranoia gets posted on the comments section of this site.

Thus we have the strangest pair of bedfellows in modern politics, the Russians and the rubes. Try to explain to them that George W. Bush was a decent and well-intentioned man without a clue as to the consequences of his actions, and they will dismiss it as disinformatsiya. Tell them that the New York Times and the Weekly Standard both believed in the Arab Spring as the herald of a new era of Islamic democracy, and they will see it as proof of a conspiracy embracing both the Democratic and Republican establishments. How, the paranoids ask, could two administrations in succession make so many blunders in succession? It stretches credibility. I wish it were a conspiracy. The truth is that we really are that dumb.

March 17, 2013

Celebrating 60 years of being Stalin-free

Filed under: History, Russia — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 11:19

In Reason, Cathy Young looks at the bloody legacy of the Soviet dictator and his startling popularity in modern day Russia (and the west):

The 60th anniversary of the death of one of history’s most murderous tyrants has passed with relatively little notice. Yet the shadow of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, who died on March 5, 1953, still hangs over post-communist Russia — and has yet to face proper judgment in the West. This is one bloody ghost still waiting for its final exorcism.

During the years of his absolute rule over the Soviet Union from 1928 to 1953, Stalin was responsible for the deaths of at least 20 million people. They included victims of state-engineered famines, particularly in Ukraine, intended to starve the peasantry into submission to collective farming; people from all walks of life shot on trumped-up charges of subversive activities; and others sent to the Siberian labor camps known as the gulag, never to return. Untold millions who survived lost years of their lives to the gulag. (Among the latter were my own paternal grandparents, who were arrested in 1947 and released after Stalin’s death; ironically, unlike most of their fellow prisoners, they were actually guilty as charged — of “betraying the motherland” by trying to escape the Soviet Union and go to Palestine.)

If there was ever a true devil in the flesh, Stalin was one of the prime candidates for the title. A tyrant with a deeply sadistic streak, he reportedly howled with laughter when told about the final moments of a former associate who had been promised clemency in exchange for a false confession and vainly begged his executioners to “please call Comrade Stalin” and clear up the misunderstanding. He jailed the wives of several men in his inner circle, presumably just for the pleasure of seeing his underlings squirm and showing them who’s boss.

Yet four years ago, this monster came close to being chosen as history’s greatest Russian in a nationwide Internet and telephone vote. Though the voting was not representative, actual polls also yield discouraging results. In a survey conducted last month by the Levada Center, a respected independent polling firm, almost one in 10 Russians said that Stalin’s role in Russia’s history was “entirely positive” while another 40 percent saw it as “mostly positive.” Fewer than a third believed it was entirely or mostly negative, while the rest were not sure.

February 21, 2013

From the sublime to the ridiculous, warship edition

Filed under: Humour, Media, Military, Russia — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 09:56

One of the most influential propaganda films of all time meets one of the least. BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN: a mashup trailer created by Josh Nelson.

H/T to Mary Ann Johanson, via John Scalzi.

February 7, 2013

Japan scrambles fighters after two Russian aircraft intrude

Filed under: Asia, Japan, Military, Pacific, Russia, WW2 — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 09:39

Japan’s military forces are getting quite a workout these days, with the standoff with China over the Senkaku Islands and now the Russians are getting aggressive about probing Japanese airspace:

Two Russian fighter jets have violated Japanese airspace, prompting Tokyo to scramble its own aircraft, reports say.

Japan lodged a protest after the planes were detected off the northern island of Hokkaido for just over a minute.

The incident happened after Japanese PM Shinzo Abe said he was seeking a solution to a territorial dispute with Russia over a Pacific island chain.

Russia’s military denied the incursion, saying the jets were making routine flights near the disputed islands.

Mr Abe was speaking on the anniversary of an 1855 treaty which Japan says supports its claims to the islands.

The four islands — which Russia calls the Southern Kurils and Japan calls the Northern Territories — are the subject of a 60-year-old dispute.

Because of the dispute, the two nations have not yet signed a peace treaty to end World War II.

December 30, 2012

The patron saint of Anarchy

Filed under: History, Russia, Science — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 12:33

Another article from earlier this year looks at the fascinating career of Prince Piotr Kropotkin (who I really only knew of as a fictionalized minor character in L. Neil Smith’s books):

Darwin’s publication of On the Origin of Species sparked major battles. The most famous may have been between science and religion, but there were disputes within science as well. One of the most heated was whether natural selection favored cooperative or competitive behaviors, a battle that still rages today. For almost 100 years, no single person did more to promote the study of the evolution of cooperation than Peter Kropotkin.

Kropotkin traveled the world talking about the evolution of cooperation, which he called “mutual aid,” in both animals and humans. Sometime the travel was voluntary, but often it wasn’t: He was jailed, banned, or expelled from many of the most respectable countries of his day. For he was not only the face of the science of cooperation, he was also the face of the anarchist movement. He came to believe that his politics and science were united by the law of mutual aid: that cooperation was the predominant evolutionary force driving all social life, from microbes to humans.

[. . .]

One of the perks of being the top student at the Corps was that when he completed his studies in 1862, he had first choice of any government appointment. To the utter amazement of his friends and the bewilderment of his father, he requested an appointment in the newly annexed Amur region of Siberia. The odd choice caught the attention of Czar Alexander II, who inquired, “So you go to Siberia? Are you not afraid to go so far?” “No,” Peter replied, “I want to work.” “Well, go,” the Czar told him. “One can be useful everywhere.” And so, on July 27, 1862, he went.

Kropotkin’s adventures during his five years in Siberia were the stuff of movies. He crisscrossed 50,000 miles of the region, often “lying full length in the sled … wrapped in fur blankets, fur inside and fur outside … when the temperature is 40 or 60 degrees below zero …” His job was to inspect the dreaded prisons of Siberia, full of not just criminals but political agitators. He did so dutifully, but with disgust. The border of Siberia, he wrote, should have a sign like that from Dante’s Inferno: “Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here.” The rest of his time was devoted to learning more about anarchist philosophy (often from anarchist leaders who had been banished to Siberia) and, most importantly, studying the natural history of animals and humans there.

Kropotkin expected to see the brutal dog-eat-dog world of Darwinian competition. He searched high and low — but nothing. “I failed to find, although I was eagerly looking for it,” Kropotkin wrote, “that bitter struggle for the means of existence, among animals belonging to the same species, which was considered by most Darwinists (though not always by Darwin himself) as the dominant characteristic of the struggle for life, and the main factor of evolution.”

H/T to Derek Jones for the link.

November 20, 2012

50 years later: Solzhenitsyn’s One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich

Filed under: Books, History, Media, Russia — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 12:04

It’s being called “one of the most significant books of the 20th Century”, and it was published 50 years ago this month:

The character was fictional. But there were millions like him — innocent citizens who, like Solzhenitsyn himself, had been sent to the Gulag in Joseph Stalin’s wave of terror.

Censorship and fear had prevented the truth about the camps from being published, but this story made it into print. The USSR would never be the same again.

“We were absolutely isolated from information, and he started to open our eyes,” remembers writer and journalist Vitaly Korotich.

[. . .]

It was Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev who had sanctioned publication of Solzhenitsyn’s novel nearly a decade after Stalin’s death. Allowing a book on the Gulag, he thought, would help debunk Stalin’s personality cult. However, one story sparked many more.

“After it was published, it was impossible to stop it,” Korotich recalls. “Immediately we received a lot of illegal publications. A lot of people who were in prison started to remember how it was.

October 24, 2012

How to betray your country in one easy walk into a foreign embassy

Filed under: Cancon, Military, Russia — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 14:58

The story of how a Canadian officer decided to turn traitor and pass secret intelligence to Russia:

When news first broke that the RCMP had arrested a low-ranked Canadian naval officer for providing intelligence to a foreign power, the press was quick to focus on the fact that the officer, Jeffrey Paul Delisle, had previously gone bankrupt. That was exactly the sort of thing a foreign country would look to exploit in a potential recruit. But we know now that Delisle didn’t need to be recruited. Heartbroken and contemplating suicide, he walked into the Russian Embassy in Ottawa and volunteered his services.

[. . .]

Over and over, the RCMP agent returns to one question: Why? He offers friendly comments, assuring Delisle that he knows how much pain, so much pain, he would have been feeling after his divorce. Delisle breaks down. He shares the story of how he found his wife, whom he’d loved since high school, cheating on him. She only married him, Delisle claims she told him, for security. She left him and hooked up with a new man, and was pregnant with the new partner’s child shortly thereafter. Delisle bitterly recalls hosting his ex-wife and her boyfriend at a Christmas Eve party, because his daughter wanted him to. And he wanted to make her happy.

Delisle’s love for his children shines though his statements. He clearly adores them. He says they were the only thing that prevented him from indulging his wish to commit suicide, to steer his car into oncoming traffic. He decided that he’d live for them. Indeed, he was caring for them, his ex-wife apparently being out of the picture — another source of bitterness. Having decided that he was dead inside, but obligated to live, Delisle says he decided to commit “professional suicide.” So he walked into the Russian Embassy and offered to become a spy.

Indonesia turns to India for help with their Russian-built aircraft

Filed under: India, Military, Russia, Technology — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 08:02

Strategy Page on the odd post-sales attitude of Russian aviation manufacturers:

Indonesia knows that India has learned how to deal with shabby Russian support. For example, earlier this year India went public with yet another complaint about the Su-30 fighters it buys from Russia. This time it was an unspecified “design flaw” in the electronic flight control system. This bit of information was made public because India has found that more discreet communications about these matters results in little or no action from the Russians. For example, India has been pressuring Russia for several years to do something about component failures in the Russian designed AL-31 engines that power the Indian Su-30MKI jet fighters. There have been several AL-31 failures because of this in both Indian and Russian Su-30s.

[. . .]

India buys bare bones fighters from Russia and equips these Su-30MKIs with Israeli sensors and communications gear. In many respects, the Indian made Su-30s, the Su-30MKI, is the most capable version available, due to its Israeli and European electronics and the well trained Indian pilots. The 38 ton SU-30MKI is most similar to the two seat American F-15E fighter-bomber. Even though equipped with Western electronics, the aircraft cost less than $40 million each, about half what an equivalent F-15 costs. The Su-30MKI can carry more than eight tons of bombs and hit targets over 1,500 kilometers away.

Indonesia has already become disenchanted with its Su-30s and announced last August the six Su-30 jet fighters it ordered from Russia earlier this year (for $78 million each) would be the last Russian fighters purchased. Indonesia already has ten Su-27s and Su-30s, and wanted at least 16 of these modern aircraft so they will have a full squadron.

October 7, 2012

Russian intelligence agencies and the Soviet inheritance

Filed under: Europe, Military, Russia — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 10:19

Strategy Page looks at the two main Russian intelligence organizations:

Now there are two foreign intelligence services: SVR and GRU. The first one is the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service. It is the former First Chief Directorate of the Soviet era KGB, which has managed most foreign intelligence operations for decades. Its activities are well known throughout the world.

The second one is the GRU, Russian military intelligence. It is a part of the Defense Ministry. Its full name is much longer (The Chief Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Army). GRU has retained its Soviet era name, and just about everything else. GRU is seen as a living relic of the Soviet times. That is why GRU is so much more secretive than the “Westernized” SVR. GRU officers are considered more patriotic (and old school) than those of the SVR. During the Cold War, there were fewer GRU defectors, still a point of pride in the GRU. GRU prefers to stay in the shadows. Western writers have not written many books about GRU, compared to the KGB. This is largely because GRU keeps its secrets better, and, in the West, is considered an obscure part of Russian intelligence. It’s possible that the GRU activated these sleepers, but for the moment the Germans aren’t talking.

Both GRU (Russian Military Intelligence) and SVR (Russian Foreign Intelligence Service) perform the same functions: Political Intelligence, Scientific and Technical Intelligence (industrial espionage) and Illegal Intelligence. Because of this, the two agencies have a very real rivalry going.

But there was, and remains, one area where only the SVR (and its predecessor, the KGB) participates; running counter-intelligence abroad. This was long a KGB monopoly because it was the KGB’s job to make sure the armed forces remained loyal, and GRU was, and is, very much a part of the armed forces.

Thus when the GRU officers are working abroad, they are monitored by Directorate “K” (counter-intelligence) of the SVR. Those who serve inside Russia are watched by the Directorate of Military Counter-Intelligence (The Third Directorate) of the FSB (Federal Security Service, inheritor to the KGB). Interestingly, in the Soviet period, it was also called the Third Directorate. It is not a coincidence but a continuation of the Soviet tradition. The Third Directorate of the FSB is still assigned to monitor the Defense Ministry, of which the GRU is a part. The head of GRU does not even report directly to the Russian President. GRU reports have to go through the Head of the General Staff and the Defense Minister before reaching the top man. Thus GRU is very much number two in the Russian foreign intelligence business. As Number 2, they tend to try harder, and consider themselves more elite than those wimps over at SVR.

On the other hand, there also is one function monopolized by the GRU; battlefield intelligence. The battlefield intelligence is run in peacetime as well. For example, in preparation for future wars, the GRU sets up illegal weapon and ammunition dumps in the territory of many foreign countries. This is a risky operation. It usually involves groups of junior Russian diplomats secretly going into rural areas to bury rifles, machine-guns and other weapons. They have to do this discreetly and in a hurry, to avoid detection by the local counterintelligence service. It is considered a hard job.

August 28, 2012

Rehabilitating Florence Nightingale’s reputation

Filed under: Britain, Health, History, Military, Russia — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 08:31

History Today has a defence of the much-maligned Florence Nightingale:

Jamaican-born Mary Seacole (1805-81), voted top of the list of the 2004 ‘100 Great Black Britons’ poll, is now slated to replace Florence Nightingale (1820-1910) as the true ‘heroine’ of the Crimean War. She is to be honoured as no less than the ‘Pioneer Nurse’ with a massive statue to be erected at St Thomas’ Hospital in London. This in spite of the strong links between Nightingale and the hospital, her base for over 40 years. It was there she established the first secular school for nurses in 1860 with funds raised in her name for her work in the Crimean War during the conflict of 1854-56. The Nightingale School operated for over a century from the hospital, whose redesign in the 1860s Nightingale also influenced.

[. . .]

The campaign promoting Seacole over Nightingale builds on 30 years of books, articles and films denigrating the latter. While she always had detractors, the serious assault on Nightingale’s reputation can be dated to 1982, with the publication of the Australian historian F.B. Smith’s Florence Nightingale: Reputation and Power (Croom Helm, 1982). The next major hit came in 1998 with Florence Nightingale: Avenging Angel (Constable, 1998) by a retired management consultant Hugh Small, which argues that Nightingale was actually responsible for the high death rates of the Crimean War and had a nervous breakdown as a result when she supposedly recognised this. Neither claim is supported by any serious documentation. Social media goes even further: see Facebook ‘Florence Nightingale was a Murdering Bitch’, later renamed ‘Florence Nightingale: The World’s Worst Nurse’, where she is described as a ‘deluded power hungry bitch’, who ‘looks like an uptight bitch’, so that ‘the day she died’ was ‘the best thing that ever happened to the field of nursing’.

[. . .]

The French were the instigators of the Crimean War, sent more troops and were better prepared than the British. Their death rates were lower in the first year. But the British government learned from the commissions it sent out and made enormous changes. British death rates fell dramatically, from 23 per cent in the first winter to 2.5 per cent in the second — no greater than deaths among soldiers in peacetime barracks in London, as Nightingale proudly showed in a chart. In contrast, the French (lower) 11 per cent death rate in the first winter, rose to 20 per cent in the second winter. Since the French were late in publishing their statistics, neither Nightingale nor the royal commission could use them for comparison. However French doctors themselves credited the British reforms for their superior performance. Once they were properly cleansed and functioning Nightingale was proud of the Crimean hospitals. In her own charts she separated the two periods, before and after the sanitary and supply commissions, to emphasise the crucial role they played in reducing mortality.

Her analysis of what went wrong was widely accepted and led to major changes to health care in the British Army. The ‘Nightingale Fund’ raised in her honour for that work paid for the training school at St Thomas’, which led to raising nursing to the level of a profession throughout much of the world. Her experience of the war, and her reputation and research as a result of it, grounded all the social and public health work she did for the rest of her life. Her vision for health reform included bold statements, such as the belief that the poor should receive as good quality hospital care as private patients and warnings as to the dangers of hospital acquired infections. Nightingale, in short, is no mere historical figure. Her lamp should not be retired but shone brightly onto the hospital and health care problems of today.

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