Quotulatiousness

June 29, 2011

Corruption as a catalyst for rebellion?

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Germany, Government, Politics, Russia — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 07:26

Austin Bay points out that better communications have been important elements in the “Arab Spring” and other populist protests in the world right now, but there’s another element joining them together:

What links the Arab Spring rebellions with political agitation in China and at least another five dozen simmering or emerging crises?

If your answer is “the Internet,” you have identified one of the key information technologies that spread the flames. However, the common human fire in these disparate struggles is intense disgust with embedded corruption.

Tyrants maintain control by isolating and intimidating their subjects. However, since the advent of the printing press and increasing public literacy, preserving tyrannical isolation has become a bit more difficult.

Over time, subjects become aware of social, cultural, economic and political alternatives to the despot’s rule, despite the despot’s propaganda. Just how deeply West German television influenced East German resistance to communism is debatable, but the Iron Curtain could not hide the overwhelming evidence of Western affluence and the West’s ability to occasionally remove corrupt leaders.

Communist elite corruption amidst systemic economic failure certainly influenced resistance throughout Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. The special stores and vacation homes enjoyed by Communist Party favorites infuriated workers denied similar access. East European workers knew that they were industrialized serfs in handcuffed societies falling further and further behind Western European nations. In 1989, when the Russians concluded the Eastern European security forces could not — or would not — shoot everyone, the Berlin Wall cracked.

June 10, 2011

Cold War thinking on Chinese-US relations

Filed under: China, Economics, History, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 09:13

Brad Glosserman asks if China is using its new-found economic muscle to bankrupt the United States.

One popular narrative credits the end of the Cold War to a US strategy to bankrupt the Soviet Union. Well aware of the advantage conferred by its superior economic performance, Washington pushed Moscow into a military competition that drained the USSR of its resources. In this narrative, US President Ronald Reagan’s push to create a missile defence system — realistic or not — was the straw that broke the Soviet back.

Are Chinese strategists pursuing a similar approach to the United States? Is Beijing pushing US buttons, forcing it to spend increasingly scarce resources on defence assets and diverting them from other more productive uses? Far-fetched though it may seem — and the reasons to be sceptical are pretty compelling — there is evidence that China is doing just that: ringing American alarm bells, forcing the US to respond, and compounding fiscal dilemmas within the United States. Call it Cold War redux.

If that is indeed China’s strategy, then they’re wasting their efforts: without strong action in the very near term, the US government is going to bankrupt the country with no additional help from overseas required. The “popular narrative” Glosserman refers to handily glosses over the fact that the Soviet economy had been on a downward slide for decades. The Reagan-era military build-up merely hastened the end for Soviet economics, it did not bring it on in the first place. As Adam Smith famously noted, there is a lot of ruin in a nation, but eventually it does go smash — especially if no efforts are made to avert that nasty ending.

H/T to Jon, my former virtual landlord, for the link.

June 8, 2011

China admits it’s hard to hide 1000ft-long aircraft carrier

Filed under: China, Military, Pacific — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 07:44

China has finally gotten around to acknowledging that they’re rebuilding the former Soviet aircraft carrier for use by their navy:

Gen Chen Bingde refused to say when the carrier — a remodelled Soviet-era vessel, the Varyag — would be ready.

A member of his staff said the carrier would pose no threat to other nations.

The 300m (990ft) carrier, which is being built in the north-east port of Dalian, has been one of China’s worst-kept secrets, analysts say.

Gen Chen made his comments to the Chinese-language Hong Kong Commercial Daily newspaper.

Although the Chinese say that the ship, once ready for operations, won’t enter other countries’ territorial waters, keep in mind that China doesn’t have the same idea about maritime rights as others in the South China Sea region:

Earlier posts about the Shi Lang (nee Varyag) here.

June 3, 2011

China’s first aircraft carrier edges closer to readiness

Filed under: China, Military, Russia, Weapons — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 10:25

The Chinese navy is a bit closer to having an operational aircraft carrier, as the Shi Lang (formerly Varyag in Russian service) is being equipped with radar and weapons:

In the last month, the new Chinese aircraft carrier, the Shi Lang (formerly Varyag) has had several major electronic systems, and its first weapons, installed. The most notable electronic item to show up are the four AESA radar panels. This is a state-of-the-art radar similar to the one used in the American Aegis system. There were a lot of other electronic items being carried into the Shi Lang, indicating that the ship will be equipped with extensive networked computers and communications systems.

The two main weapons were also installed. One was a new version of the older, Type 730 seven barrel, 30mm close-in anti-missile automatic cannon. Operating like the American Phalanx, the new version of the Type 730 seen on the Shi Lang had ten barrels. The other weapon was the FL-3000N anti-missile systems. These are similar to the American RAM anti-missile missile system, except that they come in a 24 missile launcher and are less accurate. FL-3000N was only introduced three years ago, and uses smaller missiles than RAM. The two meter long FL-3000N missiles have a max range of nine kilometers (about half that for very fast incoming missiles). The 120mm, two meter long missiles now use a similar guidance system to RAM, but are not as agile in flight.

[. . .]

The Shi Lang/Varyag is one of the Kuznetsov class carriers that Russia began building in the 1980s. Originally the Kuznetsovs were to be 90,000 ton, nuclear powered ships, similar to American carriers (complete with steam catapults). Instead, because of the high cost, and the complexity of modern (American style) carriers, the Russians were forced to scale back their plans, and ended up with 65,000 ton (full load) ships that lacked steam catapults, and used a ski jump type flight deck instead. Nuclear power was dropped, but the Kuznetsov class was still a formidable design. The 323 meter (thousand foot) long ship normally carries a dozen navalized Su-27s (called Su-33s), 14 Ka-27PL anti-submarine helicopters, two electronic warfare helicopters and two search and rescue helicopters. But the ship was meant to regularly carry 36 Su-33s and sixteen helicopters. The ship carries 2,500 tons of aviation fuel, allowing it to generate 500-1,000 aircraft and helicopter sorties. Crew size is 2,500 (or 3,000 with a full aircraft load.) Only two ships of this class exist; the original Kuznetsov, which is in Russian service, and the Varyag. Like most modern carriers, the only weapons carried are anti-missile systems like Phalanx and FL-3000N, plus some heavy machine-guns (which are often kept inside the ship, and mounted outside only when needed.) However, Russian practice was been to sometimes install long range anti-ship missiles as well. China may also do this with Shi Lang.

January 26, 2011

Is Julian Assange a modern Senator Joe McCarthy?

Filed under: Law, Liberty, Media, Politics — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 12:42

Jim Goad asks if the actions of WikiLeaks are the modern-day equivalent of Senator Joe McCarthy’s anti-communist crusade:

Upon superficial inspection, still-living superstar hacker Julian Assange and long-dead commie-stalker Joseph McCarthy seem like natural-born enemies and political polar opposites. Technically, the Arctic and Antarctica are polar opposites, too, but are they really that different?

Comparing anyone to infamous anti-communist zealot Joseph McCarthy, as he is popularly understood in pop culture, is to accuse them of being a torch-carrying megalomaniac with a sociopathic disregard for the damage wrought by their ruthless, Spanish Inquisition-style paranoid purges, persecutions, pogroms, and perennial pickin’ on people. “McCarthyism” is considered a smear because we all must admit it was a shameful moment in American history when some upstart cheesehead Senator dared to suggest the American government was being infiltrated with communist sympathizers. Blot from your minds forever the fact that certain Soviet “cables” decrypted after McCarthy’s death seem to have at least partially vindicated him, and let us never teach in our public schools that communist governments murdered at least a hundred million human beings.

H/T to Ilkka for the link.

January 25, 2011

Russian army still suffering from Soviet hangover

Filed under: History, Military, Russia — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 07:47

Strategy Page reports on the troubles the Russian army is still experiencing twenty years after the fall of the Soviet Union:

Russian efforts to reform and upgrade its armed forces have, so far, failed. The basic problem is that few Russian men are willing to join, even at good pay rates. Efforts to recruit women and foreigners have not made up for this. The Russian military has an image problem that just won’t go away. This resulted in the period of service for conscripts being lowered to one year (from two) in 2008. That was partly to placate the growing number of parents who were encouraging, and assisting, their kids in avoiding military service.

But there are other problems. The latest crop of draftees are those born after the Soviet Union dissolved. That was when the birth rate went south. Not so much because the Soviet Union was gone, but more because of the economic collapse (caused by decades of communist misrule) that precipitated the collapse of the communist government. The number of available draftees went from 1.5 million a year in the early 1990s, to 800,000 today. Less than half those potential conscripts are showing up, and many have criminal records (or tendencies) that help sustain the abuse of new recruits that has made military service so unsavory. With conscripts in for only a year, rather than two, the military is forced to take a lot of marginal (sickly, overweight, bad attitudes, drug users) recruits in order to keep the military and Ministry of Interior units up to strength. But this means that even elite airborne and commando units are using a lot of conscripts. Most of these young guys take a year to master the skills needed to be useful, and then they are discharged. Few choose to remain in uniform and become a career soldiers. That’s primarily because the Russian armed forces is seen as a crippled institution, and one not likely to get better any time soon. With so many of the troops now one year conscripts, an increasing number of the best officers and NCOs get tired of coping with all the alcoholics, drug users and petty criminals that are taken in just to make quotas. With the exodus of the best leaders, and growing number of ill-trained and unreliable conscripts, the Russian military is more of a mirage than an effective combat (or even police) organization.

December 14, 2010

Christopher Hitchens on the real Henry Kissinger

Filed under: History, Media, Politics, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:14

I must admit that I never understood the adulation Henry Kissinger has attracted. I started paying attention to politics in the early 1970s, and Kissinger was one of the main players on the world political stage at that point. His connection to the deeply repugnant Richard Nixon should have been enough to keep him out of the limelight after his boss was forced out of the presidency. Yet he somehow managed not only to stay in the public eye, but to increase his popularity.

Christopher Hitchens thinks that the latest revelations from that era will finally bring Kissinger the odium he so richly deserves:

Henry Kissinger should have the door shut in his face by every decent person and should be shamed, ostracized and excluded. No more dinners in his honour; no more respectful audiences for his absurdly overpriced public appearances; no more smirking photographs with hostesses and celebrities; no more soliciting of his worthless opinions by sycophantic editors and producers. One could have demanded this at almost any time during the years since his role as the only unindicted conspirator in the Nixon/Watergate gang, and since the exposure of his war crimes and crimes against humanity in Indochina, Chile, Argentina, Cyprus, East Timor and several other places. But the latest revelations from the Nixon Library might perhaps turn the scale at last.

Chatting eagerly with his famously racist and foul-mouthed boss in March 1973, following an appeal from Golda Meir to press Moscow to allow the emigration of Soviet Jewry, Kissinger is heard on the tapes to say:

“The emigration of Jews from the Soviet Union is not an objective of American foreign policy. And if they put Jews into gas chambers in the Soviet Union, it is not an American concern. Maybe a humanitarian concern.”

(One has to love that uneasy afterthought….)

In the past, Kissinger has defended his role as enabler to Nixon’s psychopathic bigotry, saying that he acted as a restraining influence on his boss by playing along and making soothing remarks. This can now go straight into the lavatory pan, along with his other hysterical lies. Obsessed as he was with the Jews, Nixon never came close to saying that he’d be indifferent to a replay of Auschwitz. For this, Kissinger deserves sole recognition.

It’s hard to know how to classify this observation in the taxonomy of obscenity. Should it be counted as tactical Holocaust pre-denial? That would be too mild. It’s actually a bit more like advance permission for another Holocaust. Which is why I wonder how long the official spokesmen of American Jewry are going to keep so quiet. Nothing remotely as revolting as this was ever uttered by Jesse Jackson or even Mel Gibson, to name only two famous targets of the wrath of the Anti-Defamation League. Where is the outrage? Is Kissinger — normally beseeched for comments on subjects about which he knows little or nothing — going to be able to sit out requests from the media that he clarify this statement? Does he get to keep his op-ed perch in reputable newspapers with nothing said? Will the publishers of his mendacious and purloined memoirs continue to give him expensive lunches as if nothing has happened?

December 1, 2010

Five Books interview with P.J. O’Rourke

Filed under: Books, Economics, Liberty, Media, Politics — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 09:05

P.J. O’Rourke is asked to talk about five books from the field of political satire:

P J O’Rourke talks Swift, Huxley, Orwell and Waugh and says we now live in the world of 1984 but, instead of being a horror show, a television that looks back at you is just a pain in the ass. It’s 1984-Lite. Sad in one way, but a relief in another.

The category of political satire books is simply closed. The top five are so good that in order to make any surprising choices one has to go a long way down to the next level.

[. . .]

I’ll be careful. Animal Farm and 1984.

Yes. One is comic satire and the other is tragicomic satire.

Let’s start with the comic.

Well, Animal Farm sticks in everybody’s mind. All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others. Again, something read twice. I read it for the first time when I was 14 or 15 and it was a funny story about badly behaved animals and then I read it again at college and someone pointed out to me that this was sharp social satire. I thought it was an animal story, a kids’ book, but when I took another look at it I realised what he was getting at. The Soviet leadership was pretty well represented there. But one of the things that’s interesting to me about both Animal Farm and 1984 is that they are warnings against collectivism from a man of the left. Sure, any old Tory or Republican might be likely to make this point, though not so well, perhaps, nor so amusingly, but the fact that it comes from a man of the left is interesting. It seems to me to be something Orwell never fully came to grips with. Maybe if he’d lived longer…

What do you mean?

The necessity for collectivism under his leftist ideals and yet the danger of collectivism no matter who it’s done by seems like something he really wrestled with. I think we all buy the necessity for collectivism in a way.

[. . .]

Have you actually been to Sweden? I’ve never been, but I find myself constantly holding it up as the pinnacle of socialist marvellousness. It could be a complete shit-hole for all I know.

I have been and you know what it is? It’s very foreign. It’s full of Swedes. I mean, there are a few immigrants, and it has more now than it did 15 years ago when I was there, but Swedes are really Swedish. They are just remarkably alike. So, when you have a country of only eight and a half million people and they’re very like each other and you take 80 per cent of their income away and redistribute it through political means and they go: ‘Ya, ya, dat’s vot I vonted! Abba records! Herring and a PhD!’ And it’s all okey-dokey. But if you take a country as diverse as the United States and you take everything away from everybody and redistribute it — oh my God, there’d be hell to pay! I mean, some people would want guns, and some people… I wouldn’t even want to ask what some people would want.

[. . .]

1984.

That’s satire more in the Roman mode. The usual definition of satire is humour used to a moral end for a moral purpose, and there’s certainly a moral purpose to 1984 but it’s not funny really. I mean there is a certain dark humour to rewriting history and things going down a memory hole.

It’s funny in the Russian sense of the word.

I like that. Believe me, I’ll steal that phrase.

I’ll see you in court.

It’s sort of like being popular in Japan.

October 27, 2010

The AK-47, the Soviet Union’s most successful export

Filed under: History, Military, Technology — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 08:56

Jon, my former virtual landlord, sent me a link to this article about the Avtomat Kalashnikov 47:

In his new book, The Gun: The AK-47 and the Evolution of War, out Oct. 12, New York Times reporter C.J. Chivers traces the origins of modern assault rifles — particularly Avtomat Kalashnikov 47, or the AK-47 — and analyzes how they’ve changed warfare. Popular Mechanics spoke to the author about how and why the AK-47 was developed and why it has had even more of an impact than nuclear weapons.

[. . .]

Q During the course of your research, did you get to meet or talk to Mikhail Kalashnikov?

A I met General Kalashnikov several times. He was a fascinating man and a very complicated figure — a master of navigating the Soviet system and its aftermath. He is often portrayed as a poor and simple peasant who, through sheer inventive genius, designed the world’s most successful automatic arm. But this is an almost absurd distillation, the carefully spun fable of Soviet propaganda mills. He’s actually something much richer: a small part of an enormous machine and a most useful and interesting lens with which to look at decades of often dreary and sometimes terrifying Soviet life. He’s also charming, beguiling, clever, funny and both intensely proud and publicly humble at the same time. The legends around him are insufficient at best and grossly inaccurate at worst. He’s quite a man and a challenging character to render.

Q Why is so much about the development of the AK-47 still shrouded in secrecy?

A After the weapon was fielded, the Soviet Union invested heavily in an official version of its creation. This was not long after the purges, when many prominent Soviet citizens and public figures had been liquidated. A new crop of heroes was being put forward by the Kremlin and the Communist Party. Mikhail Kalashnikov fit this movement perfectly — he was, by the official telling, the quintessential proletariat success story, a wounded vet with limited education and almost no training who conceived of this weapon and relentlessly conjured it into existence. The truth was more complicated. But this party-approved version was endlessly repeated in official channels, and one result of the propaganda was that many other participants in the weapon’s design were sidelined and kept silent. One important figure was even arrested, charged with anti-revolutionary activity and sentenced to hard labor. After the Soviet Union collapsed, some of these other men and their accounts began to circulate. But the archives have never fully been opened, and the myths have hardened into something that can feel like fact. We do know much more than we used to, but the full story, in crisp detail, remains elusive, and the Communist version still stands in many circles. Propaganda is a pernicious thing, and the Kalashnikov tale is an example of just how effective it can be.

August 26, 2010

WWII German spy success in Norway

Filed under: Britain, Europe, Germany, History, Military, WW2 — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 08:41

Newly released MI5 information shows that the allied defeat in Norway in 1940 may have been caused by a German espionage triumph:

[Marina] Lee is said to have infiltrated the headquarters of the British Expeditionary Forces in Norway and obtained information about the plan drawn up by British commander Gen Auchinleck.

German commander, Gen Eduard Dietl, who was holding the Norwegian port of Narvik, was reportedly considering a withdrawal, but the disclosure of these details meant his forces could block the Auchinleck plan.

British, French and Norwegian troops were later forced to withdraw from German-controlled Norway.

Born in St Petersburg, Russia, Lee was married to a Norwegian communist and had trained as a ballerina before becoming “a highly valued and experienced German agent”, according to the files.

She is described as “blonde, tall, with a beautiful figure, refined and languid in manner” and reportedly spoke five languages.

One account says she personally knew Stalin — leading to conjectures she was working for both Berlin and Moscow who, at that time, were on the same side, our reporter says.

August 10, 2010

QotD: The Finnish intelligentsia

Filed under: Education, Europe, History, Quotations — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 00:02

I added a whole bunch of Finnish blogs to my Google Reader list that now stands at a hefty 421 subscriptions. Recalling the news back in the end of the year 2008, the Finnish intelligentsia was ecstatic for . . . well, you know why, but as Hannu Visti points out, they have recently been mysteriously quiet about their high hopes of how America will any day now abandon the free market capitalism and turn into a European-style social democratic welfare state. Now, we wingnuts sure like to laugh at the intelligentsia, but the Finnish intelligentsia has always truly been a class of its own, since as Hannu notes, they have been utterly wrong about literally everything over the past fifty years. Whereas their American colleagues merely hinted at the superiority of socialism and communism and took their marching orders and talking points from them only indirectly, the Finnish intelligentsia was proudly a stooge for the Soviet Union, worshipping its raw and brutal power that had no respect for all those pesky individual rights holding back the better world. And since they never really had any ideas of their own, these days this puppet just switched onto a new master that has his hand deep up its ass to move its grimacing mouth . . . or I don’t know if I should rather say two masters, both incidentally wearing the same colour green.

Ilkka, “Dead souls”, The Fourth Checkraise, 2010-07-23

August 9, 2010

I’ll have to remember to use this in future

Filed under: Cancon, Humour — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 16:50

As reported by Chris Taylor, Paul Jané coined exactly the right moniker to hang around Air Canada’s scrawny corporate neck:

Mapleflot

(more…)

August 7, 2010

QotD: De Gaulle

Filed under: Cancon, Europe, France, History, Quotations, WW2 — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 00:01

De Gaulle was great because he knew how to act the part. Actually doing great things was someone’s else problem. The heavy lifting of the Second World War was done by the Russian foot soldier and the English speaking powers. Objectively, Canada did more to defeat Hitler than France. Being a nation of citizen soldiers, who desperately wanted to get home, we did our bit and went home. This allowed a prima donna like De Gaulle to take the credit for liberating France. In gratitude, the Liberator then travelled to Montreal, some twenty years later, and thanked Canada by trying to destroy it.

Publius, “The Saviour of the Nation”, Gods of the Copybook Headings, 2010-08-04

August 6, 2010

QotD: Nuclear weapons

Filed under: History, Japan, Military, Quotations, WW2 — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 12:05

Sixty-five years ago today: “On Monday, August 6, 1945, the nuclear weapon Little Boy was dropped on Hiroshima by the crew of the American B-29 bomber Enola Gay, directly killing an estimated 80,000 people. By the end of the year, injury and radiation brought total casualties to 90,000-140,000. Approximately 69% of the city’s buildings were completely destroyed, and 6.6% severely damaged.” – Hiroshima

“Little Boy,” the aptly named 16 kiloton bomb that took out Hiroshima, was — in comparison to the nuclear devices in the world’s arsenals — sort of a light field artillery shell. There was, at the time, a second bomb called “Fat Man.” Weighing in at 21 kilotons it would put paid to Nagasaki on August 9, 1945. With the erasure of Nagasaki, the world was fresh out of nuclear weapons. It was only a temporary lapse. Today we’ve got about 25,000 of these little items of discipline scattered about.

The largest nuclear bomb ever detonated in the atmosphere was The Soviet Tsar Bomba , or “Big Ivan” which at 50 Megatons was very harmful to every living think on Novaya Zemlya Island (located above the arctic circle in the Arctic Sea) in October of 1971. Whatever else you might think about them, you can’t deny those Soviets dreamed BIG dreams.

Gerard Vanderleun, “Nukes: Time for a Live Demo”, American Digest, 2010-07-06

January 26, 2010

“Involvement in counter-espionage cases induces in some a form of paranoia”

Filed under: Britain, History — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 07:19

Gordon Corera briefly looks at the KGB penetration of Britain’s intelligence agencies:

For 30 years Stephen De Mowbray has maintained a self-imposed silence on a career that once took him to the heart of one of British intelligence’s most controversial episodes.

In 1979 he quit his job with the Secret Service (MI5) because he believed officials had failed to take seriously the claim that British intelligence had been further penetrated by its enemy — the Soviet Union’s KGB.

A number of spies had been discovered in the 1960s but De Mowbray believed there were more. But he found no-one at the top willing to listen.

“People thought I was either mad or bad because I was trying to do something,” he says of that time.

Three decades later, De Mowbray decided to tell his side of the story after reading the authorised history of the Security Service, published last October.

I’m currently reading Christopher Andrew’s Defence of the Realm and just got to the start of the relevant section the other night. Between De Mowbray’s concerns and the careful concealment of “The Laundry”1 in the coverage so far, it’s a wonder they managed to find enough that was considered safe to release to the public.

If you’re interested, MI5 discusses their policies on information disclosure here.

1 I kid, I kid. “The Laundry” is the fictional department of British intelligence in The Atrocity Archive and The Jennifer Morgue by Charles Stross.

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