IR and Political Science links threads

[Cain]

The triumphant return of IR links!

http://www.cnas.org/blogs/abumuqawama/2009/08/maybe-bacevich-has-point-introducing-afghanistan-strategy-dialogue.html  Take part in the dialogue.  No, seriously, if you think you have a point to make, email him.  The CNAS are the new, hip think tank on the block, with plenty of pull in Washington.

http://www.afghanconflictmonitor.org/2009/08/uk-commons-report-on-afghanistan-and-pakistan.html This looks good, but just remember the volatile political situation in the UK currently (ie even Gordon Brown's mother hates him).

http://anthonyclarkarend.com/internationalorgs/us-pledges-to-pay-un-peacekeeping-arrears/ Personally, I think this money would be more useful if the UN had its own standing army, but even failing that, I'm sure it can do some good via UNICEF or something.

http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/2413/pcs-the-how-of-proliferation-part-2 Exactly what it says on the tin.  Uh, URL.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/KH07Ak03.html The Great Games previously poorest players are looking to make a move on Kirkuk.  Go on, I say, reach out and upset someone.

http://attackerman.firedoglake.com/2009/08/06/deliberately-forgetting-lessons-about-terror-networks-resilience/ Paging Foucault, we need a quote about cutting off the head of the King in political theory, stat.

http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/publication/19490/us_aid_to_pakistanus_taxpayers_have_funded_pakistani_corruption.html In other breaking news, water is wet.

http://www.jamestown.org/programs/chinabrief/single/?tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=35371&cHash=417bc9e68a The Great Game pauses for no man or nation-state.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article6736785.ece Ah, the ever trustworthy western Intelligence sources. Ahem.

http://cominganarchy.com/2009/08/05/kaplans-myopic-geographic-determinism/ Georgraphic determinism is stupid and Kaplan ought to know better.

http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2009/08/parliamentary_j_1.html  The UK does not engage in torture!  It just makes notes of other people torturing their suspects.  Perfectly harmless.

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/08/former-somaliland-resistance-fighter-arm-us-to-beat-islamists/  Also, Newcastle says it requires more coal.

http://drezner.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/08/05/quick_hits_on_the_clinton_field_trip_to_north_korea What do the North Koreans love?  Backchannels.  They love backchannels more than a fat kid loves cake.

http://rothkopf.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/08/04/obamas_six_month_foreign_policy_report_card_part_deux_the_policies Could do better, Obama.  You're totally flunking international political economy, too.

http://www.amconmag.com/larison/2009/08/05/the-hunt-for-russian-aggression/  Ah yes, those scary Russians.  No doubt we'll be terrified even as their subs start to leak, and sink to the bottom of the Atlantic.

http://www.jamestown.org/programs/edm/single/?tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=35388&cHash=de883f76ab Pay no attention to the man behind the oil pipeline. 

http://www.globaldashboard.org/2009/08/04/gddigest040809/ A mini-roundup of some good stuff

http://www.reuters.com/article/europeCrisis/idUSL6371915 The human cost of last years Georgia-Russia war

http://www.juancole.com/2009/08/iran-beware-neocons-bearing-boycotts.html We must bomb the Iranians, to save them from their tyrannical regime!

http://www.jihadica.com/al-maqdisis-online-library-of-translated-jihadi-material/ Just some light reading.  Oh, hang on, someone is knocking on my door, asking to speak with me...

http://lynch.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/07/27/what_chinas_new_arabic_tv_station_means I'm telling you, there is no Great Game, I don't know what you are talking about.

http://mountainrunner.us/2009/08/bbc_propaganda.html The Taliban have communication savvy

http://neteffect.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/08/06/is_twitter_less_resilient_than_we_think Cyberwarfare over censorship?  Sounds fun.  Where do I sign up?

http://shadow.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/07/31/the_7_countries_that_are_pissed_at_obama_economics_edition ARGH!  SO FUCKING PISSSED RIGHT NOW!

http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/08/01/john_boltons_unrealistic_realism Bolton is still an idiot

http://ricks.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/07/31/brookings_obama_is_the_new_reagan Who is IOZ is now laughing, endlessly, at having been proved right.

http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/08/07/confirmations The State Dept has been busy.

http://duckofminerva.blogspot.com/2009/07/desertification-between-rivers.html Because what Iraq really needs is more problems

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/2009/08/time_to_focus_o/ I don't know what you mean.  Everything is perfectly fine, and hegemony is easily sustainable.  Just look at, um, Iraq.  And Afghanistan.  And Kosovo.  And Somalia.  And....

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/dreyfuss/458866/billion_dollar_mystery_in_iraq Lawyers Shiites, guns and money. My sort of political manouvering.

http://warisboring.com/?p=2449 Could the USAF actually now be a balanced force, attuned to the needs of the current security climate?

http://whirledview.typepad.com/whirledview/2009/07/a-tribute-to-corazon-aquino-the-philippines-most-unlikely-president.html Nuff said

http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/blog/blog.aspx?id=4177 Quite possibly

[That One Guy]

http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/zontv/2009/08/lou_dobbs_cnn_birthers_obama_m.html An article about CNN's journalistic integrity (don't laugh!) and Dobbs' "birther" support. The true gold is in the comments, though.

[Cain]

http://www.cnas.org/blogs/abumuqawama/2009/08/pakgov-admin-costs-consume-50-55-us-aid.html  - Its being spent on ho's, guns and drugs.  To be fair, the same could be said of any salary of the US official or agency you care to name, so...

http://www.afghanconflictmonitor.org/2009/08/august-tied-for-deadliest-month-in-afghanistan-for-us.html And the UK is doing terribly this month, too.

http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/2445/indias-h-bomb-revisited - This seems to happen quite often. 

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Japan/KH29Dh01.html - its ELECTION TIME in Japan.  And the ruling Liberal Party (ruling?  More like a one party dictatorship) looks like it might get thrown out on its ear, for the first time in...well, forever.  And the new guys seem pretty committed to "normalising" Japan, which is very poor code for "having an army, navy, airforce and the will to use it".

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/KH29Ak03.html - Invading Iraq = strategic genius....for the IRANIANS.  I swear, Dick Cheney is an Iranian sleeper agent.

http://atlantic-community.org/index/articles/view/Will_Germany_Remain_Part_of_the_West%3F - Shorter Alantic Community: does culture determine politics, or vice-versa?  Either way, the constructivist in me is fascinated to see the outcome.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/belfer/publications/~3/HjjqZvVmQa4/ingushetia.html - COUNTERTERRORISM FAIL.  In case you didn't know, bits of southern Russia are still getting blown up, on occasion.  Admittedly not Chechnya, as much as I'd like their idiotic Governor to bite the dust.

http://www.jamestown.org/programs/chinabrief/single/?tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=35434&cHash=d1d96f3f64 - China plays it smart and slow.  They're good at it, too.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/11/AR2009081103257.html?wprss=rss_religion&sid=ST2009081103484 - Sharia is the new Libertartianism is the new Communism.  "If only we tried harder, it would REALLY work!"

http://drezner.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/08/27/what_is_realism - Not bad, but as far as I can see, Drezner jumps from "realism" straight into Neorealism, without considering the halfway house of Classical Realism, which strikes a rather good balance between the two.

http://rothkopf.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/08/25/christian_brose_is_all_wee_weed_up - A defense of Obama's foreign policy as not being the same as Bush II's

http://www.realclearworld.com/articles/2009/08/26/obamas_foreign_policy_97099.html - Argh!  George Friedman is talking sense!  Must...not...laugh...in....surprise....

http://lefarkins.blogspot.com/2009/08/eastern-european-missile-defense-bases.html - I hope this is true.  I really hope this is the case. 

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jJRZCOxiCfe2dTwYB1l2FJQBMcnw - Hurrah for diplomacy, I guess?

http://www.globaldashboard.org/2009/08/26/scarcity-as-a-non-traditional-security-threat/ - Resource wars are always fun.

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/the-americas/090818/panama-drugs-violence - Lets party like its 1989

http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.php?nn=8806050408 - Hmm, backing off from a chance to attack the west?  Maybe they really do want to talk....

http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/08/23/real_realism - Walt has a go at defining Realism

http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/08/27/clintons_undisclosed_location - Clinton is pulling a Cheney with her "undisclosed location".

http://duckofminerva.blogspot.com/2009/08/neda-effect-in-sri-lanka.html - Sri Lanka needs more attention paid to it.

http://warisboring.com/?p=2524 - Looks like the worst in Darfur may be over

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2009/08/25/doubting_afghanistan - Counter-intuitive arguments are always a good thing in my book.

[Cain]

I'm going to keep posting these, whether you comment or not:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/sep/04/afghanistan-withdraw - Sunny Hundal makes a case for staying in Afghanistan (I've argued against this elsewhere, especially his comments on instability, but it is a fairly good article nonetheless).

http://whoisioz.blogspot.com/2009/09/nothing-is-fucked-here.html - IOZ gives the flipside to the argument above.  See, I am fair and balanced now, just like the American medias.

http://www.cnas.org/blogs/abumuqawama/2009/09/kunduz-what-it-means-nato.html - North Afghanistan might go to hell quiet soon.  Also, I like McChrystal, who seems to understand the difference between "legal" and "smart".

http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/2455/follow-the-power - Google Earth, North Korea and power lines.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/KI05Ak02.html - Ooops, looks like leftover US bombs, and not Iranian bombs, are killing US soldiers in Afghanistan

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/KI03Df01.html - Plan Colombia is counter-insurgency disguised as a war on drugs. Colombia is a mirror of Afghanistan - and vice-versa.

http://atlantic-community.org/index/articles/view/The_Golden_Age_of_Proliferation_is_Here_to_Stay - Proliferation now, and forever more!

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/revealed-blairs-role-in-megrahi-release-1782523.html - This is becoming more and more fun.  Hopefully we can stick Blair in a jail somewhere, perhaps with a Muslim prisoner cellmate.  That would be just.

http://www.newamerica.net/publications/articles/2009/meaningless_election_17281 - I doubt even Hamid Karzai's family would risk their necks to vote for Hamid Karzai.

http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2009/09/canadians-to-stage-fake-attack-in-washington.php - If it hasn't been noted before, CANADA IS AWESOME.  A fake Afghan battle in Washington DC?  Fuck yeah.

http://www.globaldashboard.org/2009/09/04/the-lisbon-treaty-why-the-irish-should-vote-yes/ - As the URL says.  The sooner the EU integrates, the better.  Corruption and mafia and bombs for all!

http://drezner.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/08/29/the_benefits_of_live_summitry - Alan Garcia BUUUUUURRRRRRNNNNN on Chavez

http://www.juancole.com/2009/09/eu-foreign-ministers-condemn-nato.html - Speaking of Europe, EU foreign ministers have slammed NATO for its recent careless attacks in Kunduz.

http://www.juliansanchez.com/2009/08/28/torture-and-the-postmodern-right/ - Yeah, well, torture is bad is just, like, your opinion, and stuff.

http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/09/04/netanyahu_throws_down_the_gauntlet - Israel basically thumbing its nose at Obama.

http://www.jamestown.org/programs/gta/single/?tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=35439&cHash=00b53908b9 - Information on General Rashid Dostum.  On the plus side, he's pretty progressive, for an Afghan warlord.  On the negative side, he has a tendency to butcher soldiers who surrender to him.

http://ricks.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/09/04/yet_another_reason_not_to_hire_criminals_as_security_contractors - Who could have forseen such an event happening?

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/08/30/world/main5275268.shtml?tag=breakingnews - the President of Colombia has swine flu.  Hilarity has no doubt already ensued in Venezuela. 

http://www.undispatch.com/node/8840 - Axis of Evil reunion tour!

http://ricks.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/09/02/the_10_most_common_strategic_blunders - Because its nice to know

http://whirledview.typepad.com/whirledview/2009/08/to-negotiate-or-not-to-negotiate-that-is-the-question.html - Negotiation is awesome.  Suckas better recognise.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/sep/06/g20-financial-crisis-banking-bonuses The G20 has amazingly, decided to not punish bankers who pushed us to the edge of financial ruin.  Quel surprise!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cif-green/2009/sep/03/peak-oil-energy - Take notes of locations and names.  Not suggesting anything is definitely gonna happen, I'm just saying.  Also, brushing up on your Spanish wont hurt your employment prospects.  Especially when you consider the Pepe Escobar article above.

[Payne]

Holy shit, I never saw this before. Maybe cause I always "mark all as read" when I return from offlinedom.

Something to do when it's fucking dead on the weekends!

[Idem]

This is an amazing thread so far, Cain.  I especially liked the proliferation article.

Also,

http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/2455/follow-the-power - Google Earth, North Korea and power lines.

is 404ing on me.  Google turned up the same 404. 

[Cain]

How odd.  Here is the article in my RSS feed:

With today's announcement by North Korea that it is in the "concluding stages" of developing a uranium enrichment capability , a wonk's fancy turns toward...Google Earth. Unfortunately, its going to be very difficult to find a covert DPRK enrichment facility simply by looking randomly on GoogleEarth even if it's above ground. You are going to need whatever help you can get. And one of those might be the power consumption, assuming North Korea doesn't bury the power lines for miles and miles before they reach the facility. (That, too, might be a signature but probably not one you can exploit in GoogleEarth.)

If you do decide to search for these facilities in Google Earth, here are a few numbers that might help. According to the really very helpful article by Alex Glaser in Science and Global Security "Characteristics of the Gas Centrifuge for Uranium Enrichment and Their Relevance for Nuclear Weapon Proliferation," you can take 5,832 P1 centrifuges (the kind A. Q. Khan sold around the world) and produce enough weapons grade uranium in one year for a bomb even starting from natural uranium. I estimate each such P1 centrifuge at Natanz takes a floor space of 1.2 square meters. That average includes all the supporting equipment such as autoclaves for feeding UF6 into the cascades, refrigerators for removing the product, and pumps for keeping the vacuum between the rotor and the outer casing. That means such as one-bomb-per-year facility would have a floor space of 7,000 square meters, or roughly 5 warehouses (each 70 meters by 20 meters). Assuming that is above ground, that is a fairly large complex.

Another important signature might be the power consumed. Here we are going off into uncharted territory, as far as I can tell. What follows are my guesses for how much electrical power the enrichment would consume. It seems that one of the most important power consumption factors is the energy needed to keep the centrifuges operating at about 100 degrees C. That is the point of the tubes spiraling around the centrifuge in the image to the left.

If we assume that the centrifuge is about 10 cm in diameter (that is the approximate rotor diameter Alex quotes), then in order for it to maintain a constant temperature, what it radiates must be supplied by the heating coil. The heat loss from each centrifuge would be 107 Watts, assuming that each centrifuge is surrounded by "room temperature" air. That is certainly the impression one gets from looking at images from the Natanz. But this heating bill could be dramatically reduced by letting the room temperature drift up to, say, 50 degrees. If that is allowed to happened, then the power consumption drops to 76 Watts per centrifuge. It might also reduce the air conditioning load to the point where we can ignore that. If both of those conditions are met, the plant's electrical consumption could be about 0.4 megawatts. (For comparison, the Natanz enrichment facility will need 4 megawatts with the same assumptions once it is brought to its envisioned 50,000 centrifuge level. Since Natanz can only support one or perhaps two Gigawatt nuclear power plants, this means a consumption of 0.2% to 0.4% of the output of such power plants simply to sustain them with fuel.)

Note that I have ignored the power needed to run the centrifuge motors. There would certainly be an initial load when the centrifuges are started up but once they are up and running, there is little power consumption (if the motors were ever turns off, they could actually give a lot of that initial energy back.) There is also a little amount of energy used during operation to spin up the feed UF6 to the 350 m/s that the rotors are spinning at. But I calculate that this is between 1 and 3 Watts per centrifuge, small enough to ignore when you consider all the other approximations I've thrown in.

What does this mean for searching for a covert North Korean enrichment facility? It appears that it will still need a rather obvious power line. Unfortunately, one of the hardest things to determine for this post was the relationship between transmission line type and power carried. But, it seems that the DPRK would have to utilize 230 kV transmission lines for long distance transmission (unless it is built near a power plant, such as a hydroelectric dam) and a significant substation to step down the voltage. Those power transmission lines are relatively easy to spot in the US since they are the ones that usually have two poles and a cross beam (it is the second from the left in the image below) and cast a rather distinct shadow, what you really see in GoogleEarth. So wonk-readers so inclined should look for five or so warehouses with a 230 kilovolt power line leading into it. Of course, it is likely to be several years before such a facility is constructed and even longer before North Korea masters the art of running 6,000 centrifuges.

One final thought, not that we can use it in GoogleEarth but it might be an important way for governments to look for these things. There is nearly half a megawatt in heat output from this facility: it has to be removed somehow and might be visible in the infrared either from the roof of the warehouse or from a heat exchanger either into the air or into a river.

[Cain]

http://www.stiftungleostrauss.com/bunker/?p=1983 - why the move away from the Eastern European Missile Shield program is a very good thing for all concerned, regardless of the poor reasoning and handling of it.

http://www.ted.com/speakers/misha_glenny.html - This is for the counterinsurgency crowd, Misha Glenny talking about the rise of organised crime in Eastern Europe

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/09/16/socom_psyops_against_uk/ - The vassals are getting nervous, and so must be pacified via Psy-Ops.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/15/world/asia/15swat.html?_r=2 - it looks to me like the Pakistani Army is helping organise death squads in Swat.  And some of you guys thought the Pakistani Taliban were a major threat....didn't I tell you the Army would bury them, once they served their purpose?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-in-the-uk/6173739/David-Miliband-MI6-investigated-for-torture.html - I remember top MI5 officials telling me to my face that the agency did not condone or rely upon torture to get evidence, a couple of years before anyone heard of Binyam Mohamed.  So consider MI6's protestations with that in mind.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8260820.stm - Like with the UK, a German withdrawal would be more politically difficult than militarily.  Most experts on the region consider the German presence there to be less than useless, due to the complete risk-aversion of the German military, who are seeking to avoid fatalities like the British are suffering in what is a highly unpopular war.

http://www.globaldashboard.org/2009/09/18/policing-the-interracial-divide/ - This is creepy.  And shows how decades of conflict can breed some real racial aminosity where little existed before.

http://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/nizar_manek/impunity_gap - The UK loves war criminals.  Unless they committed a crime after 2001, in which case they are an evil fuck.  Since when did the law have to make sense?

http://www.cnas.org/blogs/abumuqawama/2009/09/when-taliban-reporting-goes-wrong.html - yet further proof that newspapers are becoming useless, as they mangle and occlude discourse, instead of bringing clarity and understanding. 

http://www.cnas.org/blogs/abumuqawama/2009/09/lebanese-bernie-madoff.html - Oops.  On one hand, suckering Hezbollah is cool, on the other, its not exactly something to brag about, if you don't want your head cut off and put between your ankles.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/KI19Ak01.html - This is a beautiful move.  Its an open secret that Obama was going to offer to scrap the missile plan to get Russia on side against Iran.  And now, the missile plan has been scrapped.  Is Russia playing a bluff on Obama?  Have they turned?  Did Obama promise something else?  No-one knows, and that is half the fun.

http://attackerman.firedoglake.com/2009/09/18/how-stupid-is-ralph-peters/ - Answer: Ralph Peters is pretty fucking stupid.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article6839220.ece - Say what you like about Petraeus, the man is smart and eloquent as hell.  Tough bastard, as well.  He's pretty much the perfect thinking soldier.

http://cominganarchy.com/2009/09/18/understanding-the-ugana-uprising/ - Curzon adds some much needed context to the events in Uganda.  I too was having some trouble following the story, so it was much appreciated.

http://drezner.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/09/17/i_fully_support_president_medvedevs_outreach_to_american_dissidents - The Russian President wants to help American dissidents fight the power.  Drezner gives suggestions as to who he can meet.

http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/article.aspx?id=4323 - ah, inter-terrorist rivalry.  My money's on Hezbollah, for what it's worth.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3778884,00.html - Another country the IAEA will be powerless to stop.  Oh goody.

http://www.juancole.com/2009/09/ahmadinejad-spews-raving-lunatic-anti.html - the Iranian president is trolling, again.



And finally, the most awesome thing I have seen in the past week: Kazakh's rapping to Tupac's Changes.

http://www.registan.net/index.php/2009/09/16/tupac-in-kazakhstan/

[Kai]

That last one is just awesome.

[Cain]

In some ways, quite apt too.  Kazakhstan is a one party dictatorship, a Saudi Arabia in central Asia.  Opposition party leaders and journalists tend to end up dead, and most people live in abject poverty, while their leadership is simultaneously courted by Europe, America, Russia and China.  They're even about to made the Chair of the OSCE.

[Cain]

Back again.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8288181.stm  - Irish look to be voting yes on the Lisbon Treaty.  The anti-EU crowd in the UK are confused, because ratifying the treaty allows for countries to withdraw from the organisation, but it also makes the EU more cohesive.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/01/world/asia/01nations.html - Uncover electoral fraud, get sacked.  Karzai is going to be our own little Diem, a millstone around our necks that will sink any Afghan campaign. 

http://www.opendemocracy.net/article/germany/germanys-shift-to-the-right - Social democracy is dead because most of its adherents are New Labour style corporate suckups in a friendlier package.  In this, the SPD are no different.  Look at how Die Linke is gaining ground against them.  Also, Slavoj Zizek is proved right again (the real battle of the 21st century is liberal democracy vs far-right populism, with the left relegated to the sidelines or co-opted).

http://www.jamestown.org/programs/edm/single/?tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=35569&cHash=ca3d04001c - I suspect no tears will be shed the day an Ingueshtian/Chechen/Dagestani bullet finds Kadryov's head.  On the other hand, its not like the sepratists in these three areas are much better, or any smarter.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/01/world/americas/01honduras.html - Part of the American Honduras coup supporters, Senator Jim DeMint is heading south to offer support to a regime which is, as we speak, kicking the shit out of everyone who objects to a military junta running the country.  Its worth noting the State Dept is currently revoking visas of coup supporters, and Obama supports ousted President Zelaya, so DeMint is not only supporting a corrupt military dictatorship, he's going against official US foreign policy in doing so.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/216100 - a good article by Drezner about the rise of China and its political instability.  Interestingly, China seems to be following the US program to world hegemony very closely.  If a future great power war breaks out, expect China to sit by the sidelines until a winner becomes clear, or vital interests are threatened.  They want to allow other powers to exhaust themselves and make their rise to the top inevitable.

http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/10/01/the_eu_georgia_report_nobody_looks_good - Georgia still started the war with Russia.  Is anyone really surprised?  No, but lots of dishonest hacks look pretty stupid right now.

http://www.voanews.com/english/2009-10-02-voa18.cfm - Al-Shabab militants in Somalia have claimed control of the country's southern port town of Kismayo.  If they can hold it, expect piracy to increase around there over the summer.

http://mondediplo.com/2009/09/11latviapictures - Look at these pictures.  Beautiful, but proof that Latvia sucks.

http://afpak.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/10/02/daily_brief_pakistani_military_operation_against_taliban_stronghold_looms - Expect lots of dead bodies, shallow graves and burnt out houses in South Warizistan's near future.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/09/28/countries/index.html - Glenn wins at foreign policy punditry, for forever.

http://www.registan.net/index.php/2009/09/30/the-uk-facepalms/ - Breaking news: the RAF are morons.

[Ari]

just bumping in to say thanks for the continued supply of nifty reading material

[Cain]

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N14178346.htm - suck it up, brown people.  It only counts as torture when it is done to Americans (or some Europeans).

http://www.jamestown.org/programs/edm/single/?tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=35825&cHash=d277d95011 - North Caucasus militantism is on the rise again

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/10/world/africa/10congo.html?_r=1 - United Nations peacekeeping officials were explicitly warned months ago by their legal advisers not to participate in combat operations with the Congolese Army if there were a risk that Congolese soldiers might abuse human rights, internal documents show. But the mission went forward — and the abuses took place as feared.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/global/2009/dec/13/drug-money-banks-saved-un-cfief-claims - Drugs money worth billions of dollars kept the financial system afloat at the height of the global crisis, the United Nations' drugs and crime tsar has told the Observer.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/11/24/ripa_jfl/ - The first person jailed under draconian UK police powers that Ministers said were vital to battle terrorism and serious crime has been identified by The Register as a schizophrenic science hobbyist with no previous criminal record. His crime was a persistent refusal to give counter-terrorism police the keys to decrypt his computer files.  The 33-year-old man, originally from London, is currently held at a secure mental health unit after being sectioned while serving his sentence at Winchester Prison.

http://www.forbes.com/feeds/reuters/2009/11/24/2009-11-24T213120Z_01_N24501946_RTRIDST_0_SOVEREIGN-ISSUANCE-MOODYS.html - Global sovereign debt is expected to hit $49.5 trillion by year end, a 45 percent climb since 2007 as the credit crisis takes a toll, Moody's Investors Service said on Tuesday.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20091213/wl_mideast_afp/britainiraqpoliticsinquirymilitaryblair_20091213153346 - Tony Blair's admission that Britain would have backed the Iraq war even if he knew it did not have weapons of mass destruction sparked outrage Sunday and calls for his prosecution for war crimes.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/12/12/813556/-BOMBSHELL:-Weapons-Inspector-who-Opposed-Iraq-Invasion-was-Murdered,-say-Six-Top-Doctors - Six doctors who believe government scientist David Kelly was murdered have launched a ground-breaking legal action to demand the inquest into his death is reopened. They are to publish a hard-hitting report which they claim proves the weapons expert did not commit suicide as the Hutton Report decided.

http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/developing-nations-walk-out-of-climate-talks/story-e6frfku0-1225810384368 - THE Copenhagen climate summit is in chaos after poor countries walked out of negotiations en masse today.  The G77, a group which represents 130 developing countries, walked out because it is concerned the existing Kyoto protocol will be abandoned.

http://www.alertnet.org/db/an_art/57964/2009/11/9-181230-1.htm - By 2050, the number of people at risk of hunger because of climate change will be 10 to 20 per cent higher than it would have been without climate change.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-fg-us-pakistan14-2009dec14,0,3724162.story - The L.A. Times reports that U.S. officials are considering expanding drone attacks into Quetta, a major Pakistani city where senior Taliban leaders are thought to be based.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/india/2009/india-091213-voa01.htm - India says it has successfully test fired a short range, nuclear-capable missile.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/mcclatchy/20091213/wl_mcclatchy/3374340 - On a continent where fewer than one in five married women use modern contraception, an explosion of unplanned pregnancies is threatening to bury Adongo's family and a generation of Africans under a mountain of poverty. Promoting birth control in Africa faces a host of obstacles — patriarchal customs, religious taboos, ill-equipped public health systems — but experts also blame a powerful, more distant force: the U.S. government.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/news/2009/12/mil-091213-rferl01.htm - Abkhazia's de facto president Sergei Bagapsh has won a second term as leader of the separatist territory in an election hailed by Russia, but considered illegitimate by most of the world.

[Reginald Ret]

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2009/06/22/the_2009_failed_states_index - This year's Failed States Index.  Failed states are usually bad (see: Afghanistan, Somalia) for more, and have a nasty habit of causing problems for everyone, since they are too weak to stop dangerous transnational actors, like terrorists or organized criminal gangs, setting up in them.  With the economic crisis increasing political instability, expect their numbers to increase.

Somalia's failed state is actually good. for somalians.

Table 1. Key Development Indicators Before and After Statelessness
1985-1990a 2000-2005 Welfare Change
GDP (PPP constant $) 836b 600c,e ?
Life expectancy (years) 46.0b 48.47c,g Improved
One year olds fully immunized against measles (%) 30 40h Improved
One year olds fully immunized against TB (%) 31 50h Improved
Physicians (per 100,000) 3.4 4h Improved
Infants with low birth weight (%) 16 0.3l Improved
Infant mortality rate (per 1,000) 152 114.89c,g Improved
Maternal mortality rate per (100,000) 1,600 1,100i Improved
Pop. with access to water (%) 29 29h Same
Pop. with access to sanitation (%) 18 26h Improved
Pop.with access to at least one health facility (%) 28 54.8k Improved
Extreme poverty (% < $1 per day) 60 43.2k Improved
Radios (per 1,000) 4.0 98.5k Improved
Telephones (per 1,000) 1.92d 14.9k Improved
TVs (per 1,000) 1.2 3.7k Improved
Fatality due to measles 8,000 5,598j,m Improved
Adult literacy rate (%) 24b 19.2j Worse
Combinedn school enrollment (%) 12.9b 7.5a,f Worse

Notes: aUNDP (2001); b1989-1990; cCIA World Factbook (2006); d1987-1990, World Bank/UNDP (2003); e2005;
f2001; g2006; h2004, UNDP (2006); i2000, UNDP (2006) j2002, WHO (2004); k2002, World Bank/UNDP (2003);
l1999, UNDP (2001); m2003; nrefers to primary, secondary, and tertiary gross enrollment.

http://www.peterleeson.com/better_off_stateless.pdf

[Cain]

And how much of that is due to aid agency intervention?