Next slide, please. At last, we’re there – Chapter 4 of the SDR Green Paper tackles the classic question of alignment with the EU, NATO, and the special relationships. And it’s a highly post-American document. Our current relationships are mutually reinforcing. NATO remains the cornerstone of our security. However, as Europeans, we must take greater…
Read More Sunday SDR, Chapter 4: PartnershipWell, it’s going to be more like “All SDR, All the Time”, as I’ve just noticed that MOD is planning to close the consultation in two weeks. Here goes. Well, Chapter 3 is in my mind the most impressive bit of the SDR Green Paper so far. It basically sets out the notion that, although…
Read More Sunday SDR, Chapter 3: Adaptability and InfluenceRichard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett’s The Spirit Level is a vigorous polemic for social democracy, something we’re probably in need of as the neo-liberals recover from the 2008 experience. Unlike most such, this one is based on data – specifically, a whole battery of socioeconomic indicators that turn out to be strongly correlated with income…
Read More Premature evaluation – The Spirit LevelA thought; it’s surprising how much you can learn about computer science from cooking, and cooking from computer science. The von Neumann architecture – when you’re cooking, there is a central processing unit, which is the top of the stove, there is mass storage, which is the fridge and the cupboard, there is a user…
Read More cooking with John von NeumannSome data points relating to my last Sunday SDR post and specifically the points about the way in which some forms of advanced technology are becoming much more evenly distributed. Here’s Armscontrolwonk getting the wrong year, but more importantly, linking to India experimenting with hit-to-kill antiballistic missile/antisatellite technology. Here’s DARPA starting an app store for…
Read More Sunday SDR data pointsWell, well, well. The Conservative chairman, Eric Pickles, last night appeared to disown the leadership of the Young Britons’ Foundation, a rightwing training organisation for young Conservatives whose officials have described the NHS as “the biggest waste of money in the UK” and suggested the waterboarding of prisoners can be justified. Pickles spoke last week…
Read More tha mun laike wi’t gangling-iron, Councillor DuxburyIt’s been a while since this referrer’s been in: proxy-ext-76.osd.mil [Srv] [entrypoint #81] 2007/05/falklands-myths-4-american-and-european.html Mar 04, 17:36:34 [0:00:00] views: 1 Google (ascension island 1982 jet fuel) Proxy: proxy-ext-76.osd.mil – RSRCNISA01 I think that counts as a Disturbing Search Request, if not quite as disturbing as when the S in OSD was Donald Rumsfeld.
Read More marginally less disturbing search requestSomething interesting on the Air Cocaine story. A lurker dropped off this: El avión, Boeing 727, siglas J5-GCU de Guinea Bissau, aterrizó en el aeropuerto internacional La Chinita de Maracaibo a las 11:00 pm del 16 de octubre, procedente de Panamá. Allí permaneció poco más de una hora, mientras llenaba los tanques de combustible. Antes…
Read More a technical stopOK, so it’s time for another chapter of the Strategic Defence Review as a Blog. Chapter 2 begins as follows: The use of force as an option is becoming more complicated. It is likely to become more difficult to use force in the way in which we have used it in the last two decades.…
Read More Sunday SDR: Chapter 2I recently had the opportunity to look round the Stasi’s old head office (as visitors to my photo blog will be bored beyond belief by). A couple of things – first of all, here’s something in the spirit of the last post. That – as you may be able to make out from the brass…
Read More Sunday Stasi HQ Bloggin’