I’ve finally got around to reading Ahmed Rashid’s Taliban and Descent into Chaos. They are as good as everyone says. Specifically, there are perhaps three things that set Rashid apart as a writer on Central Asia. (His contacts book is outstanding, but then, he’s not the only one.) First of all, he writes about Central…
Read More writing about Afghanistan, rather than about Brunssum or QatarI want one of these. There’s more here; the sheer coolth of a USB-based PCR analyser is hard to beat. Even if the potential for Wakefield-scale contamination fuckups is not to be denied. In general, I’m trying to get up to speed on things biotech. it is true that, so far, cyberpunk has been a…
Read More peering over the bows…Armscontrolwonk wants to know what the X37-B spaceplane is for.
Read More mystery space rocketKursk was a bit of a disappointment. A submarine control room as the setting of a play isn’t a bad idea – the movies worked that out many years ago – and putting it on as promenade theatre through the simulated sub is a cracking one. But, not quite. It did remind me to check…
Read More KurskOK, 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 2Here’s some more Iran sense. I especially like the bit where the Content is Free comments pit tries to explain to the Iranian all about Mohammed Mossadegh and all. that. jazz. Of course, he’s essentially reiterating the former head of the IRGC’s line. I’ve said before that the practicalities of this depend largely on what…
Read More who hid a radio under the stairs?We keep hearing that the Iranian government, or at least one of the competing centres of power within it, is trying to jam satellite TV downlinks and harassing the owners of satellite dishes. The BBC World Service and Al-Jazeera have reportedly both been targeted, specifically as they both use one of the HotBird satellites over…
Read More satellite’s gone, way up to Mars…People are talking about using “cyberwar” to assist the Iranian opposition. Let’s put some of our new cyber-warfare capabilities to the test, quietly and covertly of course, to disrupt Tehran’s ability to shut off the flow of information to Iranians and between them This makes no sense at all, even less sense than “cyberwar” usually…
Read More what is cyberwar?Remember this post? Well, Geoff Forden at Arms Control Wonk has a brilliant series on the system that Stanislav Petrov was monitoring, how it worked, what went wrong, and how to draw conclusions from pictures of a missile launch with Google Earth. And why you should worry now.
Read More be your own Stanislas PetrovHere’s an interesting sidelight on the satellites post below – “somebody” is trying to restrict access to commercial satellite imagery of the so-called “Box on the Euphrates” in Syria, the suspected nuclear reactor the Israelis blew up. And how are they doing it? They’re buying the rights and trying to use intellectual property law. Another…
Read More ASATing with lawyers