I keep saying it. There will be no war with Iran. The Americans do not have the military resources to start one. Over at AFOE, I calculated they would need a third carrier group plus 100 land-based strike aircraft and extensive tanker, AWACS, Rivet Joint, and other supports, just for the air strikes. Two carrier…
Read More I tell ’em sorry, I haven’t got the money any moreBecause, on top of one of ’em, there’s a great big phased-array radar, pointing right down to Saudi Arabia. Check out this paper by Pavel Podvig of RussianForces, and scroll right to the bottom for the radar coverage map. Alternatively, there’s this Globalsecurity.org page, which is rather out of date. But the key point is…
Read More Show me all those snowpeaked mountains way down southSebastian Junger has a spectacular report in Vanity Fair on the MEND guerrillas in the Niger Delta. Seriously, read the whole thing – we have corrupt warlords, men with Czech machine guns, huge outboards, and a crazy look in the eye, communiqués issued by a mysterious online presence, people in the US phoning their friends…
Read More Never get out of the boatIs it my imagination, or did the New-Old Iraqi Army cut back its activity during December, only to crank the voltage back up since the “surge” announcement? Since then, we’ve seen the resumption of mass-casualty bombings, the seriously weird assassination of a complete US Army Civil Affairs team in Najaf by men posing as either…
Read More Ours go up to 11Well, who saw that one coming? China blasts an old weather satellite with an MRBM. There’s a lot to say about this, but here’s one of the most important things. One of the classic examples of cooperation in an adversarial relationship is the understanding between the US and the Soviet Union, and then everyone else,…
Read More Whoosh Kabooom!It’s been little reported anywhere that the appointment of Admiral Fallon as CINCCENTCOM has been matched by the Iraqi Government. They have, over US objections, chosen as commandant of Baghdad an officer who used to be..a sailor. Does this mean war with Iran is imminent? Meanwhile, I think the blogospheric Iran-talk is getting to me.…
Read More Iraqi Command Shift Signals Attack on IranTony Blair doesn’t deserve to be allowed aboard one of HM Ships, let alone use one of them to speechify. Some of the press amused themselves by labelling photographs of Devonport Dockyard with the ships awaiting disposal. This wasn’t, perhaps, fair – the two biggest are Fearless and Intrepid, the two assault ships (LPDs) built…
Read More Blair: just an embarrassmentMy hunt for a readable Sunday paper goes on. The Fisk, Cockburn and Watkins Journal is OK, but they insist on including a lot of other stuff that’s nowhere near as good. The Obscurer would be good if it could finally puke and call off the pony hunt for a secular Blairite democracy in Iraq,…
Read More The orange ape that walks like a manRight, so there’s been even more change in the US high command. Not only has Abizaid been replaced by Admiral William Fallon, and Casey by Petraeus, General Peter Schoonmaker has got the push as Army Chief of Staff, in favour of Casey. To answer some readers’ questions, what the hell does it mean? I first…
Read More Changing of the guardWell. It looks like Bush has not only latched on to the AEI so-called plan for Iraq, he’s been willing to fire his generals to do it (This mentioned on BBC News tonight – Eric Martin confirms it. Looks like it’s a sailor at CENTCOM and Petraeus in Iraq. Could be worse). Worse, he’s actually…
Read More Privatisation in excelsis