This week I thought I’d give you a series of seemingly
random dots, explore them individually then join them up in a series of
articles, all a little shorter than previous ones. Sort of easily digestible
bite – sized chunks if you will.
To start with
though, a bit of literary news and a shameless unsolicited plug. Not actually a
plug for my efforts as such, although I can tell you that one of my articles is
slated for publication in Latitudes and Attitudes magazine in October or
November. http://www.seafaring.com/Click here.
No, I want to
mention an old chum of mine, Larry Jeram-croft who’s published a couple of
cracking good books on Amazon The first one in the series, Sea Skimmer,
Is a fictional novel set during the
Falklands War. Or is it? Fictional that is. This year is the 30th
anniversary of the campaign and Larry, who was a helicopter pilot in the Royal
Navy at the time of the conflict, is putting extracts with comments from his
logbook on his blog, http://sowethereyet.blogspot.com/clickety-click.
For those who’ve read the book this
will be a fascinating insight into the truth behind the fiction (always
supposing the book is fiction). For those merely interested in military history
it will provide a glimpse of what it was like to sail to the South Atlantic and
go to war. OK, unsolicited plug over (er, cheque in the post then Old Boy?…..
just kidding, this will come as a surprise to Larry. A pleasant one I hope).
To finish the literary news on a
personal note, it would seem that Emma the Agent has found an illustrator for
the Trembling Tim stories. I’ve seen some initial drawings and although there’s
some ‘fine tuning’ to do, it’s all looking hopeful. More news as and when I
have some.
Right then, let’s explore the first
random dot.
Is Russia about to repeat a historical
mistake?
A recent BBC report stated that Russia has just tested a
new ICBM. Apparently, they’ve tinkered around with the first stage booster to
make the launch more difficult to detect. It also has multiple warheads, which
will make the whole kit and caboodle more difficult to detect and shoot down.
Those ‘nasty ole Merkins’ have developed an anti-missile system and are
installing it in Europe and other places. THEY say it’s for protection against
possible rogue nuclear states or terrorist organisations that acquire nuclear
weapons (and the ICBMs to deliver them? Come on chaps, really!) Vladi Putin
sees this as a threat to Russia so they’ve developed the ‘stealth ICBM’.
A threat? Well yes, if you think that a purely defensive
system would allow your ‘now sort-of friend and traditional long-term enemy’ to
launch a nuclear strike against you whilst being immune from a retaliatory
strike. Haven’t we been here before? Vladi, do yourself and the Russian economy
a favour and give Gorbie a call. I’ll come back to this, but first.
Let’s connect
a couple of dots. America has heavily backed development of the Israeli ‘Iron
Dome’ anti missile system. Just recently, this system has successfully
destroyed 90% of the small missiles fired at Israel by Hamas, from Gaza. A
connection here, you might think, as in technology transfer? You know, ‘we’ll
give you guys a budget to develop an anti-missile system. The chances are that
you’ll get to extensively field-test it because we can always rely on the
Palestinians to make a series of militarily futile but highly irritating
attacks on Israel instead of sitting down and talking. Once we know it works,
we can incorporate it into our new missile shield’.
I wonder if the new American ABM system has a
snazzy name, how about ‘Strategic Defence Initiative’? Oh wait; they’ve already
used that. A system which can successfully destroy a metre-long metal tube in
flight probably wouldn’t have too much trouble with tracking multiple warheads,
but hang on a minute; didn’t the former-Soviets trumpet their MIRV (multiple
independently targetable re-entry vehicle aka 6-10 nuclear warheads on one
launcher) as the answer to any anti-missile shield system? MIRV might have
given a first-strike capability then
because the SDI technology was ‘some years away’ from development. Now it isn’t, we are now those ‘some years
away’, and Iron Dome has shown that small targets can be regularly intercepted
in flight. Sure the range needs improving, but the basic technology has been
proven. The former Soviet Union is the former Soviet Union because they went
bust trying to match American technology, real or imagined. The ‘Third World
War’ was the first war in history won by one side outspending (and
out-bluffing) as opposed to out shooting another. Well, the Americans always
were good poker players, that hasn’t changed. Has the Russian economy changed
since the heady days of Communism? I think we should take a closer look, but
not right now.
Pakistan
Pakistan has been complaining that America has been
violating its sovereignty recently. They cite the Seal-teams’ unannounced raid
on the late and in most quarter’s unlamented Bin Laden’s bijou town compound in
beautiful downtown Abbottabad. Surely you remember that? The small compound
situated next door to the Pakistani military academy, where presumably they
train the Pakistani military to be ever vigilant, alert and watchful. Oh OKAY,
it was just under a mile away, so it’s perfectly understandable that they
missed it. Or knew exactly where it was, depending on whether you are the
Pakistan Army, the Pakistan Government or ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence).
No, let’s be fair about this, you would probably have to be in the ‘right’
department of ISI to know where Bin laden was, the other departments were busy
helping the CIA look for him, on an expenses plus daily rate basis. Nothing
like a unified approach to national security, is there? You just can’t beat it,
unless you don’t tell them what you’re up to in their country. Anyway,
Abbottabad has apparently long been a favourite tourist destination, so perhaps
the Pakistan tourist authority is missing an opportunity here. Certainly
visitors were attracted to Abbottabad, so what are they complaining about?
Apparently, heaven knows why, the Pakistan military is
miffed that the Americans (never NATO you notice, always ‘The Americans’)
manage to track down and kill Al Qaeda and Taliban members residing in Pakistan
with apparent impunity. That’s both residing in apparent impunity and crossing
the border with apparent impunity. Sometimes they chase them across the border
in hot pursuit, sometimes they just cross the border and have a general nose
round to see who they can turn up and sometimes they send drones across which
have a lengthy nose around then kill people. Usually the right ones, but let’s
not split hairs.
The Pakistanis are of course absolutely correct. This is a
gross violation of their sovereignty but what really miffs them I suspect is
there’s actually bugger-all they can do about it. Apart from actually cooperate
with NATO (sorry, ‘The Americans’) in the fight against International
Terrorism. Or Afghani freedom fighters, as some in ISI prefer to call them.
All this is complicated because Pakistan has nuclear
weapons and if not ICBMs then launchers that can reach most of India and/or
Afghanistan. India of course has just test-fired a missile that could hit parts
of China, should Chinese troops ever misread their maps and cross the border
into India looking for food or alternative employment. India is also a pal of
the Americans, or at least was until they didn’t cut down on their imports of
Iranian oil enough to keep Madame Clinton and her boss happy. Maybe if they did
buy more oil from Saudi, which has ambitions of empire in the Gulf region to
counter the growing Iranian military threat, then the Americans might sell them
their ABM system. They don’t really need it, they ‘outgun’ Pakistan in every
sense of the word but it would be handy to be able to threaten Pakistan with a
first-strike that Pakistan wouldn’t successfully be able to respond to whilst
not actually having to carry out the threat. After all, they might need the
missiles to keep out job-seeking Chinese. What? Read on.
Castles
(Toyota factories) in Spain
So, Toyota is about to build a new factory in Spain.
Exporting one million cars a year they say to Europe (they’ll be cheap, economy
models then) and the East coast of the USA. If things go according to plan the
new plant will be operating 24/7, be the most modern cost-efficient and green
–energy using plant that Japanese money (or EU subsidized funding) can buy and
will provide direct employment for twenty-five thousand Spaniards. Plus no
doubt associated jobs, which some estimate as high as two or three for every
direct employee. This contrasts with a Toyota plant in China which currently
exports to the east Coast of the USA amongst other places, which is not very
energy efficient being built in the eighties and that Toyota have announced
that they are closing. This plant creates NINE other related jobs according to
the Chinese. Well, it did. Now it’s closing. Cheaper to manufacture in Europe
now? Well there is a health care system in place in Spain, in China Toyota has
to provide health care for its employees. The Chinese have occasionally gone on
strike to get higher wages, and they have succeeded in their aim. The Spaniards
may well be happy to get a job. Of course, the new plant will need steel to
build the cars. It might be steel produced by an Indian-owned company but it
probably won’t be steel produced in India because one of the rationales for
building the plant in Spain is to cut down on shipping costs from China. Or
India, as the case may be. Lucky the Indians have a deterrent to keep all those
new Chinese job seekers out then. They’ll have enough of their own if steel
manufacture moves to Europe because all those European countries have available
work-forces and are now industry-friendly because they need to attract external
investment. Like the sea, the tide of jobs flows one way, then after a while,
it flows another.
Luckily, India has a friend who at a pinch has an ABM
system available. They just have to cut down on oil imports from Iran, which is
trying to develop ICBMs and nuclear weapons. They, Iran, won’t succeed, probably because of sanctions
and because their air-defence system (ADS) couldn’t cope with a determined
aerial bombardment, launched by somebody who is determined that they won’t get
nuclear weapons. Israel say, who has developed the Iron Dome anti-missile
system with funding from America, so they can incorporate the technology in
their new AMB missile shield that has Vladi Putin so worked up. Make that call
Vladi, NOW!
The Iranian ADS might have posed a credible threat IF they
had the Russian SA300 Surface to Air Missile system (SAM). They signed a
contract with Russia in 2007, or not depending on which version of events you
believe, and are anxiously, or futilely, awaiting delivery. They hope before
the Americans repair their F22 Raptor aircraft that have allegedly been
deployed to the Middle East.
In the meantime
Queen Angela (Merkel) is not enjoying the French
revolution and wishes the revolting French could afford to buy their own damn
cake and preferably eat it somewhere else.
America has a new investment bubble bulging. It’s actually
a Government inspired one, but it does throw up some interesting statistics
which give lie to a couple of urban myths.
Next time let’s take a look at the Russian economy and who
knows, if Greece succeeds in staying in the Eurozone Chinese companies might be
opening up new manufacturing plants there instead of in Guangdong.
@peterbernfeld
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