Weekly Update
News Summary Time:
I've been avoiding the Middle East like the plague ever since it became impossible to get anything concrete out of it, but there's a bunch of other things (some outdated since it took me so long to write this) that have been running around the headlines. So here they are:
India v. Pakistan: OBL edition The discovery and removal of Osama bin Laden from Pakistani soil has inspired a lot of "I told you so"s from India, but it's also led to some dangerous speculation. After all, Pakistan is housing a whole bunch of other people, many of whom India would like to see safely inhumed. If the US can send a commando team into Pakistan and take out OBL, why can't India do the same with regards to some of their most wanted? This is, of course, a very bad idea. India will have a harder time then America simply because all of Pakistan's defenses are pointed toward India, not Afghanistan. And given the limited range of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal the worst they can do to the US is seriously inconvenience our electronics and computer industry by nuking Bangalore - something that would have much more serious consequences for India then the US. Hopefully India will clamp down on those trying to spark the fifth Indo-Pakistani War.
Thailand v. Cambodia: Masters of Distraction Remember about a year ago when there were these massive protests in Bangkok, and the army was called in, and both sides opened fire on each other and a lot of people got killed? Yeah, well, honestly, neither do we, because let's face it, a lot happens in a year, and we've been busy, but you know, apparently some people still think that far back. Well, now it's election season in Thailand, and some people apparently aren't too happy at how much the army shot at them, and might actually express that by voting. Add to that the fact that the King, the only political figure that you can't make fun of, is dying (he's over 80 - and he's survived through 15 coups according to Wikipedia. 15. Do you know how many heads of state make it through two?), and you might have a rocky election.
Well, never fear, because the Army of Thailand (who keeps arresting people for disrespecting the king) has a plan. In concert with the military of Cambodia, who has their own domestic problems they would rather ignore, they've decided to fight a border war with each other, not over the culturally valuable Preah Vihear temple, but over some of the land nearby that is in dispute. The problem is that once you start a border war, it's hard to back down without looking like an idiot, but since you're mostly fighting over uninhabited (and virtually uninhabitable) patches of jungle, you basically look like an idiot anyway. It would be like watching the US and Canada fight over who owns Detroit, you both look like total morons for squabbling, and the loser gets stuck with Detroit. But so far it's doing a good job of distracting the populace, as measured by the fact that the military has not yet switched to plan B, under which they influence polls by shooting everyone.
Vietnam and Cambodia v. Laos: Dam You To Hell Laos is a small country that is normally known for being next to Vietnam and playing their music really loud at night. But lately they've had another plan to get on the road to success, namely investing in a series of hydropower projects that will give Laos not only control over their own industry, but something to export to the rest of the world. The plan includes twelve dams to be built across the Mekong, a great many in Laos, which will provide the poor country with enough electricity to sell to nearby Thailand at the cost of, oh, 550,000 to 880,000 tons of fish per year to downstream Vietnam and Cambodia. For some reason Vietnam is not happy about this, and has been issuing statements regarding international cooperation in the same tone that big, badly-suited men use when they talk about how bad it would be if something accidentally happened to your car, or your house, or your multi-billion dollar Mekong-spanning dam, and oh, hey look, the US left us all these nifty things that go boom, I wonder what we can do with them.
Currently the crisis has been postponed pending a meeting of ministers, in which Laos may agree to forgo building the dam entirely in exchange for a cash payment, a month of free rent, and Vietnam's agreement not to release those photos they have of Laos sleeping off a hangover in a pool of its own vomit, but really, with those guys, who knows?
Uganda v. Uganda: Concurrent Civil War II So once upon a time there was this guy named Yoweri Museveni, whom everyone really liked because he talked about gradual transitions to Democracy, and how the problem with Africa was that people tried to stay in power too long, and things like that. Well, that was in 1986. Then he had democratic elections in 1996, which he won, and again in 2001, which he also won, partially because he had banned multi-party politics. In the meantime, in between campaigning, having various dissidents arrested for causing an affray, and fighting a long, drawn-out civil war against the most batshit insane group of murderers, rapists, and child abusers on the planet (the Lord's Resistance Army), he also found time to meddle in the affairs of his giant neighbor, the Democratic Republic of Congo, by first sending massive numbers of troops into the country to remove Mobuto and replace him with Kabila, and then sending massive numbers of troops into the Congo to help the Rwandans remove Kabila and replace him with somebody else. This sort of tarnished his reputation, but by that point he discovered that once you let troops get control of fantastically profitable mines, you really have problems getting them back out. Also, they have guns.
But the US at least tolerated him because he was the driving force behind keeping Ugandan peacekeepers in Somalia fighting al-Shahab, which the US likes, and because he was fighting the LRA, which the US liked, and he was annoying the shit out of Khartoum, which everyone likes. But then this year happened, and he's standing for his fourth election, and gas prices are going up, and so an opposition politician decided to organize a protest where everyone would walk to work to protest high gas prices. Apparently, walking to work is illegal in Uganda (the bus-drivers must have a hell of a union), and promptly arrested opposition leader Besigye, which, one month later, doesn't seem to have calmed the protests. Now he's President again putting him in the long-runners category with such leaders as Robert Mugabe, Qaddafi, and apparently Hosni Mubarak. Maybe he should take a hint and get out while he can.
Afghanistan: The Forgotten War So apparently people are still fighting each other in Afghanistan. Who knew?
Russia v. All Comers: Prince Caspian's Boat So apparently Russia is getting a bit tired of the fact that nobody's been able to figure out who owns what when it comes to the world's largest inland body of water, the Caspian Sea, which used to be a Soviet lake and therefore, according to Putin-logic, should now be a Russian lake, except for that fact that there are all these other countries that have borders on it, and they're not having any of that. Russia offered a deal (which, to be honest, was probably about as fair as we're going to get), but, well, it didn't go through. So Russia's decided that instability on that front will not be tolerated and have announced that they intend to reinforce the naval force on the Caspian with 16 new ships which will be built by 2020 (in other news, they plan to give every Russian a pink pony by 2015). The plan seems to be for Russia to put its foot down on the Caspian Sea issue, under the expectation that the other nations that border it, who are all ex-Soviet and used to being under Russia, will acquiesce to Russian military control in exchange for Russia not taking all of their lunch money.
Well, almost all the countries that border the Caspian are ex-Soviet. The only exception is the Islamic Republic of Iran, but we all know how accommodating they are to white, Christian nations with a habit of waging war against Muslim factions, don't we?
South Korea: Keepin' Up With the Joneses If it weren't for conspicuous consumption, I don't know how this world would last. I mean, sure it may be a stupid, tacky, non-functional piece of crap, but once everyone else has one, shouldn't you?
Well, South Korea's been checking out the neighborhood, and they've realized that most of their nearby neighbors (North Korea, China, and Russia) all have nukes, so maybe they should get some too. Not that they have any immediate plans or anything, but you never know when they might decide to go for it. The idea of not one but two nuclear Koreas is not much of a reassurance for everyone in the area, and may represent the ultimate failure of China's disastrous 2010 diplomacy round, but if South Korea really wants to see some shit pants, they should float the idea of cooperating on development with Taiwan. Of course that might cause China to deploy their massive force of kung-fu action stars to Korea, but South Korea has a huge surplus of Tae Kwon Do, so I just don't know how that one will end up.
UK vs. France Re: India Libya may be big news in most circles, but in defense procurement circles the big news of the year is probably India, whose Medium Multirole Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) search is finally starting to get moving. The deal is supposed to be worth at least $9 billion dollars, and involved six different offers from five countries. After a long time spent sitting on the deal, India has finally gotten itself moving and has cut the US, Russia, and Sweden out of the deal, narrowing the field down to two aircraft: the Dassault Rafale, which is leading French efforts in Libya, and the EADS Eurofighter Typhoon, which is leading British efforts.
Now I'm not venturing into conspiracy theory country here, plenty of other people have done that already, but it would be foolish for either the EADS nations (UK, Italy, etc) or France to pass up the chance to score some PR points with India now that they've got a real war on. Expect to see a lot of gun camera footage wind up in India in the near future, and some missions probably tailored to showcase their capabilities.
South Sudan v South Sudan: Getting Down to Business The people of Southern Sudan have spent decades fighting the northern government in attempt to get the north to leave them alone so they could get down to what they really wanted to do, namely fight each other. It's not that bad, but it's become clear that the Sudanese People's Liberation Army (SPLA) was less an army then it was a loose organization of mobs that happened to all be going in the same direction. Now that they have to make choices, like who gets to stick their hand in the till of the country's lucrative oil revenues (which are basically South Sudan's only source of lucre in any form), there's some polite, and not so polite, disagreement.
Some people suspect Khartoum of taking a hand in things. This is probably true. It's also probably irrelevant. Blaming Khartoum for setting the Southern factions against each other is like blaming Iran for making Palestinians hate Israelis. Iran might encourage it, but Palestine and Israel are doing just fine on their own, thank you very much.
Cartels v. Mexico: Junkyard Arms Race You may remember some time ago that the Columbian drug cartels were building increasingly sophisticated drug-smuggling submarines to aid them in smuggling drugs across the border. Well, not to be outdone, Los Zetas have started building armored cars and now even a big truck that people are describing as a tank (es). The vehicles are described as armored against heavy caliber machine gun fire, capable of maintaining decent road speed, and with enough room to hold a boatload of drugs, armed men, or a jacuzzi and hot tub (you just know they have one of those). All of this appears to be some kind of arms race as western hemisphere gangs struggle to catch up to criminal organizations in East Asia, who are already known to deploy giant fucking robots, and genetically engineered panda bears that shoot laser beams out of their frickin' eyes.
This development in armed vehicle production clearly cements Los Zetas position as the second most well-armed group of drug smugglers in Mexico, just behind the Mexican Army (old).
I've been avoiding the Middle East like the plague ever since it became impossible to get anything concrete out of it, but there's a bunch of other things (some outdated since it took me so long to write this) that have been running around the headlines. So here they are:
India v. Pakistan: OBL edition The discovery and removal of Osama bin Laden from Pakistani soil has inspired a lot of "I told you so"s from India, but it's also led to some dangerous speculation. After all, Pakistan is housing a whole bunch of other people, many of whom India would like to see safely inhumed. If the US can send a commando team into Pakistan and take out OBL, why can't India do the same with regards to some of their most wanted? This is, of course, a very bad idea. India will have a harder time then America simply because all of Pakistan's defenses are pointed toward India, not Afghanistan. And given the limited range of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal the worst they can do to the US is seriously inconvenience our electronics and computer industry by nuking Bangalore - something that would have much more serious consequences for India then the US. Hopefully India will clamp down on those trying to spark the fifth Indo-Pakistani War.
Thailand v. Cambodia: Masters of Distraction Remember about a year ago when there were these massive protests in Bangkok, and the army was called in, and both sides opened fire on each other and a lot of people got killed? Yeah, well, honestly, neither do we, because let's face it, a lot happens in a year, and we've been busy, but you know, apparently some people still think that far back. Well, now it's election season in Thailand, and some people apparently aren't too happy at how much the army shot at them, and might actually express that by voting. Add to that the fact that the King, the only political figure that you can't make fun of, is dying (he's over 80 - and he's survived through 15 coups according to Wikipedia. 15. Do you know how many heads of state make it through two?), and you might have a rocky election.
Well, never fear, because the Army of Thailand (who keeps arresting people for disrespecting the king) has a plan. In concert with the military of Cambodia, who has their own domestic problems they would rather ignore, they've decided to fight a border war with each other, not over the culturally valuable Preah Vihear temple, but over some of the land nearby that is in dispute. The problem is that once you start a border war, it's hard to back down without looking like an idiot, but since you're mostly fighting over uninhabited (and virtually uninhabitable) patches of jungle, you basically look like an idiot anyway. It would be like watching the US and Canada fight over who owns Detroit, you both look like total morons for squabbling, and the loser gets stuck with Detroit. But so far it's doing a good job of distracting the populace, as measured by the fact that the military has not yet switched to plan B, under which they influence polls by shooting everyone.
Vietnam and Cambodia v. Laos: Dam You To Hell Laos is a small country that is normally known for being next to Vietnam and playing their music really loud at night. But lately they've had another plan to get on the road to success, namely investing in a series of hydropower projects that will give Laos not only control over their own industry, but something to export to the rest of the world. The plan includes twelve dams to be built across the Mekong, a great many in Laos, which will provide the poor country with enough electricity to sell to nearby Thailand at the cost of, oh, 550,000 to 880,000 tons of fish per year to downstream Vietnam and Cambodia. For some reason Vietnam is not happy about this, and has been issuing statements regarding international cooperation in the same tone that big, badly-suited men use when they talk about how bad it would be if something accidentally happened to your car, or your house, or your multi-billion dollar Mekong-spanning dam, and oh, hey look, the US left us all these nifty things that go boom, I wonder what we can do with them.
Currently the crisis has been postponed pending a meeting of ministers, in which Laos may agree to forgo building the dam entirely in exchange for a cash payment, a month of free rent, and Vietnam's agreement not to release those photos they have of Laos sleeping off a hangover in a pool of its own vomit, but really, with those guys, who knows?
Uganda v. Uganda: Concurrent Civil War II So once upon a time there was this guy named Yoweri Museveni, whom everyone really liked because he talked about gradual transitions to Democracy, and how the problem with Africa was that people tried to stay in power too long, and things like that. Well, that was in 1986. Then he had democratic elections in 1996, which he won, and again in 2001, which he also won, partially because he had banned multi-party politics. In the meantime, in between campaigning, having various dissidents arrested for causing an affray, and fighting a long, drawn-out civil war against the most batshit insane group of murderers, rapists, and child abusers on the planet (the Lord's Resistance Army), he also found time to meddle in the affairs of his giant neighbor, the Democratic Republic of Congo, by first sending massive numbers of troops into the country to remove Mobuto and replace him with Kabila, and then sending massive numbers of troops into the Congo to help the Rwandans remove Kabila and replace him with somebody else. This sort of tarnished his reputation, but by that point he discovered that once you let troops get control of fantastically profitable mines, you really have problems getting them back out. Also, they have guns.
But the US at least tolerated him because he was the driving force behind keeping Ugandan peacekeepers in Somalia fighting al-Shahab, which the US likes, and because he was fighting the LRA, which the US liked, and he was annoying the shit out of Khartoum, which everyone likes. But then this year happened, and he's standing for his fourth election, and gas prices are going up, and so an opposition politician decided to organize a protest where everyone would walk to work to protest high gas prices. Apparently, walking to work is illegal in Uganda (the bus-drivers must have a hell of a union), and promptly arrested opposition leader Besigye, which, one month later, doesn't seem to have calmed the protests. Now he's President again putting him in the long-runners category with such leaders as Robert Mugabe, Qaddafi, and apparently Hosni Mubarak. Maybe he should take a hint and get out while he can.
Afghanistan: The Forgotten War So apparently people are still fighting each other in Afghanistan. Who knew?
Russia v. All Comers: Prince Caspian's Boat So apparently Russia is getting a bit tired of the fact that nobody's been able to figure out who owns what when it comes to the world's largest inland body of water, the Caspian Sea, which used to be a Soviet lake and therefore, according to Putin-logic, should now be a Russian lake, except for that fact that there are all these other countries that have borders on it, and they're not having any of that. Russia offered a deal (which, to be honest, was probably about as fair as we're going to get), but, well, it didn't go through. So Russia's decided that instability on that front will not be tolerated and have announced that they intend to reinforce the naval force on the Caspian with 16 new ships which will be built by 2020 (in other news, they plan to give every Russian a pink pony by 2015). The plan seems to be for Russia to put its foot down on the Caspian Sea issue, under the expectation that the other nations that border it, who are all ex-Soviet and used to being under Russia, will acquiesce to Russian military control in exchange for Russia not taking all of their lunch money.
Well, almost all the countries that border the Caspian are ex-Soviet. The only exception is the Islamic Republic of Iran, but we all know how accommodating they are to white, Christian nations with a habit of waging war against Muslim factions, don't we?
South Korea: Keepin' Up With the Joneses If it weren't for conspicuous consumption, I don't know how this world would last. I mean, sure it may be a stupid, tacky, non-functional piece of crap, but once everyone else has one, shouldn't you?
Well, South Korea's been checking out the neighborhood, and they've realized that most of their nearby neighbors (North Korea, China, and Russia) all have nukes, so maybe they should get some too. Not that they have any immediate plans or anything, but you never know when they might decide to go for it. The idea of not one but two nuclear Koreas is not much of a reassurance for everyone in the area, and may represent the ultimate failure of China's disastrous 2010 diplomacy round, but if South Korea really wants to see some shit pants, they should float the idea of cooperating on development with Taiwan. Of course that might cause China to deploy their massive force of kung-fu action stars to Korea, but South Korea has a huge surplus of Tae Kwon Do, so I just don't know how that one will end up.
UK vs. France Re: India Libya may be big news in most circles, but in defense procurement circles the big news of the year is probably India, whose Medium Multirole Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) search is finally starting to get moving. The deal is supposed to be worth at least $9 billion dollars, and involved six different offers from five countries. After a long time spent sitting on the deal, India has finally gotten itself moving and has cut the US, Russia, and Sweden out of the deal, narrowing the field down to two aircraft: the Dassault Rafale, which is leading French efforts in Libya, and the EADS Eurofighter Typhoon, which is leading British efforts.
Now I'm not venturing into conspiracy theory country here, plenty of other people have done that already, but it would be foolish for either the EADS nations (UK, Italy, etc) or France to pass up the chance to score some PR points with India now that they've got a real war on. Expect to see a lot of gun camera footage wind up in India in the near future, and some missions probably tailored to showcase their capabilities.
South Sudan v South Sudan: Getting Down to Business The people of Southern Sudan have spent decades fighting the northern government in attempt to get the north to leave them alone so they could get down to what they really wanted to do, namely fight each other. It's not that bad, but it's become clear that the Sudanese People's Liberation Army (SPLA) was less an army then it was a loose organization of mobs that happened to all be going in the same direction. Now that they have to make choices, like who gets to stick their hand in the till of the country's lucrative oil revenues (which are basically South Sudan's only source of lucre in any form), there's some polite, and not so polite, disagreement.
Some people suspect Khartoum of taking a hand in things. This is probably true. It's also probably irrelevant. Blaming Khartoum for setting the Southern factions against each other is like blaming Iran for making Palestinians hate Israelis. Iran might encourage it, but Palestine and Israel are doing just fine on their own, thank you very much.
Cartels v. Mexico: Junkyard Arms Race You may remember some time ago that the Columbian drug cartels were building increasingly sophisticated drug-smuggling submarines to aid them in smuggling drugs across the border. Well, not to be outdone, Los Zetas have started building armored cars and now even a big truck that people are describing as a tank (es). The vehicles are described as armored against heavy caliber machine gun fire, capable of maintaining decent road speed, and with enough room to hold a boatload of drugs, armed men, or a jacuzzi and hot tub (you just know they have one of those). All of this appears to be some kind of arms race as western hemisphere gangs struggle to catch up to criminal organizations in East Asia, who are already known to deploy giant fucking robots, and genetically engineered panda bears that shoot laser beams out of their frickin' eyes.
This development in armed vehicle production clearly cements Los Zetas position as the second most well-armed group of drug smugglers in Mexico, just behind the Mexican Army (old).