Nonbarking dog of the year, 2007 was the fact that the increasingly heavyweight NATO force in Afghanistan’s logistics are dependent on the road from Kandahar-Quetta-Karachi, that is to say through Taliban and Baluch rebel country to Pakistan’s most politically unstable and violent city. As you’ll see at the link, someone finally attacked trucks on it…
Read More The Flashman OptionRob Farley has reviewed a book I’ve just been rereading, Marc Levinson’s The Box. It’s a history of containerisation and how it had a massive impact on the economy – Levinson argues that port and cargo handling costs were so great pre-containers that containerisation itself was enough to bring about a huge reorganisation of world…
Read More Big Big Steel Boxes!25 years ago, there was a war on, too. Everyone knows the story – fascist dictator invades forgotten colony in middle of nowhere, stalwart soldiery and jolly Jack Tar kick him out, patriotic rejoicing, vague guilt, and kajillions of words of editorialising ever since. The Falklands War remains an event that badly needs good history,…
Read More Myths of the Falklands: Number 1, CommandI 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 moreMaps are nice, aren’t they? So let’s have a look at a few maps of Iraq. This one shows Iraq’s administrative divisions, its roads and its rivers. Note especially that there are essentially two major roads between Baghdad and Basra. One runs along the Tigris valley parallel to the Iranian border. The other runs just…
Read More Talk to Iran. Now.In the middle of this Dan Nexon post lies this nugget of astonishing stupidity. One note about this number, 275,000. I had lunch with my uncle today, in town for a conference from his duties as Sgt Maj for the 1 MEF (the whole MEF) in Iraq. He works rather closely with the Iraqi forces…
Read More Still incredibly stupidJamie K thinks the UNTSO post was bombed to prevent them observing a possible Israeli flank movement from the northern tip of the country, around Kiryat Shmona, down the Litani valley to the sea, with hopes of cutting off the retreat, which means going further into Lebanon. He quotes me, in comments, suggesting that this…
Read More Right flankSo George Galloway’s involved himself in the deportation of one Khalid Rashid, a Pakistani national deported from South Africa in unusual circumstances. He was rousted and taken to an air force base, where he was placed aboard a plane chartered by the Ministry of Home Affairs which took him…well, we don’t know where it took…
Read More Khalid Rashid: A Strange CaseRemember all the waffle about Iran supposedly arming the Sunni insurgents (despite it being wildly contrary to Iranian interests)? Well, I think it may be gradually turning into a case of being right too early. Not that the New-Old Iraqi Army is getting arms from Iran, but that somebody may be trying to build up…
Read More Timing is everything