Category Archives: What interests us

Nun Faces up to 30 Years for Breaking Into Weapons Complex

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Josh Harkinson, “Nun Faces up to 30 Years for Breaking Into Weapons Complex, Embarrassing the Feds,” Mother Jones, 15 January 2014

Nestled behind a forested ridgeline on the outskirts of Knoxville, Tennessee, is the sprawling Y-12 National Security Complex, America’s “Fort Knox” of weapons-grade uranium. The complex’s security cameras and machine gun nests are designed to repel an attack by the world’s most feared terrorist organizations, but they were no match for Sister Megan Rice, an 83-year-old Catholic nun armed with nothing more than a hammer and bolt cutters.
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Will the Chinese economic miracle continue?

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John Cassidy, “What’s Happening in 2014? Twelve Questions Answered,” The New Yorker, 3 January 2014

9. Will the Chinese economic miracle continue? Yes. After thirty years of rapid growth, the Chinese economy is now threatening to overtake the U.S. economy as the world’s largest, according to some measures. But there’s still plenty of scope for so-called “catch-up growth.” In terms of G.D.P. per person, the United States is still about five times as rich as China. Even middle-income countries such as Latvia and Chile are twice as rich. But with the formerly Communist nation still spending close to fifty per cent of its G.D.P. on infrastructure projects, education, and other forms of investment, the gap is likely to keep closing for some time. That’s what happened in other fast-growing Asian economies that industrialized earlier, such as Japan and Korea, and there’s no reason to expect China will be different.
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Why is Europe obsessed with drones?

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David Cronin, “Why is Europe obsessed with drones?,” Al Jazeera, 19 December 2013

Despite the economic crisis, the EU is facing serious lobbying to boost its defence spending.

Every time the West contemplates going to war, it’s a safe bet that “defence analysts” will pop up in the press bemoaning how Europe is militarily weaker than the United States. …

The 28-country bloc is under pressure from the arms industry to boost investment in drones.  If this doesn’t occur “it’s quite inevitable that the defence base will further deteriorate,” Tom Enders, head of the Franco-German weapons producer EADS has warned. …
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Global Drug and Development Policy Roundup

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“Global Drug and Development Policy Roundup,” Institute of Development Studies, 2013

The initial invite-only event took place early 2013 and used the report “Dependent on Development. The interrelationships between illicit drugs and socioeconomic development” (pdf), released by the Nossal Institute for Global Health in December 2010, as a basis for discussion.
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Estimate of nuclear weapons costs undershot by more than $140 billion

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R. Jeffrey Smith, “Obama administration understated nuclear weapons costs,” The Center for Public Integrity, 24 December 2013

The Obama administration’s plan for maintaining and upgrading the U.S. nuclear arsenal will likely cost around 66 percent more over the next decade than senior Pentagon officials have predicted, according to a new assessment by the independent Congressional Budget Office.

Under the administration’s plan, operating, maintaining and upgrading the nuclear stockpile will cost a total of $355 billion from 2014 through 2023, said the CBO report, published just before the holidays and shortly after Congress finished action on a 2014 budget bill that restored some planned Pentagon spending cuts.
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The unfulfilled promise of minimum, credible deterrence

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Michael Krepon, “Fifteen years later,” The Express Tribune News Network, 26 December 2013

India and Pakistan have travelled a long distance since testing nuclear devices in 1998. Back then, government officials and leading strategic thinkers on the subcontinent expressed confidence that these tests would have stabilising effects. Going public with the Bomb would relieve anxieties and facilitate diplomatic efforts to normalise relations. In countries where many lived in poverty that placed a premium on economic growth, all that was needed was minimum, credible deterrence.  It’s worth recalling these aspirations 15 years later, during which Pakistan and India have fought one limited war and have experienced two severe crises. Their nuclear arsenals have grown steadily as diplomacy has faltered.
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Why Are US Special Operations Forces Deployed in Over 100 Countries?

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Nick Turse, “Tomgram: Nick Turse, Special Ops Goes Global,” TomDispatch, 7 January 2014

It’s said that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. So consider the actions of the U.S. Special Operations Command flattering indeed to the larger U.S. military. After all, over recent decades the Pentagon has done something that once would have been inconceivable. It has divided the whole globe, just about every inch of it, like a giant pie, into six command slices: U.S. European Command, or EUCOM (for Europe and Russia), U.S. Pacific Command, or PACOM (Asia), U.S. Central Command, or CENTCOM (the Greater Middle East and part of North Africa), U.S. Southern Command, or SOUTHCOM (Latin America), and in this century, U.S. Northern Command, or NORTHCOM (the United States, Canada, and Mexico), and starting in 2007, U.S. Africa Command, or AFRICOM (most of Africa).
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Japan boosts military forces to counter China

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“Japan boosts military forces to counter China,” BBC News, 17 December 2013

Japan’s cabinet has approved a new national security strategy and increased defence spending in a move widely seen as aimed at China.

Over the next five years, Japan will buy hardware including drones, stealth aircraft and amphibious vehicles. Continue reading →

US Pentagon has spent $8 Trillion to Guard Gulf Oil

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Juan Cole, “Solar would be Cheaper: US Pentagon has spent $8 Trillion to Guard Gulf Oil,” informed Comment, 8 December 2013

It has cost the United States $8 trillion to provide military security in the Gulf since 1976. According to Roger Stern, a Princeton economist, the US has spent as much on Gulf security as it spent on the entire Cold War with the Soviet Union! In recent years through 2010 it has been $400 billion a year, though the US withdrawal from Iraq at the end of 2011 and the gradual withdrawal from Afghanistan this year and next presumably means that the figure is substantially reduced. Still, we have bases in Kuwait, Qatar and elsewhere, and a Naval HQ in Bahrain, none of which is cheap. If it were $200 billion a year, that is a fair chunk of the budget deficit the Republican Party keeps complaining about. And if we could get that $8 trillion back, it would pay down half of the national debt. …
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Iran Nuke Deal: Do Economic Sanctions Work After All?

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John Cassidy, “Iran Nuke Deal: Do Economic Sanctions Work After All?,” The New Yorker, 25 November 2013

Economic sanctions have had a bad rap. Ever since 1919, when Woodrow Wilson suggested that boycotting the goods and services of rogue nations could serve as a peaceful substitute for wars, critics have been claiming that sanctions are woolly, ineffectual, and counterproductive.
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The True Cost of National Security

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David Cay Johnston, “The True Cost of National Security,” Columbia Journalism Review, 31 January 2013

But budget stories then and now tend to report on the base budget from the Department of Defense, leaving readers with the impression that that is the full cost of fulfilling the Constitutional mandate to “provide for the common defense.”

It isn’t. From the perspective of taxpayers who must bear the burden, total national security costs are as much as 2.5 times the base Defense budget. Reporters might want to take a look at the true costs, and not just at the way the White House prepares the budget and Pentagon spins it. Continue reading →

US Department of Defense is the Worst Polluter on the Planet

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“US Department of Defense is the Worst Polluter on the Planet,” Project Censored

The US military is responsible for the most egregious and widespread pollution of the planet, yet this information and accompanying documentation goes almost entirely unreported. In spite of the evidence, the environmental impact of the US military goes largely unaddressed by environmental organizations and was not the focus of any discussions or proposed restrictions at the recent UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. This impact includes uninhibited use of fossil fuels, massive creation of greenhouse gases, and extensive release of radioactive and chemical contaminants into the air, water, and soil.
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Key US contracts for military aid to Egypt

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Sophia Jones, “Here’s what $230 million in US aid bought Egypt’s military since the revolution,” GlobalPost, 25 November 2013

While the change may be largely symbolic, before Oct. 9 — no matter how bad it got, no matter how much violence or no matter who was leading the government — US companies producing and providing Egypt’s tanks, helicopters, and bullets did not flinch. Business was business.

To illustrate just how unwavering the arrangement was, GlobalPost compiled key US contracts for military aid to Egypt, held by the American defense giants that profited the most from that aid. We mapped this sample within the context of significant political moments, from the 2011 revolution that toppled a dictator to the military ousting of the president who took his place.
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The top 10 American corporations profiting from Egypt’s military

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Kyle Kim, “Here are the top 10 American corporations profiting from Egypt’s military,” GlobalPost, 16 August 2013

For decades, Egypt has been one of the largest recipients of US foreign military aid, receiving everything from F-16s to teargas grenades.

So who are the companies reaping the benefits?
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Joint Chiefs Chairman Dempsey: I worry more about a China that falters economically than …

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Tom Risen, “Joint Chiefs Chairman Dempsey: Troops Needed in Afghanistan,” U.S. News & World Report, 18 November 2013

On the subject of China as a possible future threat, Dempsey said there was a chance for good diplomacy with that country and that military competition “doesn’t have to be confrontational.”

“The Chinese have a different view of time than anyone else,” Dempsey said about China’s potential for patient diplomacy. “I worry more about a China that falters economically than I do about them building another aircraft carrier.”
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