StrategyUnit:Foreign Policy & Security Issues Blog

“I must study politics and war that my sons many have liberty to study mathenatematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, navel architecture,navigation, commerce, and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain.” - John Adams from Letter to Abigail Adams

Russia, Ukraine, and Natural Gas: Russia Misguided Pipeline Politics?

Updated December 03, 2006 —————– Introduction With the breakdown in price negotiations during recent days, Russian state-owned Gazprom choose to cut the gas deliveries to Ukraine, the main conduit for exports to the rest of Europe. This is a critical situation because, as mentioned by Bloomberg, “State-run Gazprom supplies about a quarter of ...

Trans-Asia Energy Grid? (Mini-Post)

Sorry for the very late posting, work has been extra busy with the coming holidays. I am working on 2-3 articles, but for now here is an interesting development via AsiaTimes’s “The foundations for an Asian oil and gas grid“: Stung by the rising international price of oil and domestic shortages ...

Energy and Climate: Confluence of Disasters (A Quick Post)

Introduction The Oil Drum has an excellent post covering the recently released findings over the major drop (30%) in the temperature of the the Gulf Stream, the warm currents that from the N. America flow east to warm Europe. (Note that this report was curiously timed against current discussion in Montreal ...

Turkey Weekend Reading: James Fellows’s Article, Kazakhstan v. Iran, China Military Bases

Howdy All Y’All…Happy Thanksgiving Day. Here’s quick Weekend Reading…just in case you need a break from all that turkey and gravy. By the way, I’ve been doing some light posting this past two weeks, but I’ll start going back to the normal beat of things soon. OxBlog on Jame’s Fellow’s “Why ...

Quick Post: The Strategic Overview, Econbrowser on Oil Peak

Quick Posting The Strategic Overview: Tigerhawk’s Update Back in 2003, Den Beste of USS Clueless wrote the greatest touchstone piece on the *Islamofacist war, writting out in a relatively short 20 pages the strategic overview of the war. Today, Tigerhawk writes an excellent update to Den Beste’s essay. Its a must read ...

Enough of the Paris Riots, What about Energy Security and China?

Quick Posting Only… The blogsophere, myself included, have been guilty on focusing too much attention on the Paris Riots. Meanwhile, China looks like its taking steps to protect itself from any looming energy crisis and threats…and such a potential crisis is far larger of a strategic threat than the riots in ...

Russia and Peak Oil

Still on light posting mode…but I think this should be noted in contrast to the Oil Drum’s recent discussion I noted on Saudi Oil. From Reuters: Russian oil output could peak at more than 510 million tonnes annually in 2010, or 10.2 million barrels per day (bpd), Russian Energy Minister Victor Khristenko ...

Weekend Reading: Tdaxp, The Saudis and Peak Oil, China a raising Superpower with an Army of Engineering Students (or not?)

My blogging has been on a very light schedule as I’ve got the cold. Its days like these I wish there some fellow contributors for this blog. That said, Here’s a list of what I think should be required reading for this weekend: Tdaxp – a New Blog (new to ...

Great Game Revisted (Again) and the Green Revolution - Part I

Central Asia and the Caucasus share the pecular trait of being important geopolitical points, yet so little understood or cared about in the mainstream media. To do my part in remedying that, I’d like to point out to a great article on Central Asia (which more often gets some U.S. ...

Bigger than another Bali Bombing: Energy, Modernity’s Achilles Heel - Part I

The threat of Islamofacism (using Christopher Hitckins’s term) is what appears on the new everyday. Most recently, we’ve seen the arrests in France over bombing plots against the Metro and the terror alert in New York City. While the Public is fearful of the next Bali Bombing or Madrid Bombing, ...

December 28th 2006
Tags: Commentary, Enviormental Security One Comment

Global Warming Preparedness and Security?

London Underwater, by the Telegraph 12/28/2006 Raising Water Levels on London and China's Drought/Grain Problem As we close 2006 and look to 2007, two global warming major reports - one from Finland and other from China - presents the increasingly dire environmental situation we are facing globally. And whether or not one ...
December 24th 2006
Tags: Commentary, Iran No Comments

The Strategy on Iran and The NY Times Retracted Op-Ed

Introduction: Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann's Retracted Op-Ed Many should know by the the issue involving White House censorship of the Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann's New York Times Op-Ed (see image on left). I have no issue regarding the prepublication review by the CIA's Publication Review Board to ensure to classified ...
November 28th 2006
Tags: Europe, Islamic Terrorism 3 Comments

751 No-Go-Zones in France: The Gap Societies

A "Zones Urbaines Sensibles" (No-Go-Zone) in Nice, France (PDF) . Via Thomas Barnett, Daniel Pipes discusses the 751 Zones Urbaines Sensibes (Sensitive Urban zones) demarcated by the French Government, which are "are conveniently listed on one long webpage, complete with street demarcations and map delineations." Daniel goes on to state: What are they? Those ...

The Mujahideen Network in Spain: Supporting Fighters in Iraq

Quick Post In Jamestown Foundation's Terrorism Focus (11/21/06), there are reports that "agents of the Spanish National Police in Madrid arrested four men because of their involvement in a document falsification ring that had, as its primary mission, the objective of providing documentation cover to "mujahideen" leaving Iraq and trying to ...
November 25th 2006
Tags: 4gw, Iraq and Afghanistan One Comment

Iraqi Global Guerrillas and the Sustainable Ecology

Iraqi Guerrillas are now Financially Self-Sufficient Only last week did John Robb at Global Guerrillas noted that: Iraq's non-state guerrillas aren't mere proxies of Iran. Instead, they are largely autonomous. First, these groups don't rely upon Iran for their operating income since they can manufacture income through participation in black globalization's multi-trillion dollar ...

Search

The archives run deep. Feel free to search older content using topic keywords.