Sebastian P. Breit's Blog, page 3

A major piece
in the Washington Post presented the picture of a newly vulnerable
U.S. Fifth Fleet as Iranian warships bulk up their capability in the
Persian Gulf.



But while a potential U.S.-Iranian naval clash--and the likely damage to
Saudi oil facilities--preoccupies Americans, little is said about the
region’s other great vulnerability: its dependence on largely undefended
desalinization plants for fresh water.



And that makes the Gulf states doubly wary of a war with Iran, an expert
on the region says, even as they goad Washington to be tougher with
Tehran.



“If desalinization plants go down, there will be a major humanitarian
disaster,” an official intimately familiar with Gulf state defenses told
SpyTalk on Friday, on condition of anonymity.


"I would say that if Iranian missiles hit the desalinization plant at
the Saudi side of the Bahrain Causeway, Riyadh would have to be
completely evacuated in under 14 days," added Gwenyth Tddd, a former
Fifth Fleet political advisor and White House national security
official. "The Saudis have a huge aquifer, but they have severely
depleted it over the past three decades because of their dream to export
home grown wheat, etc.--an insane policy."



"Dubai cannot function without desal," Todd added by e-mail.  "All those hotels, water features, ski slopes-just imagine.



"And Bahrain, which means 'Two Seas' in Arabic, has also screwed itself
on the fresh water front. Bahrain's geology involves a limestone barrier
that allowed the center of the island to create a wonderful fresh water
aquifer, surrounded by the Gulf, hence the Two Seas.  But then came the
Khalifas" -- Bahrain's royal family--"and the dream of a super-luxury
skyline."



They've toyed with Bahrain's geological foundation, Todd said, creating new, grave vulnerabilities.

"Four decades ago, there were fresh water lakes and swimming holes all
around. But in building all these big towers, they punched holes in the
limestone barrier, not only causing the loss of a lot of fresh water,
but also letting in the salt water, creating a problem with brackish
water.  Farmers are screwed and the various 'Ayns' are mostly dry.
 Meanwhile, the Khalifas have been madly filling in the Gulf to expand
their land mass area, so the traditional fishermen are also screwed."

Iran is not so vulnerable--at least on that front.



“Iran does not have that problem; it has rivers and lakes, but a
considerable part of the population on this side of the Gulf exists on
desalinated water,” said the official, who is not authorized to speak to
the media.



“Concern about infrastructure will make states on this side of the Gulf
most reluctant allies in a war with Iran.  A lot of people don't want to
believe this, but it is true.”



To be sure,  “Striking the desalination plants would represent a major
escalation of any conflict,” which would give Iran pause, because
“retaliation in that scenario would probably be impressive,” the
official said.



“Still, it is a vulnerability of the Gulf states, and would make them
less likely at least in first instance to involve themselves in conflict
between U.S. and Iran.”



The dependence on desalinization plants is their “Achilles heel,” according to Agence France-Presse.

“A desalination plant is a large factory sitting on the coast, something
that you could easily blow up with a bomb or a missile. You could bring
the country to its knees,” Hady Amr of the Brookings Doha Center told
AFP.

According to a 2010 analysis
by Daene C. McKinney, a University of Texas engineering professor,
millions of people in the Gulf states live in “one of the most
water-stressed regions of the world,” leaving them entirely dependent on
desalinization plants.



“[T]he region is already exploiting all its annual surface water
resources, while its aquifers are becoming depleted in some
countries....This region is arid and its countries are already passing
the scarcity line that defined by WHO,” the World Health Organization,
McKinney wrote.

“Bahrain,” home to the Fifth Fleet, “does have some underground water,”
the official said. But “the population of Gulf States far exceeds
ability to sustain without use of desalinization plants. Aquifers that
do exist are being over exploited and gradually polluted."

 

first posted on SpyTalk on July 27, 2012.

Image Property of Geopolitical Monitor


This week’s cross-border mortar attack and subsequent artillery retaliation along the Syria-Turkey border seems to harken what many analysts have been predicting for a long time: violence from the Syrian Civil War spilling its borders. The original mortar attack from the Syrian side of the border occurred on Thursday October 5th, striking the Turkish town of Akcakala and killing five Turkish citizens, including a woman and three children. Turkish armed forces then retaliated with a volley of artillery fire into the area of Syria where the mortar attack was thought to have originated.

The next day, the government in Ankara passed a motion in parliament authorizing the deployment of Turkish armed forces to Syria in the event of any future attacks. Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has asserted that the motion does not suggest a state of war between the two countries, but is rather an act of deterrence. These remarks are likely motivated by a desire to remain on the right side of Turkish public opinion however, which is overwhelmingly against a military escalation in what is fast becoming a strategic quagmire south of the border.

Prime Minister Erdogan’s comments ring true insofar that Turkey does not want a war with Syria, but there’s much more at stake here than just deterrence.

Ankara is well aware that the situation on Turkey’s southern border is likely to go from bad to worse in the coming months. As Syria continues its spiral into widespread disorder and sectarian violence, securing the southern frontier will become more and more of a challenge for Turkish authorities. Potentially destabilizing developments won’t just come in the form of large refugee flows, but also criminal elements and the concomitant drug and gun running that will thrive in a Syrian security vacuum.

In order to keep the chaos from jumping the border, Ankara wants to do what the UN has proved incapable of accomplishing and establish a safe ‘buffer zone’ between Syria and Turkey; albeit one that stretches out wholly on Syrian territory. This would insulate Turkey from instability spilling over from Syria by allowing for a more comprehensive policing of the Syria-Turkey border.

But this is not just a question of keeping undesirables out of Turkey- whether refugees, guns, drugs, or militants- it’s also about keeping Turkish Kurds from crossing into Syria. If nationalist Turks were bristling at the prolonged consolidation of Kurdish autonomy in northern Iraq, they’re outright alarmed now at reports of Iraqi Kurds flooding into the north of Syria and establishing control over areas along the border with Turkey. The threat of a consolidated Kurdish autonomous territory that spans from parts of northeastern Syria to northern Iraq would be interpreted as an existential threat by the Turkish state, itself with a population of around 12 million Kurds.

This is the very same threat has caused the Turkish military to step up its operations against the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in northern Iraq. Fighting between the PKK and the Turkish armed forces in recent months has been some of the most intense since the PKK was formed 28 years ago.

The PKK is known to be operating in northern Syria as well, and the group remains an important strategic lever for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. If Turkey were to become an active participant in the war against Damascus, the Assad regime could start arming PKK rebels and, depending how desperate he becomes, perhaps even offer lip service to the eventual realization of Kurdish autonomy within Syria.

Thus, the establishment of a border ‘safe zone,’ ostensibly under the pretense of guaranteeing Turkish security or controlling refugee flows, would have the effect of frustrating Kurdish attempts to establish a credible system of self-rule in the area. And in the eyes of the Erdogan government, the latter is by far the most pressing matter.




Original Article written by Zachary Fillingham, Geopolitical Monitor.

The roiling dispute over a remote set of rocks in the East China Sea, known to the Japanese as the Senkaku Islands and to the Chinese as the Diaoyus, is more than a mere diplomatic spat between two of the world's largest economies. It has stripped away the thin veneer of cooperation between the two Asian giants that most observers assumed would ripen as the two countries became increasingly economically intertwined. It also serves as yet another reminder of just how potent territorial disputes remain in Asia and how little trust there is between countries where the wounds of previous conflicts are still fresh. Although the probability of actual conflict between China and Japan over the Senkakus is negligible, the current crisis is the herald of a new cold war that will persist for years, if not decades. The result will be an Asia that remains fragmented, unable to overcome the baggage of the past, and one in which the specter of accidental conflict is ever present.

This is not how Asia's most important tandem was supposed to turn out. Perhaps even without the conscious understanding of both countries' leaders, the two became ever more economically interdependent once China embarked on its market liberalization and reform period in the late 1970s. Japanese investment in China reached $6.5 billion in 2005, despite poor diplomatic relations, leading a senior official of the Japan External Trade Organization to claim that Japan and China's economic relationship is sufficiently compelling and mature to overcome occasional political flare-ups.

Such optimism is the same that propelled English politician and journalist Norman Angell to claim in 1909 that economic integration among the European countries was such as to make war between them impossible. Angell was proved tragically wrong just five years later, and the Japanese trade official's confidence from 2005 must similarly be seen in a more sober light in the recent wake of massive anti-Japanese protests that grew so violent that the Chinese government had to shut them down. The danger, clearly, is that politics will trump economics in the new Asian cold war.

The reverberations from the latest clash over the Senkakus continue to widen. Ever since Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda's government announced in September that it was buying three of the five islands from their private Japanese owner, anti-Japanese protests have rocked China. The danger was great enough to force Honda and Toyota to suspend manufacturing operations inside China, and the Aeon department store chain closed its stores. (The three companies have since resumed operations.) All Nippon Airways announced in late September that 40,000 seats on China-Japan flights have been canceled, despite the upcoming Chinese holiday that usually draws thousands of tourists to Japan.

As the economic fallout became clearer and as Chinese commentators called openly for war with Japan, Noda doubled down on his rhetoric, publicly refusing to entertain the idea of compromise after Yang Jiechi, China's foreign minister, claimed the islands were "sacred territory." The war of words seemed for a while likely to become an actual shooting war, as up to 70 maritime patrol vessels and coast guard ships from both counties tensely confronted each other in the waters off the Senkakus.

How much worse will the crisis get, and what can be done to defuse tensions? There are tentative signs that leaders are trying to cool things down. On Oct. 1, Noda reshuffled his cabinet, giving a post to former Foreign Minister Makiko Tanaka, who has close ties with Beijing. The Chinese leadership, for its part, appears to be forestalling further public protests.

 

Read the full article here.

Review - Duty: A Retelling of Waterloo 

by Michael Seeley




Well, I've got to admit that this one was something different from my usual reading digest. I can't say I've spent much time researching the Napoleonic Era despite its profound longterm historic impact, and in all honesty I've never been too interested in it to begin with, at least not in the way that the time from 1900 to 1945 has kept me in its thrall. As such, don't take me saying I only got a copy of Duty because it was advertised as free on the Alternate History Weekly Update blog as a slight against it. It's just something that usually would have flown under my radar.





So, what's the premise of Duty? 

Wellington is crushed. Napoleon is back. Ireland waits.

When
Napoleon wins at Waterloo, Captain Aiden Rowe, an Irish orphan fighting
for France, is caught in the madness. France's enemies retreat and
Napoleon now rises again. The Emperor orders Rowe to return home and
avenge the murder of his family.



But he won't be going to Ireland
alone. His closest friend, Killian O'Meara, and cutthroat spy, James
Blackbrook, are coming too. Together, they'll start a bloody revolution
to gain Irish independence. As Napoleon crushes his enemies on
the Continent, the blood flows in Ireland. Through it all, Rowe and
O'Meara struggle to keep their humanity in the carnage that arises after
Waterloo is won.

This review contains spoilers. You've been warned.




Rowe and
O'Meara as well as a few supporters travel to Ireland and prepare the arrival of a French expeditionary corps. We learn mopre about the two rather different men's backstory and connection and about the treatment Ireland has received at the hands of the British Crown. We also follow Rowe as he travels across Europe on orders of Napoleon to rekindle the friendship between Russia and France in the wake of Prussia's defeat at Waterloo. 




The whole novel is written from the perspective of Rowe which gives it a rather personal note, at times appearing more like an introspective diary rather than a pure narrative. Seeley has a knack for describing the almost feral nature of Napoleonic battles once the lines are broken and its man against man, and over wide parts of the novel it is this close perspective, this tunnel into the gritty reality of early 19th century warfare and society that keep Duty interesting even for those who don't share the author's love for the period.



Duty is a comparably short novel, clocking in at around 85,000 words (for reference, that's about half the length of Wolf Hunt ), and while that is enough space to give us a deep insight into Aiden Rowe's character and give the reader an understanding of Napoleonic warfare it makes for a read with a mostly non-existent suspense curve. By and large, Rowe and his crew experience no bumps in the road to their eventual success. Napoleon wins Waterloo and goes on to pretty much divide Europe between him and the Russian Tzar who for some reason is eager to be friends again with the man who only a few years earlier had Russia ravaged. And while Rowe's mission to Ireland leads to the premature death of a potential love interest and, at the end, sees the demise of his childhood friend Killian O'Meara there is never any sense of danger or doubt about whether or not their mission will succeed. British garrisons are swept aside one by one by the invincible French Guard until a fresh British army is defeated by the united French and Irish forces, heralding the beginning of the end for Britain's rule over Ireland.



Duty lacks bumps in the road; it lacks moments where the reader may plausibly be led to believe that the road ahead is hard, and that he might not even make it to its end. Seeley's almost comical portrayal of the British is another sore point, especially when contrasted by Frenchmen who can do so little wrong it's a wonder a choir of angels doesn't sing everytime they make an appearance. Really, the only thing left to complete the picture of his snivelling Englishmen would have been for them to click their heels and yell "Sieg Heil!" I'm fine with clear villains. I'm just not fine with one-dimensional, incompetent villains.




Verdict: C+. Duty isn't a bad novel, but you ought to know what you get if you decide to purchase it. As a whole it's rather one-dimensional, though some of that is balanced by the good character insight gained into the main protagonist and Seeley's knack for writing Napoleonic warfare. As a free novel I'd rate it as a solid "B". As of this moment, however, Duty is on sale for $3.99 which is definitively too high a price tag for a novel of its length (William Peter Grasso's Unpunished and East Wind Returns are both slightly longer and more balanced novels, and they are available at $0.99).

THE ISSUE is between peace and war; and it rests upon a knife’s edge.

Mr. Neville Chamberlain has the sympathy and admiration of the whole civilised world, because he has done more than any other individual to save mankind from another war.

There can be very little doubt that, if he had not gone to Berchtesgaden [to meet Hitler] last week, the Powers of Europe already would have been at one another’s throats; and, if the world’s peace is maintained in spite of the sinister omens, Mr Chamberlain will be the man to whom all the credit will be due.

When that has been said, it must be remembered that Mr. Chamberlain is the Prime Minister of England. He represents not alone one of the mightiest Powers in existence, but also a Commonwealth of free nations whose writ runs in five continents. Herr von Ribbentrop [German foreign minister] may believe that the people of the Commonwealth are decadent; that, because they do not strut about in uniforms and preach the gospel of force to their children, they are inferior to the race-conscious Germans.

There is an old man in Doorn to-day [former German Kaiser] who was convinced that the British were unfit to fight 24 years ago. Wilhelm of Hohenzollern learnt his lesson, and what was true in 1914 is true in 1938. No man in the British Commonwealth wants a war. Mr. Chamberlain has shown by his actions that the British people are prepared to go to almost any lengths to avert such a disaster.

Mr. Chamberlain has done what no other statesman in Europe would have the courage to do. He has gone twice to Germany to plead with Herr Hitler in the service of peace, thereby placing his own political career on the hazard. If he has failed, it has been a glorious failure, and Neville Chamberlain’s name will go down to history as that of a man who dared all to save mankind from calamity. [...]

We are convinced that once Herr Hitler realises that France and Britain are united in their resolve that Czechoslovakia shall not be wiped off the map, he will call a halt. We refuse to believe that a man who was blinded in the last war will send millions of Europe’s young men to the slaughter, and condemn his own country, for which he has done so much constructive work during the last five years, to a defeat which would be as complete as it would be inevitable.

The prayers of every God-fearing man and woman to-day will be for peace. Throughout the British Commonwealth the people will stand, as one man, behind Mr. Chamberlain. They know that the future of democracy is at stake; they know that, if democracy is doomed, all that they hold dear will perish in its wreck.

THis



This is a bit of a pet peeve of mine, along with what I'd call "Katana-wank". This video should finally put all those ideas about men in full plate armor not being able to move to rest.

“There’s no reason for having a Navy and Marine Corps… We’ll never have any more amphibious operations. That does away with the Marine Corps. And the Air Force can do anything the Navy can do nowadays, so that does away with the Navy.”
—Secretary of Defense Louis A. Johnson, December 1949

Dangerous to your Star Fleet Commander, not to this battle station… This station is now the ultimate power in the universe. I suggest we use it.
—Admiral Motti, Imperial Navy

In Star Wars, the Empire is presented as a monolith. Storm Troopers, TIE Fighters and even Star Destroyers are supposedly just indistinguishable cogs in a massive military machine, single-mindedly pursuing a common goal. This is, of course, a façade – like all humans, the soldiers and Officers of the Imperial Military will each have their own interests and loyalties. The Army is going to compete with the Navy, the Fighter jocks are going to compete with the Star Destroyer Captains, and the AT-AT crews are going to compete with Storm Troopers.

In fact, our very first glimpse of the Imperial High Command is an argument between the Army and the Navy about the strategic vulnerability of the Death Star. The stakes are high: For the Navy, the Death Star represents the ultimate in bureaucratic power-grabs, a guarantee of perpetual dominance on top of the Imperial pecking order. For the Army, the Death Star represents the potential death of their service as a viable political force.

This type of rivalry isn’t unique to the Empire—the argument between General Tagge and Admiral Motti isn’t even specific to the Death Star. In the aftermath of World War II and the dawn of the nuclear era, the newly formed US Air Force made a concentrated effort to become the foremost military service, arguing that between long-range bombers and nuclear weapons, there would be no further need for the Navy or Marine forces. Like Admiral Motti, they argued that any military problem could be solved by flying to the scene with the biggest weapon available and blowing the problem up – thus making the other services irrelevant.

Inter-service and intra-service rivalries are just an expression of the office politics that plague every large organization. The way that those systems are designed determine the effect of those rivalries on the organization’s effectiveness. The high-stakes of Imperial rivalries and lack of checks and balances in the Empire’s political system ensures that petty personal and inter-service politics would have dramatic negative effects on the overall effectiveness of the Imperial military. This resulted in myopic strategic thinking, shoddy acquisitions and ineffective tactical operations that combined to doom the Empire.

Nowhere is inter-service rivalry more apparent than in the lead up to the Invasion of Hoth in Empire Strikes Back. After coming out of light speed, an Army General reports to Vader that the Navy fleet has come out of light speed – a clear attempt to cut Admiral Ozzel off at the knees. Vader’s view of the situation is completely colored by the Army’s spin on the situation. Instead of allowing the Navy to give a report (and a possible justification for the strategy), the Admiral gets killed, the Army gets the glory, and CAPT Piett moves up a slot after learning a valuable lesson about the utility of throwing his Army colleagues under the bus.

The US military isn’t necessarily different – individuals are still heavily motivated by their own ambitions and interests. 1-star Generals still want to be 2-star Generals, and Navy officers still have personal and professional incentives to skew things against the Army. That advancement, however, doesn’t carry the same weight as it does in the Imperial military. Becoming a Grand Moff in the Imperial Military means a governorship and dictatorial power over an entire planet—failure is punishable by a painful, public death. Getting on the Joint Chiefs of Staff means a hefty retirement check and a gateway into a cushy civilian job – failure is punishable by early retirement with a slightly smaller check and gateway into a slightly less-cushy civilian job. The stakes of Imperial inter-service rivalries are devastatingly high.
Even more importantly, there are a variety of checks and balances inherent in the US system that prevents the worst effects of inter-service rivalry on mission accomplishment. The different branches debate their strategic priorities publicly with oversight by elected officials; an independent media can critique ill-conceived procurement plans; and public pressure in response to casualties force reforms of ineffective tactics and operations.

The decision making process in the Empire is “efficient” in the sense that decisions can be made quickly, but utterly inefficient in the sense that it relies solely on the Emperor and his cronies to make perfect decisions 100% of the time. Because of the high stakes, the only objective of an Imperial Admiral or General is remaining in the Emperor’s good graces – and the lack of independent oversight means that their own mistakes will be covered up and rival services will be undercut whenever possible. This is not unique to the Galactic Empire. In World War II, the rivalries between the Imperial Japanese Army and Imperial Japanese Navy were so intense that they had a special name, “Gunbatsu.” At one point in in the 1930s, factions within the Army even tried to assassinate Admiral Yamamoto to prevent him from interfering with their plans for war (a feat which they later accomplished by having terrible, terrible, cryptography).

In the United States, the decision making process is a multipolar system with extensive checks and balances. When the Air Force tried to establish long-term dominance over the Navy, Air Force Generals successfully convinced both the President and Secretary of Defense of their strategy. In the Empire, that would have been the end of the discussion. In the US however, the Navy fought back in the media, leading to the so-called “Revolt of the Admirals” and Congressional hearings on the future of military spending. When war broke out in Korea, nuclear weapons were never used due to a fear of public outcry and Soviet retaliation – and the Navy was still around to provide the crucial amphibious invasion at Inchon.


Myopic Strategic Thinking
The Death Star is the apotheosis of the Imperial Navy’s drive for dominance of the Imperial Military, and the Imperial Navy’s single-mindedness about their “Technological Terror” is evident throughout the series. With it, they guarantee that an Admiral will always be at the helm of the “ultimate power” in the universe. Despite the Army’s (accurate) objections that the station is vulnerable, the Navy convinces the Emperor to build not one but TWO different battle stations that can be destroyed by a small fighter shooting a single shot.

The Navy’s fixation is almost pathological—when Leia gives up the supposed location of the Rebels on Dantooine, the logical next step would be to go to Dantooine and blow up the Rebels. If Leia is lying, they can always come back to Alderaan and threaten to blow it up again. To Tarkin and the pro-Death Star faction, however, demonstrating the “full power of this station” is the most important objective of all. Dantooine is “too remote to make an effective demonstration,” so they blow up Alderaan and lose whatever leverage they might have over Leia.

Even a fully operational and non-vulnerable-to-proton-torpedo Death Star is not a sustainable plan for long-term governance. “Fear of this battle station” will not keep the systems in line – as Leia points out, “The harder you squeeze, the more systems will slip through your fingers.” Just like the Soviet Union found it couldn’t just nuke all of its problems away, rebellion would be a constant fact of life in an Empire dependent solely on the threat of planetary destruction. The Empire’s strategic thinking surrounding the Death Star is woefully inadequate.


Shoddy Acquisitions
Not only is the Empire’s strategic thinking wrong, but as Bruce Schneier might say, they are doing the wrong things badly. The Death Star is so vulnerable that the Rebels discover a devastating vulnerability with literally only hours of analysis. It’s almost certain that any number of Imperial planners and Navy personnel recognized the weakness of the exhaust port but said nothing – “nobody likes a whistle blower, and besides, even a computer can’t hit a target THAT small.”

In the Empire, everything is handled from the top down—the military submits their plans, the Emperor approves it. If the Navy has a plan for a Death Star, they bring the plan to the Emperor, he approves the funds and construction starts. While this seems may seem efficient, centralized management has serious consequences for the Empire. Because of the incentive structure in place in the Empire, the focus will always be on reporting success and pleasing your bosses – without any independent oversight, there’s little hope of fielding a quality product.

Shoddy workmanship is evident throughout the Star Wars saga. The Death Star is an OSHA nightmare, lacking safety rails in high-energy weapons systems and emergency shut-off switches in man-sized trash compacters. Door locks can be opened with blaster fire, and the Super Star Destroyer is so lacking in redundancy that a single errant fighter can bring the whole ship crashing down.

It’s not surprising that Storm Troopers never hit anything – their blasters are made by whichever contractor has the most political clout with the Imperial Command. If that contractor turns out a lot of defective blasters, the General who selected him certainly isn’t going to be the one to report the news to the Emperor and it’s not like the Storm Troopers are going to complain to Darth Vader or ask 60 Parsecs to do an independent investigation.

In the United States, the acquisitions process is a collaborative one, with the elected Executive setting strategic priorities, different branches of the military generating requirements to meet those priorities, Congress holding the purse strings and an independent media critiquing the entire process. The process is unbelievably byzantine, frequently running billions of dollars over budget and years late.



Despite the massive inefficiencies, this is actually an advantage of a democratic system. When a US Soldier gets shoddy equipment, he at least has some recourse – he can write his Congressmen to conduct hearings or ask an independent media outlet to run an investigation. It may take a while, but there is at least a chance for an on-the-ground voice to be heard. In a real life example involving body armor, alternative designs were considered and recalls were made after Marines and Soldiers complained about the quality of equipment provided.

Regardless of the government, defense contracting will always attract rent-seeking profiteers and careerist bureaucrats with no idea how to build a reliable weapon. In a democracy, checks and balances at least have a fighting chance of resisting this tendency—the Empire has no checks and balances, and the system lies to itself until the very end.
Ineffective Tactical Operations

The debilitating effect of the Imperial Military intra-service rivalries reaches all the way down to the ground level. When a contingent of Storm Troopers is dispatched to recover the stolen Death Star plans, an Army unit is sent to rescue a project that represents the Navy’s best efforts to make the Army obsolete. Vader’s presence means that the Army is required to make a perfunctory effort at recovery of the plans, but the Army is not particularly motivated to come to the rescue of the Navy’s pet project. Their effort is half-hearted to say the least. Presented with a house-by-house search for the plans, the squad leader adapts the somewhat questionable policy of “If the door is locked, move on to the next one.”

When Obi Wan’s uses the Jedi mind trick on the “weak minded” it would be more accurate to say that the Storm Troopers will to do this particular thing is weak. The Army troops in question are in blinding heat, chasing all over the desert, cleaning up the mess that some Navy desk jockey made. If they DO find the plans, it will mean mountains of paperwork, the death of the Army’s political clout and precisely zero chance of getting off duty and enjoying the cantina. Finding the droids you are looking for is hard. Screw that – it’s the Navy’s problem, let them handle it.

Additionally, the Imperial Military is consistently unable to coordinate operations between large groups of units. In Empire Strikes Back, two Star Destroyers chasing Han Solo nearly collide with one another in their zeal to make a “catch” – instead of coordinating their efforts to catch the escaping ship (and risk letting the other Captain get credit for the kill), they act like kids at a soccer game, rushing towards the ball for their own personal ends.

The Rebellion on the other hand is consistently able to coordinate complex Joint operations involving the Fleet, Fighter squadrons, Special Operations Forces, irregulars like Han Solo and indigenous populations like the Ewoks. For them, personal success means nothing if the missions fails—failure to accomplish their mission means certain death for all involved. The Empire’s top-down structure and death-for-failure incentive program ensures that even at the tactical level the drive for personal glory will trump the need for mission accomplishment every time.

The US military has had (and will continue to have) problems with inter-service cooperation and tactics. In the US though, tactical and operational failures frequently lead to public debate and reform. After the invasion of Panama in 1983, Congress identified a number of weaknesses and command and control structures in the military – leading directly to the Goldwater-Nichols reforms and a legislatively mandated emphasis on Joint operations.


The End of the Empire
All of these factors combine to bring about the downfall of both Death Stars and ultimately the Empire. The Emperor’s entire plan rests on the successful defense of the shield on the forest moon of Endorr and the ability of the Imperial Navy to protect the Death Star if the shield falls—something they’ve already failed to do once.

The defense of that shield is poorly planned from the beginning and is only further confused when the Emperor sends his personal legion of soldiers down to the moon to oversee the operation. The Emperor’s troops take over the defense, but probably had not had time to receive a full briefing on the layout of the compound. As a result, the “back door” to the facility is lightly guarded and the rebels are initially able to gain their way into the control room of the shield; in the event, the Emperor’s troops are able to respond before the Rebels can do any damage, but that’s still a massive risk to take, given that a single suicidal Rebel could bring the whole shield down.

Ultimately, the make-shift command structure of the defenses on Endor proves to be the Emperor’s undoing. When Han Solo takes control of an AT-ST and asks for the door to be opened, the regular Army soldiers inside the shield comply. There are multiple units answering to multiple chains of command, working on an ad-hoc basis, so there hasn’t been time to establish formal authentication procedures or response protocols. The Army just doesn’t want to do anything to piss off the Emperor’s special legion, so they let Han in without so much as a follow-up question. Their fear of what will happen if they defy the Emperor’s “personal Legion” results in the destruction of the shield.

From there, the outcome is predictable – the pride of the Imperial Navy is destroyed by the exact same tactics used by the Rebellion the first time they blew up the Emperor’s pet project. Overconfidence in the Death Star’s defense means there aren’t enough fighters to prevent the Millienium Falcon from slipping through; shoddy acquisitions mean that the Super Star Destroyer is incapacitated from a fluke and the Death Star is yet again vulnerable to attack from a small fighter.

The Emperor and Darth Vader enforce a system where only personal power and influence matter. Individual Admirals and Generals are shown early and often that to put any interest ahead of their own is a one-way ticket to force-choke town. When you demand nothing less than perfection, and enforce that demand with the threat of death, you are only inviting subordinates to lie to you. It’s why Storm Troopers can’t shoot straight OR find the droids they’re looking for; it’s why Super Star Destroyer can be taken down by a single fighter and why the most important defense shield in the Empire can be captured by a squad of soldiers and a bunch of Ewoks. Ultimately, it’s why the Empire fails.

brought to you by the good folks over at Overthinking.com.

Review - The Devil's Rock (2011)




The Devil's Rock is a 2011 New Zealand horror film directed by Paul Campion, starring Craig Hall (Capt. Ben Grogan), Matthew Sunderland (as Col. Meyer), Gina Varela and Karlos Drinkwater (Sergeant Joe Tane). It is set in the Channel Islands on the eve of D-Day and tells the story of two New Zealand commandos who discover a Nazi occult plot to unleash a demon to win World War II.



The film contains references to real historical events and Campion has stated that he based the story on the German Occupation of the Channel Islands and the German fortifications. Guernsey's history of witchcraft and the occult includes the existence of the "Bad Books" (books of black magic) and copies can be found in two libraries in the Channel Islands.



When Grogan and Tane hear screaming from within the fortification, Grogan thinks it is other allied commandos who are being tortured: "You know what they did to Blondie's men in Bordeaux" - a reference to the torture of captured Royal Marines during Operation Frankton, under the command of Major Herbert 'Blondie' Hasler.



As Meyer ties Grogan's thumbs with a piece of wire to torture him, Meyer talks about the Allied "gangster commandos, who raided these very islands and killed innocent German prisoners with their hands tied behind their backs," which is a reference to Operation Basalt, a British Commando raid on Sark where a German prisoner was shot dead whilst his hands were tied, which in turn lead to Adolf Hitler issuing his Commando Order, upon which the torture scene in the film is based.






The Devil's Rock was shot on a micro-budget by feature film director rookie Paul Campion, and that is obvious in some scenes where the dialogue and the pacing could have been better and where the CGI was a bit too obvious for my taste. I prefer practical effects over CGI as they usually turn out for the better of the film, giving it simply more physical substance to work with. Lucky for me, the practical effects that The Devil's Rock does use are all very well placed and look no worse than those of larger budget productions.

It's limited cast and the claustrophobic atmosphere of the corridors of the bunker the Kiwi commandoes infiltrate turn the movie into a horror chamber drama in which dialogue and general interaction between the three main characters become the driving force of the action rather than pointless gore (even though there is enough gore and blood in the movie as is).

So, is The Devil's Rock a great film? No, it isn't. It makes the best out of its limited means, but the shortcomings in budget and directing experience are apparent. However, The Devil's Rock is not a bad movie either. I was entertained all the way, and even though some developments were obvious from the very start it managed to keep me interested for its whole run of about one and a half hours. If you like the mixture of Nazis, WW2 and the occult you should definitively give this a try. It's not Oscar-material, but it delivers on what it wants to be.

I've written a review of NBC's new post-apocalyptic show Revolution for the AHWU Blog.





Full disclosure: I'm a sucker for post apocalyptic TV series. I loved JMS's Jeremiah when I was younger, and I very much liked CBS' Jericho despite its flaws. Ignoring the politics of the people behind it I found William R. Forstchen's One Second After a quite compelling read. S.M. Stirling's Dies the Fire series also ranges rather high on my 'have to finish reading it' list. So you can probably imagine my delight when I stumbled across NBC's new project called Revolution earlier this year. The two men behind the project also made me prick up my ears. Erik Kripke of Supernatrural fame and Jon Favreau, the man behind the Iron Man movies are two titans of recent scifi and fantasy entertainment. Ever since the announcement that it had been picked up in spring I was excited about it, even though the promo videos offered reason for concern. Here's what its all about:

Revolution takes place in a post-apocalyptic future. Fifteen years earlier, an unknown phenomenon permanently disabled all electricity on the planet, ranging from computers and electronics to car engines, jet engines, and batteries. People were forced to adapt to a world without technology, and due to the collapse of public order, many areas are ruled by warlords and militias. The series focuses on the Matheson family, who possess an item that is the key to not only finding out what happened fifteen years ago, but also a possible way to reverse its effects.

Is it any good? Well, they pre-aired the show's pilot a few weeks and I was able to watch it. And what can I say? I'm a jaded bastard. You see, the problem is if you like post-apocalyptic fiction and consume your fair share of the genre you not only become somewhat genre-savvy but also become very observant regarding the small things that can make or break a setting. And Revolution? Well, in my opinion it's not off to a good start in that regard. But lets do this point by point.

The Visuals
The visuals are both the highlight and the bane of Revolution so far. While it's clear that you're dealing with copious amounts of CGI the show uses it rather effectively, from deserted airports to suburbs that have been torn down and turned into farmland. Production values are really high for a TV series. The world looks great, if a generally too overgrown, and you get the idea that with Kripke and Favreau you've got two guys orchestrating this who have a good eye for the visual side of things. The Matheson family lives in a small village surrounded by a high, makeshift wooden palisade with animals and gardens inside and everybody working the land. Kripke and Favreau don't pull any punches when it comes to showing what little is left of what used to be Illinois even though I think they should've gone for more signs of actual destruction within the cities and less 'the jungle conquered it all back'. Because Chicago is way too green in places it shouldn't be. Even rural roads won't be fully overgrown after fifteen years of barely any use, and large cities bristling with concrete and steel are a whole other league to begin with.

That's a problem, but it's basically nitpicking and doesn't substantially undermine my suspension of disbelief. If overgrowth is the way they've chosen to show the abandonment of the larger cities that's something I can live with. What follows, however, does undermine my suspension of disbelief.

Everything and everybody is way too clean. In fact they look as if they had just walked out of an shampoo commercial rather than spending fifteen years without electricity, new clothes, healthy food or running water, let alone an abundance of haircare products and cosmetics. Clothes barely look worn. People are extremely healthy, given the ordeals they must've gone through: they're muscular, not set on by illnesses, some even carry quite impressive girths around with them. Ironically it's the extras visible in the background who probably are clothed the most reasonably.

Yes, I know the common rebuttal here would be “but surely there's an overabundance of clothes in all those shops and malls etc.”. No, I'm sorry, that point doesn't fly. Even if we assume that most malls etc weren't looted and partially destroyed once society turned into the great cannibal battle royale it probably would turn into you get clothes that have been exposed to the elements for one and a half decades in environments without AC or heating. 99% of what you had there would have rotted and be totally unusable by now.
What makes this all the more problematic from a perspective of in-universe plausibility is that especially our “starting group”, the community our story begins in, are former suburbanites with a supposed white collar background. Aaron, the slightly overweight neighbor, was a former multi-millionaire working for Google. There are no known farming backgrounds, there's no prior knowledge regarding raising cattle, cultivating crops (without pesticides and fertilizer!) and there's no knowledge in construction that we are shown. Nothing against accountants and Poli Sci majors, but how likely are they to survive as farmers lacking equipment, useful soil and, most importantly, available seeds?!

As an addendum to this, I know this is the first episode and everything, but has there been any mention about steam engines or diesel engines? Neither one of those engines utilize electricity to function, the technology is over a century old and every first year university engineering student can probably MacGuyver something together in just a few weeks/months time, so after 15 years I would imagine that there should be hundreds of such engines in existence across the country driving local commerce.

A propos local commerce. Chicago with its position at the Great Lakes and opposite of Canada should be a trade hub crawling with people and ships and should have its own ruler and authorities. The way it was presented in it's basically a lawless pit where everybody does what he wants. Because we know that the Monroe Militia – the bad guys – aren't in control of it since it took them hours to get a squad there. That's not how power dynamics work. It would have been plausible in the first few years after the collapse, but fifteen years later? There should be someone in charge, a General, a Duke, or something. Secondly, trade should exist again. If you can make a profit of something by getting goods moved around people will do that. If the potential profit is high enough they'll equip armed trade caravans to do so. This isn't some arcane principle. Greed is a basic part if human nature. Especially along the Great Lakes you would probably have something like the Hansa develop after fifteen years.

Please read the full review here.

MBDA Germany has achieved a power of 40 kW using its high-energy laser
demonstrator during a laser firing campaign. The laser power generated
by patented beam coupling of fibre lasers was successfully demonstrated
for the first time in the world.





In the target tracking and firing tests, MBDA Germany demonstrated
performance features such as the burning of mortar shells in just a few
seconds. The laser with a power of 40 kW also pierced 40 mm thick steel
plates in a few seconds. Target tracking runs that were demonstrated in
previous trials were also successfully repeated.





The tests demonstrated the good beam quality of the lasers used and the
precise and low-loss merging of the individual beams. This is the only
way to ensure that targets are neutralised rapidly and reliably.





“High-power laser weapons can soon provide an answer to conventional and
asymmetric threats in military missions,” explains Peter Heilmeier,
Head of Market and Business Development MBDA Germany. “They can
contribute greatly to protecting our troops. Laser weapons are
characterised by precision at long ranges, minimum operating costs and
the avoidance of collateral damage".





With this campaign, MBDA Germany is building on a series of successful
tests begun in2008. In2011, MBDA Germany was the first company
inEuropeto achieve a power of 10 kW with a good laser beam quality. The
tracking of dynamic objects and the effects on the object were
demonstrated over a distance of more than2,300 mand an altitude
difference of1,000 min real environmental conditions.





In September and October 2012 further tests are to be performed at the
WTD 52 proving grounds in Oberjettenberg, where the entire combat
process from detection to neutralisation of a flying target is to be
tested for the first time.





The further development of the laser demonstrator is being financed
using the company’s own funds and, in part, by the German Federal Office
of Defence Technology and Procurement (BWB) with their research and
technology resources.


And there I was, thinking whether the laser-CIWS system about USS Halsey in Wolf Hunt was too futuristic...