A couple of articles in the French language press (one this weekend in Le Monde, the other today in Le Figaro) indicate that, contrary to what I’d expected, Russia is in fact annexing South Ossetia and Abkhazia on the installment plan. Apparently most of the political leaders installed in the two provinces are Russian (the new South Ossetian prime minister is a product of the Russian security forces), a rail bridge that linked the Abkhazia’s ethnically Georgian populaiton to Georgia has been blown up, and negotiations are under way for pemanent military bases. (I imagine that bargaining will be less [...]
Dear Readers, We are pleased to announce some exciting changes at the publication formerly known as World Politics Review. First and foremost, we have a new name. We are now WORLD POLITICS REVIEW. We think the name World Politics Review more accurately captures the mission of our publication, which is to provide context and analysis in our original news, commentary, audio and — coming soon — video content. (And, in our our blog and media roundup, we point readers to must-read information on world politics from other sources.) Along with our new name, we have a new address on the [...]
I wanted to flaga story from Inside the Pentagon about whether the Chinese are aiming to interfere with U.S. military space capabilities. The article quotes U.S. Strategic Command Chief Gen. James Cartwright as saying that China has not yet actually interfered with U.S. operations in space. However, it’s also clear from the article that U.S. military officials believe China is actively pursuing weapons that could be used to counter U.S. space-based capabilities, upon which the modern military heavily relies for communications, navigation and intelligence gathering. The article is timely because the Bush administration recently released a new National Space Policy [...]
