This press briefing by Secretary Gates is the best summary of the situation I have run across thus far:
There is a certain level of bluntness in his delivery that I quite enjoyed.
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Earlier this afternoon Perry and I had a lengthy editorial telephone discussion on the subject of Georgia. While we agreed broadly there was one area in which we had intense debate until I finally figured out how we were talking past each other. The question is, how the hell did US intelligence assets miss the Russian Black Sea fleet movements? How did they miss the massive transport job of the troops and their logistical tail? They did not just materialize in position. It takes time and planning to make such moves. I will leave the detail of that to Perry as he seems to have been thinking about it in great detail. My take is there is a limited amount of time available on the black satellites. The manpower and resources have been re-targeted on the Middle East. Orbits have been shifted to give maximal coverage in those areas of interest and experienced personnel have moved to ‘where the action is’. This is not to say Russia is being ignored. It is however a very big place and I am going to guess that the time between scanning particular areas has greatly lengthened. Russian troop movements are mainly rail based and with enough eyeballs and Cold War era periodic coverage one might hope to pick up changes in traffic patterns and notice “something is going on”. But… this requires a certain periodicity in coverage. Changes in static positions like silos and strategic air bases are much easier to pick up even with occasional coverage. Dynamic changes, such as train and road movements are a different story. You have to have a satellite taking pictures at just the right time or often enough to pick up a signal just by chance. This is what took Perry and I awhile to meet minds on: I have been thinking of this issue as a communications/information theory problem. How often do you have to sample an area to notice a change in the density of train traffic? I would posit it would have to be several times a week at the very least if the spike in traffic was huge and extended; if the spike were smaller and flatter you would need to sample daily or multiple times daily. You would have to do it at night and through clouds as well if you were to get a statistical value high enough to ring alarm bells. It is an issue of sampling rate versus the highest detectable signal frequency, pure and simple. I doubt they have even been scanning large areas of Russia more than a few times a week (I suspect much less often) except in areas of nuclear strategic interest. They could easily miss large troop movements in a part of Russia which is not of great national interest to the United States. Let the discussion begin. There is a lot of meat on this bone! August 12th, 2008 | 72 comments - (Comments are closed)
 I was going to write about the unconscionable Russian attacks on Georgia and how it is more important than ever to confront and isolate Russia and impose a cost on Russian imperialism… but then I read this article by Marko Hoare, who has written some great things in the past on the Balkan conflict, and he says much of what I would have…
Amen. August 10th, 2008 | 110 comments - (Comments are closed)
Is Russia now doing well, economically? Here’s a quote which suggests that it is. It is from classical music commentator Norman Lebrecht, writing with his usual over-the-topness about the young Russian recently installed as conductor of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Vasily Petrenko. According to Lebrecht, he is doing very well. Here is what Petrenko says about his recent Russian past.
Whatever your opinion is about people being paid to sing in choruses – mine is that if audiences won’t pay, such singers shouldn’t be paid – it surely says something about the Russian economy that now you can make proper money laying bricks. “Banking” could mean anything, from proper banking to legalised thievery. Merely getting rich being a construction worker would be similarly ambiguous, economically speaking. But there is something reassuring mundane about bricklaying, suggestive of real people wanting to hire you for good reasons, to build buildings that actually make sense. I remember vividly what Soviet bricklaying used to be like. I attended a Libertarian jamboree in Tallinn, Estonia, in about 1990, and I recall seeing the wall around the local Soviet military base (I think it must have been). It was by far the most badly constructed wall I have ever seen, then or since, and had I not seen it, I wonder if I could even conceive of such constructional badness. Try to imagine the most spectacularly incompetent bricklaying that you can, and then halve its quality. Then halve it again. That’s approximately half as bad as this brick “laying” was. It looked as if it had been done by six year olds, who had been alternating that with drinking Vodka. Russian walls are now, I surmise, getting a lot better. Which I agree may not be wholly good news. August 9th, 2008 | 11 comments - (Comments are closed)
Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the man who helped to tell the world about the horrors of communist Russia and its defining institution, the network of forced labour camps known as the Gulag, has died. August 4th, 2008 | 9 comments - (Comments are closed)
One reason I fervently hope that the oil price eventually crashes if new energy sources are developed, is so it will pull a rug under thuggish regimes in places such as Venezuela and Russia:
I would like to think that if the BP executive were physically threatened or harmed in any way, that the full fury of the UK state would descend upon that gangster regime, but of course that is most unlikely and probably unwise anyway, so it is a folorn hope. As long as oil is so strong and countries in Europe are such heavy importers of Russia’s natural gas, this sort of bullying will continue. But it surely is also a reminder that investment in that country is fraught with danger. The hedge fund manager, Bill Browder, was kicked out of the country a few years ago for his role as the asker of awkward questions when it came to investing in Russian firms. If ever Russia hits economic difficulties in future, as happened in the debt crisis of 1998, I hope that when Russia goes asking for aid, that other nations have the good sense to tell that country to perform sexual acts on itself, so to speak. Stories such as this make me convinced that among the “Brics”, Russia is not a good long-term bet, at least not until the political complexion of that vast nation changes for the better. That is going to be a long wait. July 25th, 2008 | 26 comments - (Comments are closed)
If you want to know why Bishop Hill is one of my favourite bloggers just now, you need look no further than this delightful posting today, which I now reproduce in its entirety:
Fascinating. But then I googled Sir-David-King-Putin, and came across this, from about two months ago (you need to scroll down a bit):
I am not sure which came first, the mass murder accusation or the environmental ambush. I think it was the ambush that began all this. But either way, they really don’t like each other, do they? It might make a rather good play. It’s always best when appalling people fail to get on. Imagine what the world would be like if they were all on the same side. I know, I know, not that different. April 1st, 2008 | 8 comments - (Comments are closed)
Vladimir Putin has announced that if NATO does not act in a manner more to his taste in future negotiations, he will take action to let them know he is not to be trifled with by unleashing an arms race. So Russia (GDP $2.08 trillion) is threatening the EU (GDP $14.44 trillion) and USA (GDP $13.86 trillion) with an arms race? Who says Russians do not have a great sense of humour? They are famous for it, in fact and this is a case in point. In effect Vladimir Putin is saying “if you do not start respecting me, I will bankrupt my country by producing large quantities of the same weapons that the Israelis consistently turn into confetti using western military technology.” Oh saints preserve us! It is rather like a petulant child threatening to hold his breath until they turn blue unless they are given what they want… except I cannot see why anyone should give a shit if Russia goes blue in the face and keels over due to self-inflicted stupidity. Modern Russia is rapidly turning into a vile police state, so why pander to this unrepentant KGB scumbag with delusions of grandeur? February 10th, 2008 | 102 comments - (Comments are closed)
There are lots of posters on the Tube and other places about this exhibition of Russian-owned art at London’s Royal Academy. Henry Matisse’s “The Dancers” is shown in the adverts; I am not a massive Matisse fan, but the sheer variety and quality of the work on show is tempting. A problem I have, however, is that these works were stolen from their original buyers back in the Russian Revolution or in the 1920s (ironically, Stalin wanted to destroy some of this stuff because he considered it to be “decadent”). I am not really comfortable in looking at something that has been stolen from a private owner; I feel slightly the same way about taking tours around ancient buildings that are no longer owned by their original owners because they have been forced to sell up due to massive death duties, now transferred to such bodies as the National Trust. One might argue, of course, that aristocrats who own massive stately piles are not worth too much sympathy since their families may have come into these lands as a result of earlier hand-outs. Oh well, I fear my curiosity will overcome my squeamishness. It pays to book early: this exhibition looks to be a sell-out. Thanks to regular Samizdata commenter Julian Taylor for suggesting that I write about this topic. January 27th, 2008 | 19 comments - (Comments are closed)
For those who are inexplicably worried about Russia’s alleged ‘resurgence’ as a major world power now that it’s economy is about the size of Italy’s economy (albeit far less diversified), the following article should be unalloyed good news:
The ‘money quote’ being “with the state apparatus behind it”…presumably because it was proven that “state apparatus” was the key to how the Soviets developed technology and business methods far superior to those in the capitalist west, became fabulously wealthy and as a result won the Cold War and… oh, hang on… In other words, the clowns who run the Kremlin are going to try an approach used in the West in the 1960s and 1970’s of creating large bureaucratic ‘national champions’. And that is because that worked soooo well for us, right? So clearly those who feel “something must be done about resurgent Russia” can now relax and just let nature take its course. Putin and his entourage of economic ignoramuses are screwing Russia and crippling its ability to ever develop a dynamic market economy. This will weaken the nation far more effectively than anything anyone else could do to them. I just happen to think it is a pathetic waste of people’s talents and potential. October 29th, 2007 | 24 comments - (Comments are closed)
The news media are still buzzing about the resumption of Cold War era style patrols by their ancient bucket-of-bolts bombers (not that I have anything against old-but-good combat aircraft) right up to the edge of NATO airspace. But for me the most interesting news to come out of Russia these days is that far from being the Neanderthal thug he is often portrayed as being, Vlad had decided it is time to reach out to that segment of the Russian electorate he has always stayed away from… 
“See my studdliness, Tovarich!” … he is now actively courting the Russian Gay Vote. Bless. August 22nd, 2007 | 53 comments - (Comments are closed)
The Russian airforce has recently resumed long range patrols, approaching the airspace of Britain and Diego Garcia… and I am pleased to say the correct response has come from the US State Department:
Amen. This is the comment I left on the Telegraph article:
I think the murderous actions of the Russian secret service in London are far more worthy of harsh responses than the antics of their military. I suspect a reaction to these military flights consisting of broad indifference and maybe the odd embarrassed snicker is far more likely to enrage the Kremlin than shaking a sabre back at them. The Devil does not like to be mocked. August 18th, 2007 | 71 comments - (Comments are closed)
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