Several Under-reported stories . . .

Loyal Readers: when I say that I have many posts planned, and then two hours go by without any, you can blame that on the slowness of blogger. Here is a compendium of things that have caught my eye today: Iran Buying Nuke Materials Left and Right Iran has purchased large quantities of beryllium according to one "non-US diplomat, citing intelligence gathered by his country." Thanks to an Alert Reader for giving Chester this link. Chester's next post on Iran is being delayed because the same Alert Reader has a 246 page file documenting Iran's weapons program, with links, and it would be silly for Chester to post without reading that first. Oh, by the way, Iran today launched the largest military exercise in its history, right along its border with Iraq. Isn’t that interesting? What’s the response in our press? Snore. Seems like a great opportunity to get operational intelligence on the capabilities of the Iranian military. Let’s hope our people are watching carefully. Also, perhaps we could trick Iran into engaging our ground and air forces in an open battle. We would absolutely crush them. This won’t happen though. Everyone learned after the Gulf War, in the words of the then-Indian defence minister, “Don’t attack the United States without nuclear weapons.” For more on that, see above. India, of course, detonated its first nuke 7 years after Gulf War I in 1998. Does ”Students are wise, they detest Khatami” rhyme in Farsi? ---------------------- What would the catapult look like? Wired News: Boeing Converts 737 Into Bomber is an interesting story directed to me by an Alert Reader who wished to follow up on the weekend’s post about Taiwan and China’s new submarine. He says that it is difficult to imagine a 737 landing on an aircraft carrier. This is true, but who knows? Chester does not possess enough expertise in jet propulsion to say if this could happen. Perhaps in the future we could examine the vulnerabilities of sea-basing and “expeditionary maneuver warfare” to the growing submarine forces of the third-world. ----------------------- Some Historical Sources As things heat up in Northeast and East Asia, it might be useful to learn a little more about some past conflicts there -- especially those that aren't as well-known as Korea or WWII. So here's some links to: The First Sino-Japanese War The Russo-Japanese War on Wikipedia The Russo-Japanese War Research Society ---------------------- Could it be that Japan is attempting to bolster its military prestige abroad by committing troops to Iraq, and not just to cememt ties with the US? When Iraq is a stable, well-functioning democracy, quite a bit of political capital will have been earned by those nations that contributed. Japan is certainly not afraid to do its share, though its citizens are not fans. See also: Japan's defence chief upbeat on security in Iraq. Oh, and Japan is thinking of occupying a barren island, just as an outpost to deter China. ----------------------