Geopolitics / China – The Great Leap Backward?

Posted on by

Foreign Affairs – China’s environmental woes are mounting, and the country is fast becoming one of the leading polluters in the world. The situation continues to deteriorate because even when Beijing sets ambitious targets to protect the environment, local officials generally ignore them, preferring to concentrate on further advancing economic growth. Really improving the environment in China will require revolutionary bottom-up political and economic reforms.
more…

Indian Navy – India building nuclear sub, says top scientist

Posted on by

Guardian – India has kept its efforts to build a nuclear submarine under wraps for more than 30 years, but a top Indian scientist has confirmed that the ongoing project at the Kalpakkam nuclear facility near Chennai to develop a nuclear reactor fuelled by enriched uranium was in fact intended to power the country’s first indigenously built submarine.
more…

Geopolitics / Grand Strategy – Grand Strategy for a Divided America

Posted on by

Foreign Affairs – Deep divisions at home about the nature of the United States’ engagement with the world threaten to produce failed leadership abroad — and possibly isolationism. To steady U.S. global leadership and restore consensus to U.S. foreign policy, U.S. commitments overseas must be scaled back to a more politically sustainable level.
more…

US Marines – Marines Dispute Accounts of Excessive Force in Afghans' Deaths

Posted on by

New York Times – When a suicide bomber struck a convoy carrying special operations marines along a highway in northeastern Afghanistan in March, the blast killed one bystander and wounded one marine and three Afghans in a nearby vehicle, a military police report said.

What came next – a lethal response by the Marine platoon along a seven-mile stretch of road that American military commanders say killed about a dozen civilians – caused outrage among Afghan villagers and criticism from high-ranking Afghan officials about the rising civilian toll in American military operations.

But as a Marine general is mulling whether to bring charges against a handful of the 30 Americans involved in the episode, lawyers for two of the marines, including a company commander riding in the convoy, are disputing the official military and Afghan descriptions of their actions that morning.
more…