Push Button Warfare

The future of warfare may well be cheaper in manpower terms, as budget cuts bite, but it will probably be smarter and more hi-tech ....

 US Army Video Of Laser Tests

War Machines

In most Sci-Fi movies these days, the humans face at least one android or robot in combat (usually the human wins) e.g. 2001 - A Space Odyssey (HAL 9000), 'The Terminator' series, 'Attack of the Clones', 'Cyborg', 'Screamers', 'Universal Soldiers', 'IRobot', and 'Soldier' to name but a few. There are also the mandroids (part organic intelligence, in machine bodies), with villains such as the 'Daleks', 'Cybermen', and the 'Borg'

Well it appears that the days when this may come true are getting ever closer, with the use of war drones in Pakistan / Afghanistan, and pilot-less war-planes being trialled as I write. In fact, apparently over 70 countries world wide now have some sort of military drone or robot developments under way, and this includes Iran and North Korea.

This has worried some anti war campaigners, who rather strangely believe that this development is somehow more terrifying, than what's currently going on places such as Syria, Iraq, and Pakistan .... that somehow being killed by a robot or drone, is somehow more terrible than when a human does the killing face to face (so to speak).

Daleks Invasion of Earth - who needs the Terminator?

I beg to differ with this viewpoint ... robots are not cruel 'per se', they simply follow the orders they were programmed with .... the human killers operating in places like Syria, Iraq, and Pakistan, will not just kill, but will torture as well .... and worst of all, they also enjoy it.

The Dear Leader Plays With Fire (Again)

North Korea is back to sabre rattling again ...... this week its firing shells at the sea border with South Korea, and once again its holding a couple of US citizens for spying.

Its hard to see how one day the North Koreans are not going to misjudge one of these bouts of aggression and trigger a major conflagration.

Its also hard to understand why some US citizens appear to truly believe that they can't be hurt while crossing into this terrible regime. Its impossible to believe that sooner or later one of these idiots will not find themselves facing a firing squad or thirty years in a salt mine.

This is a very dangerous part of the world and we may wake up to a nuclear war has erupted in this region unless the madman regime of the 'Dear Leader' isn't curbed.

Its "Official" Mrs Clinton is "Not Intelligent"

As has been discussed, the North Koreans, are nothing if not consistent in their insults of foreign leaders...... in the line this week was Hilary Clinton who was described as "not intelligent", which was pretty mild for them, for saying that North Korea no longer had any supporters for their nuclear stance.

But they warmed to the theme and later a spokesman in Pyongyang described Mrs Clinton as a "funny lady" in response to Mrs Clinton's comments that North Korea's behaviour was like that of an unruly child.

He then went on to say "Her words suggest that she is by no means intelligent," the spokesman said, quoted by state news agency KCNA. Sometimes she looks like a primary schoolgirl and sometimes a pensioner going shopping. Anyone making misstatements has to pay for them."

Translating the Sublime and the Ridiculous

Still on a North Korean theme, there is now much study in South Korea of the 'insult' rate of the North Koreans towards the Southern President.

"Your All Sirry Idiots ...."

The count is recently claimed by a government official to be more than 1,700 times this year alone. That is an average of 10 insults a day.

These threats and insults range from the simply ridiculous "stooge" or "lackey" to the more terrifying. Last year, for example, it threatened to reduce South Korea "to ashes" and, more recently, warned of a "fire shower" of nuclear retaliation.

However, as this article points out, all may not be as it seems, and a North Korean defector said that "It is a unique aspect of socialist societies in general. People learn to use this kind of strong language, even in everyday life. It is instilled into society. People are too used to it. They learn to read between the lines for the real meaning, and the often repeated words like 'war' don't even register."

That's a relief then ...

The 'Holy Land' burns once again

Sadly, there are reports that Israel has made good on its threats to Hamas and attacked the Gaza strip ..... the 'Holy Land' in flames again. There will one day be an Armageddon there, mark my words...... oh hang on, the 'end of times' gig is already booked for there, and coming sooner than the next millennium or rapture by the look of it.

If Iran ever gets its nuclear weapons, aided by the Russians, Chinese (and no doubt the French), there will likely be a small(ish) but still very nasty nuclear war, leaving some areas of the Middle East largely uninhabitable and with no possible winners. Certainly whats left (if anything) of Israel, the Palestinians, Jordanians and Syrians will have little to be happy about.... Iran will have been laid to nuclear waste.

Hopefully common sense will break out, and there won't be a nuclear war there or anywhere in the world (although India and Pakistan are rattling nuclear sabres at each other again), but there are no signs of this "common sense outbreak" at the moment.

One thing is for sure, there will be at least one nuclear war one day, the slow but inevitable spread of such weapons means that someone will be mad enough to use them, and the chances are that it will be some lunatic who believes that "God or Allah", is waiting to greet the one who uses a nuclear weapon in his name ..... Iran and others in that region have a large number of such thinkers, so .......

If you want to see the effects of one smallish nuclear weapon, and its fallout, go here and select your target of choice e.g Jerusalem. Click on map to place explosion site in region. Only a dozen or so smaller war heads on or near Israel, will end both it and many of the surrounding countries forever.

Of course there are always some people who believe that they can survive a nuclear war, or that at least they can isolate themselves from the consequences of such a conflict ..... the silliness of that idea can be illustrated nicely like this ....

Yemen runs dry

I am away in Italy for a while so these are a couple of quick comments ....

Yemen Droughts

..... firstly water wars. I have blogged before about the collapse of the Ecosystem and our closeness to "water wars".

Georgia actions linked to Kosovo

I blogged recently that South Ossetia is Kosovo's bastard child and yesterday Russian Nationalist MP's confirmed it, by stating that "South Ossetia and Abkhazia had more rights to become recognised nations than Kosovo", which declared independence from Serbia earlier this year with support from the US and much of the European Union.

And in fact the link had been made in the Caucuses last January, when the Kososvo decision was being considered by the EU and US. Russia repeated this warning in February, and so we should not be surprised by what has now happened, certainly this blogger isn't - see our discussion of December 2007 .

The die has been cast for another round of wars in both the Balkans and the Caucuses, by these Russian declarations of support for separatist ethnic movements, just when these two benighted regions, looked to have a good democratic future in the EU.

PC politics by Western politicians will never replace "Realpolitik" in the world.