Picture of the Day: Russian Naval Deployments

The best Russian language Navy blog on the internet is U-96. I would split a fifth of vodka with that guy any day, hopefully with him telling story after story. His blog is smart, interesting, and informed... exactly the way I like them. Today this graphic he produced regarding current Russian Naval activity represents the picture of the day.


Background here, which based on his commentary, may have been what spurred him to produce the graphic.

Nice Choice Gov

As an upstate New Yorker, let me voice my rarely vocal political opinion that Governor Patterson has made the right choice with Kirsten Gillibrand. From Albany Times Union:

Here’s what we know for sure: Gov. David Paterson will finally reveal his choice to replace Hillary Clinton in the U.S. Senate at noon today.

While there’s nothing official about who will be standing next to him at the Capitol, strong signs are pointing in the direction of U.S. Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-Greenport.

While Gillibrand’s spokeswoman denied any contact between Gillibrand and Paterson throughout the day Thursday, a highly placed Democratic source said that members of New York’s Congressional delegation were briefed Thursday afternoon that Gillibrand will be named.

Attorney General Andrew Cuomo would have been a good choice, but this is a great choice in my opinion. The media is running around asking why. Here is why. Next year this Senate seat will go to election, and by putting her in this position, she will never lose it, ever. Cuomo carried only 58% of the state vote in a deep blue state, Gillibrand carried a red district with 58%. She is smarter than her public charm presents, and she is not only well liked, but she relates well with people in a way that doesn't smell politik. She is serious about family, serious about jobs, and has always demonstrated to her constituency that she is serious about her job of representing them. It does annoy my very progressive friends that she gets a 100% NRA rating, which by the way, doesn't bother me at all. I've met her several occasions, and have nothing but good things to say about her.

Expect outrage from the city folk. I noticed Wayne Barrett is going nuts, but the good professor needs to put his rolling papers away. Nobody who spends any serious time in Albany sees it odd when a family has close ties to one party and switches to another, indeed I smell your elitist attitude when the thesis suggests "political family" roots aren't sufficient enough to represent New Yorkers in government. When the government family tree begins looking like a stick, for example Bush 41 and Bush 43, perhaps it is time to bring in new genes. It is also odd to suggest someone with very thin ties to Joe Bruno is out of the ordinary. Get a clue man, everyone in state politics on both sides of politics has thin ties to Joe Bruno, he was the most powerful politician in this state for decades.

Kirsten Gillibrand has been on the HASC for the last two years, and represented herself very well there. Senator Clinton has been on the Senate Armed Services Committee over the last several years, in theory Kirsten should be able to walk into that position and hold her own, assuming she gets that assignment.

I know, this isn't a political blog blah blah, and while this might be something you see on TV news, this decision is a lot closer to home for me.

Very Interesting Russian "Soft Power" Strategic View

Matt Armstrong has found a gem of an article. I do not jest when I suggest in the hands of someone clever this article could fuel talk radio shows on either side of the political isle for a month. This is a really interesting Russian analysis of how to attack the United States with soft power.

I will ask up front that you please not be the asshole in the comments who suggests this Russian analysis is targeting just liberals or conservatives, because if you read it in full you will learn it is very thorough in exploiting the political tendencies of both sides of the political spectrum.

This is a short summary of the post by Paul Goble on Window of Eurasia regarding the article.

Having discovered that economic power does not immediately translate into political influence and may in fact alienate those it is supposed to attract, the Russian government needs to identify new ways to influence the West but finding that its options are not nearly as good as many in Moscow had thought, according to a Russian analyst.

And the most effective way to do that, Andrey Pronin writes in an essay posted today on a Moscow State University portal that has often served as a source of foreign policy ideas for the Russian government, is for Russia to deploy what he calls its "soft force" against American "soft power".

"In the 1940s and 1950s," the Moscow analyst continues, "a significant part of the most respectable Western intelligentsia held leftist views and openly sympathized with the USSR, and English aristocrats worked for Soviet intelligence services on the basis of their convictions in this regard."

Today, he says, Russia needs to find "allies interested in itself within America" and to "form a pro-Russian lobby, a circle of influential people who respect and support Russia and who will exert an ever greater pressure on the political establishment of the United States" on behalf of Moscow. ...

Moscow needs allies, and the two most obvious ones are India and China, neither of whom Pronin suggests is comfortable with American-style globalization. If such a "union of the three giants" is formed, he concludes, Russia will occupy the leading role of a scientific and innovative center and the developer of humanitarian technologies and standards."

There are some money quotes in Andrey Pronin's paper. This paragraph is just a sample.

The situation in American society favors the implementation of these plans. In many ways the United States today is reminiscent of the Soviet Union period of stagnation under Brezhnev. Militarism, foreign adventures, attacks on freedom of speech and human rights, censorship, the presence of the official ideology are evident. Multinational and multiracial American society does not have a common history and defines itself in terms of ideology, which is a more fragile foundation of national unity, rather than a common culture and history that binds cultures. If you choose to continue the comparison, the U.S., as in the Soviet Union, should be a peaceful ideological and cultural revolution. The challenge for Russia is to give impetus and direction to the process. Russia should contribute to the U.S. situation in a way similar to how the US promoted the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union, namely by injecting quarrel into the most creative layer of Soviet intellectuals with Brezhnev nomenclature. Russia needs to formulate such a cultural project that, first, develops influence over American intellectuals, and secondly, leverages against the American political system that is out of balance, and split the American artistic and intellectual elite in power.

In other words:

• Exploit the worlds global perception of America against America
  
• Exploit sympathy within American intellectual and artistic communities
• Exploit diversity as an unbinding individualism rather than binding common interest
  
• Exploit the ideological partisan political divide to create a disenfranchised American political culture

The paper goes on to form a high level strategy of building an environment in Russia favorable to American intellectuals by exploiting the ideological divides in the American education system. One such example cited is the education divisions found between human science and religion, but another divide is how creativity is becoming more limited in US education due to how education leaders are exercising ideological control along partisan political divisions in creative debate. The aim appears to be to court the elites who dominate education to help shape the information studied by younger generations while dividing the elites and religious Americans. Russia sees religion as a source of weakness in America, and is looking for allies among Americans who believe this as to promote further divisions between religious Americans and non-religious American elites and artists.

The paper suggests building a unified "soft force" strategy with India and China so together the three nations can beat back what is labeled a failed western neo-liberal globalization economic model, so a new model can be reinvented in a form more favorable to Russia.

I believe the paper qualifies as a must read, and I admit doing it an injustice by not translating the whole thing. There is already a bit of intellectual commentary on the paper among Russian bloggers and elites, much of which is interesting as well. Hopefully, someone will translate the whole thing into English, because it deserves study and further intellectual discussion.

Another Iranian Military Milestone

I think something got lost in translation.

Iranian technical university student Hassan Sharifzadeh drafted a new reconnaissance submarine that can avoid radar detection, the Iranian Fars news agency said.

No crew will man the submarine which will be controlled remotely.

The submarine can reach a depth of up to 8 meters and carry 8 kilograms of explosives to place near enemy positions. A SIM card connects the controller to the submarine.

The submarine also makes photos and videos and sends the data to the control center, Sharifzadeh said.

I don't know about you, but the idea of a submarine being able to avoid "radar" made me laugh out loud. I also laughed when I saw the photo in the article.

This is serious and noteworthy though, the development of unmanned vehicles by Iran is serious business, after all, this stuff can be deployed from any vessel at sea and perform operations anywhere in the world. This is a good example where the lines between MIW and ASW are becoming blurred, and will create significant irregular warfare challenges at sea as a capability the US Navy must deal with. Is the Navy developing capabilities in the MIW and ASW space to locate and neutralize small unmanned underwater vehicles? Maybe we should first start by asking what kind of priority MIW gets period, and work from there.

Keep in mind, if Iran can export anti-ship missiles to Hezbollah, they can certainly export this type of equipment to a nonstate actor as well.

Brilliant Somali Pirate Analysis

Read it in either French or English. This is a brilliant summary of what naval power has been doing off Somalia.