Hey readers!
So some of you may have recently heard about some nasty goings on in northern Iraq involving an organisation known as Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant. Confusingly acronym-ed as ISIS. (Because technically it stands for Islamic State in Iraq and Al-Sham or occasionally Syria.) This particular group of individuals have swept across many of the northern cities of Iraq apparently uncontested with Iraqi forces fleeing, surrendering or defecting in droves.
Anyway, in the media lately there has been extensive coverage of this, as well as a heck of a lot of blame being tossed around the place. It's Bush's fault! It's Blair's fault! Iraq 2003! Etc etc etc. The reality of the situation is, unsurprisingly enough, somewhat more complicated than that. While yes, 11 years ago the US, the UK, and many partner nations did end up invading Iraq and in the process dismantled local security forces, over the next 8 years coalition forces spent a great deal of time, effort and money rebuilding those forces. Equipping the new Iraqi army with refurbished armoured vehicles, new small arms and personal protective gear. As well as a new officer candidate school based around the British Sandhurst system. What all of these preparations couldn't account for though, was the sheer depth of corruption within the Iraqi establishment and an extremely bloody civil war erupting just over Iraq's northern border.
What ISIS have done is quite remarkable, they saw an opportunity and seized it. To use an American turn of phrase the Iraqi security forces were caught with their pants down. Efforts to mount an offensive to retake the captured areas are now in the early phases with the bulk of the forces involved being Iraqi troops and Shia (or Shi'ite depending on how you choose to spell it) militia. (ISIS is a Sunni organisation) the United States may be providing air support and forward observer teams to direct the strikes (although not quite yet, the White House is dithering slightly, but there is a carrier group sitting ready and waiting) and the Iranian Quds force (Republican Guard Special Forces) has committed 2,000 of its members to the cause as well! Yes you read that right. The most hard line defenders of the Islamic Republic of Iran may well end up fighting alongside Iraqi troops and American advisors against a terrorist organisation. The UK has even made steps to re-open it's embassy in Tehran, never underestimate the ability of a crisis to bring former foes together. No one ever said that playing 'The Great Game' wasn't cynical...
This whole situation is a mess, it came as a complete surprise to everyone, the response has been as confused and frantic as any I've ever seen. The usual platitudes of condemnation have emerged form the expected sources. But what is surprising is the shock and anger behind many of them. The UN has even evacuated much of it's staff to Jordan out of concern and even went as far to appeal for 'Iraqi unity' in the face of the crisis. Given the prevalent sectarian and tribal divides the beset the country that's a grand statement to make.
I apologise for the somewhat sloppy nature of this post but currently the situation is really this confused. Until further details emerge and more definite action is taken there's not a great deal of analysis I can offer. Point of fact however is that the blame for this cannot solely, or even largely be placed at the feet of the 2003 invasion and subsequent occupation. There are far too many factors and moving parts for it to be broken down that simplistically.
One thing is certain though, you can always count on the Middle East to cause headaches for everyone who works, or is even remotely interested in international security.
Thanks for reading.
Wheelchairman2
Thursday, 26 June 2014
Sunday, 1 June 2014
Solar Roadways: A Bright Future? Probably Not.
Hey Readers,
So over the past few days there's been a video floating around Facebook and various other social media outlets. One of those ones that says 'Oh my god you have to watch this!' without actually telling you what it is. Which irritated me of course, I hate those kinds of things, BUT I will admit that once somebody actually explained what it was about when they posted it piqued my interest. Solar Roadways. Exactly what it says on the tin, roads and other similar surfaces, made out of smart solar panels. With heating elements, LED lighting, tons and tons of bells and whistles.
Here's the video:
Wow, what an amazing idea! Right? Right guys? Well yeah it is, it's fantastic, on the surface. However examine the issue a little closer and some cracks start to appear. Not really with the technology itself; more with the myriad difficulties in implementing it on a scale as suggested by the video. The problems themselves aren't even singular issues, they're all interconnected in a horrifying web of pitfalls and traps.
For starters there's the sheer scale of the idea. Eventually replacing the entirety of the U.S road network with this system. Now I know that they're not suggesting doing it all at once, but even so nothing on this scale has been attempted since the construction of the interstate highway network back in the 50s. (Which was actually done in order to make it easer to shift large military resources by road during the Cold War.) That was complex enough and all that required was a few hundred million tonnes of poured concrete and asphalt. This scheme requires a hell of a lot more than that. Then there's the cost. According to a study conducted in November 2003 by the Federal Highways Administration (FHWA) the cost of building just normal roads is astronomical. Adjusted to 2006 dollars the costs are (according to a report by Rails to Trails, an organisation dedicated to turning disused rail lines into hiking trails or something, I dunno I googled this and their report was the most easily interpreted source.)
Where was I? Oh yes the costs. Right, so for one mile, of one lane of a standard four lane highway in a rural area in 2006 dollars could cost between $3.1 million to $9.1 million. In urban areas that cost increases to $4.9-19.5 million per lane mile. In more extreme cases such as major cities it can cost between 16.8-74.7 million dollars per lane mile. I'm talking about standard roads here, concrete and asphalt. Those costs were for eight years ago, adjusted for inflation they're probably a lot higher now. Again I must stress, that's for standard boring highways. Looking on the Solar Roadways indiegogo site, the individuals behind it haven't actually calculated a production level cost yet, but given the complexity of the components, I doubt it's going to come cheap. All of a sudden that $2 million the indiegogo campaign looks set to generate doesn't look like all that much does it?
Then there's the jobs angle, will this create jobs? Yes. Will it also make people lose their jobs? The answer to that is also yes. The video mentions for example: LED created road markings, what about highway maintentence folks who paint the road markings today? Or the people who fill in those potholes that won't be a problem anymore? Oh sure you'll need to hire people to program the LEDs, replace any damaged panels, but both of those jobs will likely require substantial amounts of expertise. Expertise individuals working for highway maintenence currently; most likely lack. So a few menial workers lose their jobs, oh well sacrifices have to be made in order for change to take place. Correct, but the job problem doesn't end there, the video also mentions heated roadways thus negating the need for snowploughs etc. Not an issue in southerly states most of the time, but above the snowline in America, winter preparedness is a huge industry. Now do you think for a second that the companies, with contracts to provide winter preparedness services to state and local level government, are going to sit idly by as their road network is replaced by a system wherein their services are no longer required? No, which means lobbyists, which means maybe hinting to your state representatives in D.C. and local politicians as well that if they vote to approve the replacement of the road network, perhaps their company and affiliates will be forced to withdraw their support for your next election campaign. Too bad.
Then, there's the energy question. The video states that, if the entire U.S. road network were to be replaced with these Solar Roadways, it would generate 3x more energy than America consumes. Amazing! Wow! Except for one major problem. Storing surplus electrical energy is really really REALLY hard. Metal based battteries? Too inefficient and an environemental nightmare, there is emerging technology that could solve this like graphene batteres and liquid oxygen storage but again they are not cheap or simple solutions. They're also largely untested. Also, what are you going to do with that surplus energy even if you do manage to store it? Sell it? How it's not like gas or oil where you can just pipe it or ship it somewhere else. It's not going to be a profit centre for anybody.
For example, the largest provider of electricity in the U.S. by customer volume is Pacific Gas and Electric, or PG&E. It serves over 5 million customers to almost two thirds of California (the most populous state in the U.S.) and the border areas of Oregon. In 2011 it generated $14.956 billion dollars in revenue, had an operating income of $1.942 billion, a net income of $858 million and total assets coming close to $50 billion. They own nuclear plants, gas pipelines and various other parts of the energy infrastructure in the State. They're a powerful actor politically speaking. They'll have a lot of pull at various levels and they would not want to see their power stations shut down over some fancy high-tech roads thank you very much. How are the solar roadways going to work in this regard anyway? At what level with the energy production be managed? And by whom? Say PG&E were approached and were told. "hey, you can manage this part of the road network and charge for energy produced by it." Ok great, "But first you have to decomission all of your generating stations and lay a hell of a lot of people off." Not so great. The cost of decomissioning a power station is mind boggling, Especially nuclear facilities, current U.S. estimates stand at $325 million per reactor, a decomissioning of a relatively small reactor in France has cost over 480 million Euros (20x the original estimates.) The E.U. Commission estimates that over the next two decades, the decomissioning of all 150 current reactors would cost at least 150 billion Euros. The U.S. has 104 with 5 more currently under construction.
All of this is just a snapshot, this doesn't factor in oil revenue, shale gas production, coal, wood, biomass, wind, hydroelectric, etc. Energy is an enormous sector and while in theory this is a great idea, in practice it's simply not a practical solution.
It's not all bad news though, I do believe that this technology will see some use only on a limited scale. Play parks, public spaces, car parks, outdoor sports courts could all very feasibly use this tech. The United States Military will doubtless be very interested in this technology also, hard wearing easily replaceable energy producing road surfaces? That has a lot of potential for use in overseas military bases, particularly in combat zones were local power grids are unreliable. It'd be a heck of a lot more efficient than relying of fuel powered generators, less of a logistical nightmare too. Supply lines cut? Less of a worry now because at least base systems and communications won't be at risk of running out of juice. Other more foward thinking areas of the U.S. will probably adopt Solar Roadways too, San Fransisco, Portland, Seattle and various other environmentally concious towns. Europe, particularly Western Europe, may be somewhat receptive to the idea as well but frankly I cannot see this being implemented on a large scale any time in the near future. As much of a shame as that is. The politics are just far too complex, the vested interest far too entrenched.
Thanks for reading,
Wheelchairman2
So over the past few days there's been a video floating around Facebook and various other social media outlets. One of those ones that says 'Oh my god you have to watch this!' without actually telling you what it is. Which irritated me of course, I hate those kinds of things, BUT I will admit that once somebody actually explained what it was about when they posted it piqued my interest. Solar Roadways. Exactly what it says on the tin, roads and other similar surfaces, made out of smart solar panels. With heating elements, LED lighting, tons and tons of bells and whistles.
Here's the video:
Wow, what an amazing idea! Right? Right guys? Well yeah it is, it's fantastic, on the surface. However examine the issue a little closer and some cracks start to appear. Not really with the technology itself; more with the myriad difficulties in implementing it on a scale as suggested by the video. The problems themselves aren't even singular issues, they're all interconnected in a horrifying web of pitfalls and traps.
For starters there's the sheer scale of the idea. Eventually replacing the entirety of the U.S road network with this system. Now I know that they're not suggesting doing it all at once, but even so nothing on this scale has been attempted since the construction of the interstate highway network back in the 50s. (Which was actually done in order to make it easer to shift large military resources by road during the Cold War.) That was complex enough and all that required was a few hundred million tonnes of poured concrete and asphalt. This scheme requires a hell of a lot more than that. Then there's the cost. According to a study conducted in November 2003 by the Federal Highways Administration (FHWA) the cost of building just normal roads is astronomical. Adjusted to 2006 dollars the costs are (according to a report by Rails to Trails, an organisation dedicated to turning disused rail lines into hiking trails or something, I dunno I googled this and their report was the most easily interpreted source.)
Where was I? Oh yes the costs. Right, so for one mile, of one lane of a standard four lane highway in a rural area in 2006 dollars could cost between $3.1 million to $9.1 million. In urban areas that cost increases to $4.9-19.5 million per lane mile. In more extreme cases such as major cities it can cost between 16.8-74.7 million dollars per lane mile. I'm talking about standard roads here, concrete and asphalt. Those costs were for eight years ago, adjusted for inflation they're probably a lot higher now. Again I must stress, that's for standard boring highways. Looking on the Solar Roadways indiegogo site, the individuals behind it haven't actually calculated a production level cost yet, but given the complexity of the components, I doubt it's going to come cheap. All of a sudden that $2 million the indiegogo campaign looks set to generate doesn't look like all that much does it?
Then there's the jobs angle, will this create jobs? Yes. Will it also make people lose their jobs? The answer to that is also yes. The video mentions for example: LED created road markings, what about highway maintentence folks who paint the road markings today? Or the people who fill in those potholes that won't be a problem anymore? Oh sure you'll need to hire people to program the LEDs, replace any damaged panels, but both of those jobs will likely require substantial amounts of expertise. Expertise individuals working for highway maintenence currently; most likely lack. So a few menial workers lose their jobs, oh well sacrifices have to be made in order for change to take place. Correct, but the job problem doesn't end there, the video also mentions heated roadways thus negating the need for snowploughs etc. Not an issue in southerly states most of the time, but above the snowline in America, winter preparedness is a huge industry. Now do you think for a second that the companies, with contracts to provide winter preparedness services to state and local level government, are going to sit idly by as their road network is replaced by a system wherein their services are no longer required? No, which means lobbyists, which means maybe hinting to your state representatives in D.C. and local politicians as well that if they vote to approve the replacement of the road network, perhaps their company and affiliates will be forced to withdraw their support for your next election campaign. Too bad.
Then, there's the energy question. The video states that, if the entire U.S. road network were to be replaced with these Solar Roadways, it would generate 3x more energy than America consumes. Amazing! Wow! Except for one major problem. Storing surplus electrical energy is really really REALLY hard. Metal based battteries? Too inefficient and an environemental nightmare, there is emerging technology that could solve this like graphene batteres and liquid oxygen storage but again they are not cheap or simple solutions. They're also largely untested. Also, what are you going to do with that surplus energy even if you do manage to store it? Sell it? How it's not like gas or oil where you can just pipe it or ship it somewhere else. It's not going to be a profit centre for anybody.
For example, the largest provider of electricity in the U.S. by customer volume is Pacific Gas and Electric, or PG&E. It serves over 5 million customers to almost two thirds of California (the most populous state in the U.S.) and the border areas of Oregon. In 2011 it generated $14.956 billion dollars in revenue, had an operating income of $1.942 billion, a net income of $858 million and total assets coming close to $50 billion. They own nuclear plants, gas pipelines and various other parts of the energy infrastructure in the State. They're a powerful actor politically speaking. They'll have a lot of pull at various levels and they would not want to see their power stations shut down over some fancy high-tech roads thank you very much. How are the solar roadways going to work in this regard anyway? At what level with the energy production be managed? And by whom? Say PG&E were approached and were told. "hey, you can manage this part of the road network and charge for energy produced by it." Ok great, "But first you have to decomission all of your generating stations and lay a hell of a lot of people off." Not so great. The cost of decomissioning a power station is mind boggling, Especially nuclear facilities, current U.S. estimates stand at $325 million per reactor, a decomissioning of a relatively small reactor in France has cost over 480 million Euros (20x the original estimates.) The E.U. Commission estimates that over the next two decades, the decomissioning of all 150 current reactors would cost at least 150 billion Euros. The U.S. has 104 with 5 more currently under construction.
All of this is just a snapshot, this doesn't factor in oil revenue, shale gas production, coal, wood, biomass, wind, hydroelectric, etc. Energy is an enormous sector and while in theory this is a great idea, in practice it's simply not a practical solution.
It's not all bad news though, I do believe that this technology will see some use only on a limited scale. Play parks, public spaces, car parks, outdoor sports courts could all very feasibly use this tech. The United States Military will doubtless be very interested in this technology also, hard wearing easily replaceable energy producing road surfaces? That has a lot of potential for use in overseas military bases, particularly in combat zones were local power grids are unreliable. It'd be a heck of a lot more efficient than relying of fuel powered generators, less of a logistical nightmare too. Supply lines cut? Less of a worry now because at least base systems and communications won't be at risk of running out of juice. Other more foward thinking areas of the U.S. will probably adopt Solar Roadways too, San Fransisco, Portland, Seattle and various other environmentally concious towns. Europe, particularly Western Europe, may be somewhat receptive to the idea as well but frankly I cannot see this being implemented on a large scale any time in the near future. As much of a shame as that is. The politics are just far too complex, the vested interest far too entrenched.
Thanks for reading,
Wheelchairman2
Friday, 9 May 2014
I'm back! For now. Also, we should probably talk about Russia...
Oh hello there everybody.
It's been a long time hasn't it? How long ? Over a year you say? Good lord i'm sorry about that. To the 20 or so people who used to frequently read my stuff... I apologise profusely. I've had a lot going on over the last 13 or so months but oddly enough not much of it is worth writing about. I got my degree though! Yay! But I can't find a job. Boo. So here I am, whiling away the minutes and hours once more, tapping away at a keyboard trying to make sense of this ridiculous planet we call Earth. Or, to be more precise, the people in it and their behaviour.
So we begin.
Far to the east, a great land known as Russia is... well lets face it, behaving extremely unpleasantly towards one of its largest neighbours, why? Ah ha well therein lies the meat of this post. Settle in dear reader and allow me to illuminate you. It started all those months ago, with the Ukranian riots and presidential crisis. Old Viktor Yanukovych, the now former president of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republi... I mean Ukraine, was pretty pro Russia see? By pro Russia I of course mean pro Putin. But those are essentially one and the same these days. So while he was in the big chair, everything was fine and dandy as far as the Kremlin was concerned. No meddlesome EU or NATO presences in Ukraine threatening Russia's ever shrinking sphere of influence. How unfortunate then, that the new bunch of guys, ostensibly led by Oleksandr Turchynov and Arseniy Yatsenyuk, (don't you just love Eastern European names?) Aren't. At all. In fact those lads and their mates are pretty keen on the whole EU/NATO thing. I guess crumbling socialist infrastructure projects and faded murals just don't have the charm they once did. Of course this sets alarm bells ringing in Red Square. Crimea, a rather large, semi-autonomous region of Ukraine, is home to the Russian Black Sea Fleet. A small but reasonably powerful naval contingient - if a little decrepit by western standards - and also Russia's only real means of potentially projecting power into the Mediterranian Sea. (Albiet through the Straits of Bosphorous which is potentially awkward but the point still stands.) Anyway Russia REALLY didn't want to lose that, a reasonable fear by all accounts, but instead of entering into a dialogue about it and discussing the issue like big grown up countries are supposed to. They went old school and annexed it. With Spetznaz. Gotta give them style points for that I suppose, it was very slick but not very well disguised. 'Pro Russian militia' don't arrive in Ural transport trucks and Hind Helicopters wearing modern body armour and masks.. Unless they're extraordinairily well funded.
Still, that was that, Crimea is now Russian again. Of course according to many Russians and ethnic Russians within the Crimea/Eastern Ukraine, it always should have been and this is all fine. After all, they've had a refferendum and everything now haven't they? Well sure they did. But let me ask you this? If you were anti-Russian and you were going to vote 'no', but a highly trained soldier from a foreign power, the very power you're going to vote against as it happens - was standing on the corner of your street. Would you? I doubt it. Still, very little can be done at this point. Flags have been raised, the soldiers are very well dug in and on the surface things appear to have calmed. At least there. The ongoing situation in Eastern Ukraine is a little more fluid. The interim Ukrainian government has decided enough is enough and started to push back against various groups that siezed several towns in Eastern mainland Ukraine. There have been clashes and casualties have resulted from them on both sides, but the level of conflict remains very low. The real problem here is there is suggestion that some of the pro-Russian agitators are in fact not ethnic Russians from Ukraine, but actual Russians.
So why is Russia continuing to push? Well, frankly, it's because they can. Realistically there is absolutely nothing anyone, not least the Western powers, can really do about this. Sure we can slap the Russian elite with a sanction or two, but that isn't going to change the picture militarily. This is actually a pretty common pattern of behaviour for Russia, particularly in the Putin era. Whenever there is unrest within their former borders they sieze upon the opportunity to not only protect, but expand their interests. The Georgia/South Ossetia/Azbhakia conflict being the most recent other example.
Why can't we do anything? That's even simpler - the very systems and structures in put in place half a century ago to stop Russia and the West lighting the world on fire... are stopping them from lighting the world on fire. Ironically this means that up to a point, Russia can stomp around in its former back yard with near impunity. Everybody is afraid of escalation and rightly so. Ukranian's military power isn't insignificant, but it is less than that of its larger neighbour. Additionally, with it's civillian government still in a transitional phase, the military of Ukraine isn't exactly at its most cohesive. A lot of people don't realise just how much Armies and such rely on a stable civilian government. Supplies are arranged through procurement agreements negotiated by... you guessed it! Now guess who Ukraine's biggest arms supplier has been for decades. Go on, I'll wait... There you go! As interesting an intellecutal exercise it is to imagine two former Eastern bloc countries go toe to toe, the result is rather predictable. However I doubt the issue will be pushed that far. A full scale clash would draw much more unwanted attention. Remember that fear of escalation I meantioned? That fear only goes so far. How things will turn out eventually is impossible to truly predict. Recent news seems to indicate that Russia might be turning down the dial now, after flirting with the abyss too many times in one quarter for everybody's tastes, but a match has been lit. Whether or not it ends with singed fingers or a huge blaze remains to be seen.
Thanks for reading (and your paitience)
Wheelchairman2
It's been a long time hasn't it? How long ? Over a year you say? Good lord i'm sorry about that. To the 20 or so people who used to frequently read my stuff... I apologise profusely. I've had a lot going on over the last 13 or so months but oddly enough not much of it is worth writing about. I got my degree though! Yay! But I can't find a job. Boo. So here I am, whiling away the minutes and hours once more, tapping away at a keyboard trying to make sense of this ridiculous planet we call Earth. Or, to be more precise, the people in it and their behaviour.
So we begin.
Far to the east, a great land known as Russia is... well lets face it, behaving extremely unpleasantly towards one of its largest neighbours, why? Ah ha well therein lies the meat of this post. Settle in dear reader and allow me to illuminate you. It started all those months ago, with the Ukranian riots and presidential crisis. Old Viktor Yanukovych, the now former president of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republi... I mean Ukraine, was pretty pro Russia see? By pro Russia I of course mean pro Putin. But those are essentially one and the same these days. So while he was in the big chair, everything was fine and dandy as far as the Kremlin was concerned. No meddlesome EU or NATO presences in Ukraine threatening Russia's ever shrinking sphere of influence. How unfortunate then, that the new bunch of guys, ostensibly led by Oleksandr Turchynov and Arseniy Yatsenyuk, (don't you just love Eastern European names?) Aren't. At all. In fact those lads and their mates are pretty keen on the whole EU/NATO thing. I guess crumbling socialist infrastructure projects and faded murals just don't have the charm they once did. Of course this sets alarm bells ringing in Red Square. Crimea, a rather large, semi-autonomous region of Ukraine, is home to the Russian Black Sea Fleet. A small but reasonably powerful naval contingient - if a little decrepit by western standards - and also Russia's only real means of potentially projecting power into the Mediterranian Sea. (Albiet through the Straits of Bosphorous which is potentially awkward but the point still stands.) Anyway Russia REALLY didn't want to lose that, a reasonable fear by all accounts, but instead of entering into a dialogue about it and discussing the issue like big grown up countries are supposed to. They went old school and annexed it. With Spetznaz. Gotta give them style points for that I suppose, it was very slick but not very well disguised. 'Pro Russian militia' don't arrive in Ural transport trucks and Hind Helicopters wearing modern body armour and masks.. Unless they're extraordinairily well funded.
Still, that was that, Crimea is now Russian again. Of course according to many Russians and ethnic Russians within the Crimea/Eastern Ukraine, it always should have been and this is all fine. After all, they've had a refferendum and everything now haven't they? Well sure they did. But let me ask you this? If you were anti-Russian and you were going to vote 'no', but a highly trained soldier from a foreign power, the very power you're going to vote against as it happens - was standing on the corner of your street. Would you? I doubt it. Still, very little can be done at this point. Flags have been raised, the soldiers are very well dug in and on the surface things appear to have calmed. At least there. The ongoing situation in Eastern Ukraine is a little more fluid. The interim Ukrainian government has decided enough is enough and started to push back against various groups that siezed several towns in Eastern mainland Ukraine. There have been clashes and casualties have resulted from them on both sides, but the level of conflict remains very low. The real problem here is there is suggestion that some of the pro-Russian agitators are in fact not ethnic Russians from Ukraine, but actual Russians.
So why is Russia continuing to push? Well, frankly, it's because they can. Realistically there is absolutely nothing anyone, not least the Western powers, can really do about this. Sure we can slap the Russian elite with a sanction or two, but that isn't going to change the picture militarily. This is actually a pretty common pattern of behaviour for Russia, particularly in the Putin era. Whenever there is unrest within their former borders they sieze upon the opportunity to not only protect, but expand their interests. The Georgia/South Ossetia/Azbhakia conflict being the most recent other example.
Why can't we do anything? That's even simpler - the very systems and structures in put in place half a century ago to stop Russia and the West lighting the world on fire... are stopping them from lighting the world on fire. Ironically this means that up to a point, Russia can stomp around in its former back yard with near impunity. Everybody is afraid of escalation and rightly so. Ukranian's military power isn't insignificant, but it is less than that of its larger neighbour. Additionally, with it's civillian government still in a transitional phase, the military of Ukraine isn't exactly at its most cohesive. A lot of people don't realise just how much Armies and such rely on a stable civilian government. Supplies are arranged through procurement agreements negotiated by... you guessed it! Now guess who Ukraine's biggest arms supplier has been for decades. Go on, I'll wait... There you go! As interesting an intellecutal exercise it is to imagine two former Eastern bloc countries go toe to toe, the result is rather predictable. However I doubt the issue will be pushed that far. A full scale clash would draw much more unwanted attention. Remember that fear of escalation I meantioned? That fear only goes so far. How things will turn out eventually is impossible to truly predict. Recent news seems to indicate that Russia might be turning down the dial now, after flirting with the abyss too many times in one quarter for everybody's tastes, but a match has been lit. Whether or not it ends with singed fingers or a huge blaze remains to be seen.
Thanks for reading (and your paitience)
Wheelchairman2
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