What really happened to U2 pilot Gary Powers?

Ths Times has a fascinating article that explores various theories as to what happened 50 years ago today over Russia. Have a read, it's well worth it.

Russia deploys warships to the Caribbean

More worrying news

"Russian warships are sailing towards the Caribbean for the first time since the Cold War to take part in a joint naval exercise with Venezuela.

In a display meant to show off Russia's military resurgence and to provoke the United States, four vessels from the Northern Fleet set sail on a mission replete with an atmosphere of Soviet-era bombast and brinksmanship."

Technological warfare

Wired have some interesting news:

"Boeing announced today the first ever test firing of a real-life ray gun that could become US special forces' way to carry out covert strikes with "plausible deniability."

In tests earlier this month at Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico, Boeing's Advanced Tactical Laser -- a modified C-130H aircraft -- "fired its high-energy chemical laser through its beam control system. The beam control system acquired a ground target and guided the laser beam to the target, as directed by ATL's battle management system."

"By firing the laser through the beam control system for the first time, the ATL team has begun to demonstrate the functionality of the entire weapon system integrated aboard the aircraft," Boeing exec Scott Fancher said, in a statement.

But what Fancher didn't mention (and what I explore over on the New Scientist web site) is that this capability will allow Special Forces to strike with maximum precision, from long distances -- without being blamed from the attacks. "Plausible deniability" is how the presentation put it."

Read the rest and feel a) happy that such technology is in "our" hands and/or b) worried that "they" might also have it...


Thanks to Samizdata for the spot.

If you read only one newspaper article this weekend, read this one...

Edward Lucas in The Telegraph, his article entitled "Russia sees us as pawns on its chessboard" is well written, nicely analytical and very very worrying.

"Russian thinking is still rooted in a Soviet approach that leaves little room for the concept of mutual benefit. The "zero-sum" game is deeply entrenched: if something is good for the West, it is bad for Russia, and vice versa.

That chimes neatly with the story pushed on Russian state television that treacherous Russian politicians connived with the West in the 1990s to weaken the country. We promoted chaotic economic reform and phony democracy that enriched a handful and impoverished the rest, leaving Russia near disintegration until it was rescued by Putin's firm.

That is preposterous. In fact, the West provided billions of dollars to prop up Russia in the 1990s; it failed not because of our bad advice, but because of its appallingly difficult starting position and weak Russian leadership. Yet for that mythical wrong, Russia now wants revenge....

Russia's skilful pipeline politics has wrecked European attempts to diversify the continent's energy supplies. An EU-backed project called Nabucco, which would bring gas from Central Asia to Europe via Turkey and the Balkans, has been kyboshed. The Russian pipelines of Nord Stream (in the Baltic) and South Stream (across the Black Sea) form an effective pincer movement, eagerly backed by key Russian allies such as Germany and Austria, leaving Ukraine and Poland open to Russian energy blackmail.

Russia is a big investor in our economies; our bankers salivate at prospect of Russian bonds and stocks. The presence of Gerhard Schröder, the former German chancellor, on the board of the Nord Stream gas pipeline epitomises the way in which Russian influence has penetrated deep into our political system. Checkmate is looming."