r2p explained

First they say they don't need you, then they rejoice at your involvement, then they complain you're not killing more for 'em.

Sounds about right. And if you’re looking for the kinetics, I’d recommend CJ Chivers’ twitter feed.

Comments

[Richard J]

Ahah. Useful. Current reading recommendation (mentioned here before) - Kenneth Pollack's Arabs At War. (With an obligatory caveat about his CIA background and later cheerleading for the second Gulf War.) The Egyptian chapter certainly helped with understanding the dynamics of the recent events there.

[Chris Williams]

Chivers' Twitter feed is very Schlagtenbummelerening, isn't it? Here's this journo asking this COIN guru in DC to send a copy of FM-6-121. That's 'Field artillery target acquisition' to you and I. It looks like the rebels have yet to fully understand the battlefield revolution which began in the 1870s, AKA 'artillery is king'.

[Chris Williams]

I get it. FM-6-121 has an appendix on the way to do crater analysis, which is what Chivers is after, in order to answer the question about what the loyalists are hitting them with.

[Richard J]

It's an interesting reminder, isn't it, how much the whole thing seems to be dependent on a very small number of people - one man trained as an artillery observer appears to be affecting the fate of an entire nation.

[jamie]

Not to mention bouffant philosophers...anyway, I feel a change of header coming on.

[chris williams]

I just had a sudden flashback to another book called The Gun. This time, the CS Forester one, in which a ragtag band of rebels con the local superpower into tooling them up. They score victories against an oppressive opponent, but once in power prove to be equally nasty: then they are defeated. (but in the book they have marginally helped the superpower gain ultimate victory).

[dsquared]

That wasn't a novel, Chris, it was the Balkans in the first world war.

[cian]

You're misremembering the book Chris. The Gun is a Spanish weapon that is rediscovered by partisans.

Incidentally has anyone noticed how much of the "New Europe" beloved of Bush is descending into despotism. Hungary in particular, where things are rapidly getting both weird and nasty.

[Richard J]

Is there really such a trend? Given that Slovakia went quite nasty in the 90s and has since pulled back, I'm not sure the bout of Poujadism in Hungary is more than a temporary sputtering - true, obnoxiously right wing governments have been coming into power, but they've been obnoxiously right wing in a very European way. And, yes, lots of them are corrupt, naming no Bulgarias, but they've been corrupt for years.

(Though I'm sort of reminded of a business trip I made to Bucharest a few years back. We were taken on a coach tour round the centre. They were very proud of Romania's martial heritage. I unavoidably found this amusing.)

[cian]

Poujadism might be a temporary thing, but the right in Hungary has been like that for a long time now. Very nasty group, though its possible they've overreached.

One example of how bizarre its got - it's now supposedly illegal to be a DJ unless you've been to the DJ school run by one of the senior party members. The school teaches DJs about how wrong it is to steal music, while all the DJs are supposed to have documentation proving that they have a legal right to all their records/CDs etc. Customs are going round to the clubs and checking (a friend's a DJ, who has a friend who recently had a bunch of his burned CDs confiscated while he was DJing).

A friend has been doing business with Bulgaria for a while now. He describes the infrastructure as theoretical, but the programmers are apparently worth it.

[Richard J]

Yeah, my current employers expanded a lot into CEE over the past decade or two. I've had the woman in charge of the expansion openly say to me 'we only go somewhere if we're sure there's a large enough client base where we don't have to pay bribes to win work.'

[Chris Williams]

CS Forester clarification folllows. No, I'm right. Partisans find gun, then one of the more enterprising among them hails a passing RN frigate and uses an out of date safe conduct to talk them out of powder and shot for it. A jarring flash-forward follows to the captain being told to clap the partisan in irons if he sees him again, given that he's in revolt against Josefinos and the Junta alike.

[Myles]

Poujadism might be a temporary thing, but the right in Hungary has been like that for a long time now.

Hungary has been Poujadist since the Treaty of Trianon. It has never stopped being Poujadist.

[CharlieMcMcMenamin]

My interest has been piqued by two recent comments on these threads:

Hungary has been Poujadist since the Treaty of Trianon. It has never stopped being Poujadist.-Myles, above.

and:

Every wannabe conservative intellectual I ever knew growing up/at college seemed to take great pleasure in contrarianism - Cian on the 'so called intellectuals' thread.

I'm just saying like, I'm not actually joining the dots.

[Myles]

I'm just saying like, I'm not actually joining the dots.

I am not actually a conservative, and certainly have no inclination to be an intellectual.

[CharlieMcMcMenamin]

OK Myles, in retrospect that was a bit strong on my part, given I was going for a 'gently teasing' effect rather than anything else. I wasn't trying to offend.

But Hungary really hasn't been "Poujadist since the Treaty of Trianon" - or at least I can't see how anyone can argue that without obliterating all political differences and ending up on the wrong side in the 'Nazis and Stalinists were the same' debate .

[john b]

You could probably make a case for Hungary never having been Nazi or Stalinist, as long as you're using Hungary in the sense of The Hungarian Nation rather than "what is the ideology of the foreign power currently occupying this territory with these people in it?"

[Richard J]

It did, to be fair, manage the impressive feat of being a land-locked country run by an admiral.

[Phil]

No true Hungarian has ever not been a Poujadist.

[Myles]

I wasn't trying to offend.

No worries, I wasn't offended.

as long as you're using Hungary in the sense of The Hungarian Nation rather than "what is the ideology of the foreign power currently occupying this territory with these people in it?"

Yes, that's what I meant.

It did, to be fair, manage the impressive feat of being a land-locked country run by an admiral.

Who was regent of a kingdom with no king.

Incidentally, Wikipedia tells me Poujade was born in the same year as the Treaty of Trianon. Haha.

[Myles]

(To elaborate a little bit without hopefully boring people, I actually do genuinely dislike politics. Which is why I generally prefer the Liberals in Canada, the inoffensive soft beige of political parties.)