Hope is not a plan

The government of Vietnam has agreed to buy six Kilo submarines and possibly twelve more Sukhois (Su-30s) to augment the eight it already has. The deal would make Vietnam into one of the main clients of the Russian arms industry and, in the understated words of Carlyle Thayer of the Australian Defence Force Academy, "would increase [Vietnam's] negotiating power in the maritime disputes".

Indeed.

Given the history between Vietnam and its larger neighbor, we can imagine that this acquisition might markedly shift the politics of the East Sea / South China Sea.

Fun fact - the People's Republic of China also buys Kilos from Russia.

Do you suppose Russia has advisers ready to train crews on Kilo-on-Kilo combat?

BBC article

The Senate take on health care reform, HR3590, passed yesterday. Here's the final vote:

...which is roughly in line with polling on health care reform a few months back. More recent polling has shown that American desire for health care reform has diminished. That's not particularly surprising in the wake of shrill shilling in the form of "death panel" claims and so forth. As we've seen in prior election and legislative voting cycles, American citizens can be convinced, given enough time and money, to vote against their own best interests.

There's already discussion of a Constitutional challenge, including during the debate. Legally, this seems unlikely to succeed if, as written, the health coverage requirement has been carried out under Congress's power to levy taxes. As I've also discussed previously, on a pure intent issue, health care assuredly fits the Constitutional intent to provide for the common defense and promote the general welfare.

The current position of the legislators of the Republican party seems to be one of rabidly defending corporations at the expense of their constituents, either intentionally or in the misguided belief that they are defending an ideology of self reliance (even while they try to secure Federal funding to keep businesses in America or maintain our farms) by letting insurance companies scalp random Americans. Shooting down a plan while offering no effective alternative is the marker of a failed employee.

They're just dragging the team down.

BBC article

The government of Iran has announced that it will, in early January, invalidate all money with revolutionary slogans written on it. Given the cash-only nature of Iran's economy, writing protest messages on paper money is quite clever.

BBC article

In the wake of the disastrous Georgia-Russia Summer war of 2008, Russia and Georgia have finally reached an agreement to re-open one of their few remaining border points. I say "one of their few remainings" as the de even-more facto independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia has now limited the amount of direct contact between Russia and Georgia.

The Upper Lars checkpoint has been closed since 2006, most likely in retaliation over Georgian attempts to join NATO.

At the same time, Russian president Medvedev has announced that Russia will update its nuclear weapons. The plan is to develop new missiles while remaining in accord with current nuclear weapons treaties between Russia and the United States. As a reporter from the Christian Science Monitor reports, this is an important update inasmuch as "it is all it has got to defend itself with because its armed forces in general are a shambles."

Referring back to the Russian-Georgian war highlights the generalized failure of the Russian military, with some half of Russian air losses coming from their own ground forces. Russian military doctrine and equipment has fared similarly poorly in client states such as Iraq, where the U.S. military has reliably rolled them up in short order. Given that analysts attribute the Russian victory in South Ossetia to the Ossetian irregulars, it's not surprising that Medvedev is looking for an enhancement to the Russian military that will bring prestige at the very least by dint of never, ever being tested.

Sonangol, the state petrochemical company of Angola, has received a contract to manage the Qayara and Najmah fields in Iraq. These fields are the riskiest in Iraq, a risk reflected in relatively high per-barrel fees awarded to Sonangol.

At the same time, a Dutch court has ruled that it has jurisdiction to take a contamination case from the Nigerian delta that is being leveled at Royal Dutch Shell. Shell was naturally displeased:

"We believe there are good arguments on the basis of which the district court could have concluded that it lacks jurisdiction in respect of these purely Nigerian matters."

Although it's unsurprising that Shell made no comment on the actual allegations, it does feel just so intrinsically dodgy that they mainly just want to keep things out of a European court.

Finally, PetroChina has invested $1.7 billion in a 60% stake in two major Canadian oil sands projects. This comes a little over a year after a deal that gave PetroChina's parent company a management contract for other Iraqi oil fields.

BBC article about the Nineveh fields
BBC article about the Shell suit
BBC article about the PetroChina deal