Tag Archives: Royal Air Force

Opinion – China, World Bank and WHO Collaborate to Support ‘Deep Water’ Phase of Health Reforms – World Bank – John Gelmini

February 22, 2015 By in Austerity, Business Administration, China, Defense Policy, Democracy, Foreign Policy, People, Politics, Russia, UK Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Dr Alf is right but for a long time we have not had a strong or visionary political leadership in the UK.

The Chinese Government contains many engineers and people who know how to get things done and done quickly.

They look at their healthcare system, their energy policy, defense, jobs, exports, sports and competitive positioning and compare themselves to whoever is the best in that field of endeavor. This is done dispassionately, with precision and with the sole intention of first closing the gaps and then surpassing the benchmarks set by others. After that they plan, put the resources in place and take action with quiet but messianic zeal. They are not afraid to seek advice but all the time they are learning and making progress. This is strategic planning.

In the UK we “wing it”, imagine that it will come good on the night, and see ourselves being overtaken by others whilst remaining in a complacent state of torpor.

Yesterday we had David Cameron dismissing the ability of the Russians to penetrate UK airspace with the shadowing of the Tupolov(Bear) bomber off the Cornish coast. The UK defense chiefs were quick to rubbish his assertions on the basis that Putin could overwhelm our air defenses quite easily.

Our political classes are not up to the job and need to be replaced, whilst our ailing institutions need to be reformed if they can be or replaced outright.

John Gelmini

Opinion – Alexis Tsipras and Greece’s Miserable Foreign Policy – Carnegie Europe – Carnegie Endowment for International Peace – John Gelmini

February 1, 2015 By in Austerity, Fiscal Policy, Foreign Policy, Greece, Growth, Politics, Russia Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

This article that Dr Alf has brought to our attention details what was bound to happen anyway. Applying sanctions on Russia was never going to be without cost. As I expected, Vladimir Putin is taking action to stop the destabilization of those parts of Russia which are mostly Muslim on her southern flank. He has had his military develop a new electronic warfare device called the Khibiny which sits in a basket, mounted under the fuselage of its heavy bombers and stealth fighters and is capable of disabling the latest Aegis Combat systems (an integrated naval weapons system) in use on 4th generation US guided missile destroyers).

The USS Donald Cole entered the waters of the Black Sea on the 10th April 2014 and allegedly had its entire weapons system disabled by a Russian SU tactical bomber, fitted with the device while the Russian bomber simulated a missile attack 12 times before flying away (Source: Rossiykay Gazeta).

The incident with the Russian bombers flying down the UK’s West coast and then into the English channel was preceded in an incident last, year which was not reported by the UK media, in which several Russian warships went into the English channel supposedly on maneuvers.

These events are demonstrations of power projection, and the speech by Vladimir Putin last year about the ten lessons that Adolf Hitler was taught by Russia, was a clear warning to Western leaders. We should have expected Putin to not simply accept the sanctions lying down, and we either have to come to a different arrangement with him, or be prepared for the consequences which will be that we will feel the effect of sanctions ourselves and that he will not simply roll over because we tell him to. Russia is still powerful and low oil prices are not going to stay low forever, so we should work on the minds of the Russian young and their aspirations by showing them a better way by improving our own economies and creating exports and employment.

Vladimir Putin will not be there forever, so by keeping sanctions mild and ineffective, so as not to hurt ourselves, we can be seen to give him a bone to gnaw on, whilst cultivating his more pro Western successor.

John Gelmini.