Bluegrass Military Affairs Coalition Online

Russian Spies and Strategic Intelligence
George Friedman
Foreign Policy Research Institute
07/26/2010

The United States has captured a group of Russian spies and exchanged them for four individuals held by the Russians on espionage charges. The ways the media have reported on the issue fall into three groups:

That the Cold War is back,
That, given that the Cold War is over,...

THE MCCHRYSTAL AFFAIR AND U.S. CIVIL-MILITARY RELATIONS
Mackubin T. Owens
Foreign Policy Research Institute
07/19/2010

Writing before the 2008 election, Richard Kohn, the eminent historian and student of US civil-military relations, predicted that "the new administration, like its predecessors, will wonder to what extent it can exercise civilian 'control.' If the historical pattern holds, the administration will do something clumsy or overreact, provoking even more...

WHY THE MILITARY MAKES PUBLIC HEALTH A PRIORITY
Sanders Marble
Foreign Policy Research Institute
07/19/2010

The military is involved in public health because diseases do not respect a uniform. The mosquito cannot tell whether the arm is in a uniform or not. The military has to protect itself-campaigns have been affected (even lost) because a force was unhealthy due to communicable disease. The military also...

The Shifting Landscape of Passport Fraud
Scott Stewart
Foreign Policy Research Institute
07/15/2010

The recent case involving the arrest and deportation of the Russian intelligence network in the United States has once again raised the subject of document fraud in general and passport fraud in particular. The FBI’s investigation into the group of Russian operatives discovered that several of the suspects had assumed...

THE MAVI MARMARA INCIDENT, RAFAH, AND EGYPT'S STEEL WALL
Tally Helfont
Foreign Policy Research Institute
07/06/2010

The Gaza Strip has represented a potentially strategic threat on both the local and regional levels for the past several years. During this time, various steps have been taken by Israel, Egypt, the United States, and the European Union to try to mitigate the considerable challenge posed by Gaza, though...

IS TAIWAN MOVING TOWARD FINLANDIZATION?
So-Heng Chang
Foreign Policy Research Institute
06/07/2010

Some scholars assert that "Finlandization" is developing between Taiwan and China, since both governments have been moving into a closer economic integration and political reconciliation following the 2008 election of Taiwanese President Ma Ying-Jeou. This d,tente stage, according to these scholars, opens the way for the Finlandization of Taiwan. These...

Alexander Haig: An American Patriot
Harvey Sicherman
Foreign Policy Research Institute
06/01/2010

Dear Reader,

On Memorial Day, we recall all those who have given their lives in defense of our freedom, and we thank all those who have served or who are serving in the U.S. Armed Forces. It is fitting that on this day we recall one such patriot, Alexander M. Haig,...

WHAT'S HAPPENED TO DEMOCRACY IN CHINA?: ELECTIONS, LAW AND POLITICAL REFORM
Jacques deLisle
Foreign Policy Research Institute
05/03/2010

ELECTIONS WITH CHINESE CHARACTERISTICS
Since the beginning of the post-Mao Reform Era at the end of the 1970s, China has put in place, and revised, legal rules and practices for elections to People's Congresses, the representative organs in the Chinese state that exist in a tiered structure from sub-county to national...