Even Russians find North Korea weird

... though these days, such is the sheer strength of Putin's international positioning, they must be very, very nice to them.  And send them lots of tourists, in gratitude for all the, errr, fraternal bullets and artillery rounds.  And cannon fodder.

So let's see if the Russian magazine piece at this link gets fraternally taken down in the coming days.  (If so, it's archived already: https://archive.ph/k8ULv)  Nothing you wouldn't expect, but revealing nonetheless. 

During the tours, the guides allowed tourists to approach and communicate with supposedly ordinary residents, but Valentina was alerted that they all spoke good English...  And they spoke in the same memorized phrases - that they have everything thanks to their leaders and these are not just leaders, but their fathers, whom they worship. "One of our guides once said that they are like little children holding the leader's hand and do not ask where to go. Because their father always knows everything - what needs to happen, where their direction is, where the country is heading. I thought, this is an interesting comparison with small children. It really seemed to me that they perceive everything as little children," the girl said.  

Some impressive weaponry in the arsenal, for all that. 

ND

"Military Keynsianism" - Starmer's defence pitch

Starmer is an odd bloke: rarely willing to promote a policy on its own merits**, preferring to invoke (or invent) some supposed side-benefits and focus on them.  "Net zero" and renewables?  No mention of zero-what these days; it's all "growth & jobs", "cheaper energy" (yeah, right), "home-grown / less threat from Putin" and "energy security" (always the last refuge of a scoundrel) instead.

Now we have his Defence *aspirations* (or whatever 3% of GDP at some unspecified future date should be termed), and we're to think of them as Military Keynsianism: "a defence dividend for the British people, using this moment to drive jobs and investment throughout the country, providing local opportunities, skilled work, community pride".

It is, I suppose, just possible that a round of additional defence contracts - if such can be conjured out of Reeves' Treasury plans - will result in some of those things.  But if, as so often, it all descends into pork-barrel politics - e.g. Gordon Brown's risible aircraft carriers, oft discussed here - does anything worthwhile come out from the defence point of view?  Much as I'd like to think it would, I have me doubts as they say.

PS: what's a "10-times more lethal army", pray? 

ND 

UPDATE:  quite a good Graun / Martin Kettle piece today, here:  Why is defence such a hard sell for Starmer?  (Did he, or the headline writer, read my post before posing that question??)

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** By contrast, his recent immigration policy statement was promoted on the back of it being "right - because it is fair, and because it is what I believe in", Boris Johnson's opening of the immigration floodgates being a "squalid chapter".  Heady stuff.  Farage concentrates the mind wonderfully. 

UK Defence Review?? Check Ukraine's deep drone coup

What else do we need to say?

OK, I'll say a couple of things, plus a little anecdote BTL.  

• Whatever defence money we can spare, it must at least stretch to keeping all military aircraft under cover ... but then again, the list of potential targets is Just So Great
• Asymmetric warfare with a vengeance: which nation on earth has the greatest capacity to replicate Ukraine's Big Idea on a massive strategic scale?  And which nation is possibly the most difficult on the planet to infiltrate with a load of foreign trucks ..?
• As with the Dambusters' raid, now Ukraine needs to think how it defends against Russia retaliating exactly in kind.  (In 1943, but only after the raid, it suddenly occurred to some bright spark in the War Office that we'd better mount serious protective measures against British reservoirs being hit in the same way.) 
• Submarine-borne nuclear deterrence never looked more useful.  (If you can figure out who's launched the attack ...)

What else should we be thinking about?  But, to our alarmist brethren: please don't say "Putin will now nuke Kharkiv" - because he won't.

ND

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As a teenager, I was an avid aircraft spotter.  (Hard to believe, I know)  With three mates: and we were seriously organised.  At 6:00 a.m. we would cram into an old Ford Prefect or Austin 1100, and make elaborate, intricately-planned circuits of the south of England, OS maps carefully marked up, stopping off at vantage points overlooking RAF airfields, telescopes in hand.  Rarely were we chased off; frequently we were just a mere wire fence or even hedge away from costly aircraft.  (We once ducked through a hedge to photo a Victor bomber at a range of 100m at most.)

This was in the days of IRA outrages up and down the land and it occurred to us (though not, it would seem, the genius that was Martin McGuiness) that nothing could be easier than to strike at a couple of dozen RAF bases simultaneously, not of course with drones but with hand-carried semtex.  The IRA was replete with desperadoes who'd think nothing of it. 

The effects would have been considerable: hit the British establishment where it really hurt (prestige and prowess); minimise casualties, esp. civilian (if the IRA cared about such things); cause the deployment of tens of thousands of troops etc to guard vulnerable UK premises.  Tens?  Make that hundreds of thousands.

And that's where we are today, I suggest:  i.e., nuclear deterrence is the only way.