Defence Procurement & Forever Wars

How the defence industrial base drives Forever Wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Iran.

A. Ron P. Smith’s Defence Acquisition and Procurement (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022) is online as part of the excellent Cambridge Elements series. This is an AUKUS relevant book.

B. Today’s MIT OCW free course is Innovation in Military Organisations created by Professor Barry Posen and Professor Harvey Sapolsky.

C. Current Reading: Buying Defence and Security in Europe: The EU Defence and Security Procurement Directive in Context by Martin Trybus (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009). The academic literature on defence procurement and the defence industrial base is rather small. It is part of the broader subfield of defence economics. This book covers the European defence industry, contractors and subcontractors, relevant legislation, procurement processes, and export controls.

D. I was born 3 months premature. Only at 52 am I undergoing clinical tests for possible cystic fibrosis. The news that Perth medical researchers are developing artificial placentas for premature babies is huge.

E. Groups turning in on each-other has been a trend from Japan’s Red Army Faction to the Weather Underground in the United States. It often happens when a group schisms into more violent, extremist, and militant tendencies. The New Republic’s Adam Federman examines what has happened to the Earth Liberation Front, which founder Richard Metzger and I both covered for the former Disinformation website over 25 years ago.

F. Andres Serrano’s Piss Christ (1987) set the art world aflame - and this influenced Metallica’s Load album (1996) which also used Serrano’s artwork for its cover. The New Yorker’s Louis Menand surveys the cultural and religious wreckage.

G. The term Forever War (Joe Haldeman, Dexter Filkins) is often applied now to the Iraq (2003-2011) and Afghanistan (2001-2021) by military historians. Now a consensus is emerging amongst journalists that Forever War will also apply to the second Trump administration and Iran.

H. The YouTube channel The Partially Examined Life considers philosophy.

I. China’s President Xi Jinping delivers a keynote speech on AI.

J. Nine Inch Nails live in 2018.

K. A live set from Aphex Twin at Day For Night, Houston.

L. The Miles Davis septet in Berlin, 1971.