Island Paradise: An Orkney Documentary

Hey, look! It's a documentary about Orkney!

How to Wear a Kilt

I've gotten a lot of grief over the years - and possibly even more respect - for wearing kilts from time to time. I have to admit, I've never actually worn a full kilt, but I've made a pretty good effort at it as I've been able. My buddy Chops (who's reading this) helped me quite a bit, and we some kilted adventures back in '07 - much to the amusement of his Japanese wife and my Okinawan girlfriend at the time.

Anyway, a lot of effort goes into wearing a kilt properly. The other day, completely by chance, YouTube gave me an advert for Slater's, which is apparently a kilt shop. For those of you who are curious about what goes into wearing a kilt - and those of you who are interested in seeing some dude in pink boxer-briefs - this video will be of interest to you.

"How to wear a Kilt - Slaters"


So, there you have it. I'm a descendent of Clan Cleland on my dad's side, and Clan Crawford on my mum's side. I'm hoping to get a Clan Cleland kilt to take home with me, but I've run into a bit of trouble with it, so I suppose we'll see.

IRN-BRU Adverts

I continue to drink IRN-BRU, the national soft drink of Scotland, which I first mentioned soon after arriving. IRN-BRU has some pretty entertaining commercials, so I figured I'd share a couple of them with you folks.

"Baby"


"New Fella"


Plus, it tastes pretty good. My buddy the Man of Steel wants me to bring as much of it home to him as I possibly can... I'm not sure how that's going to work, but whatever, I'll figure something out.

Mila Kunis on BBC1

Continuing with the trend of videos that have gone viral here in the UK (and maybe back in the States, too?), this Mila Kunis interview with BBC1's Chris Stark has gotten a lot of traction over the last few weeks.


At least she's reasonably down-to-earth, amiright?

New T-Shirt?

I think it may be a moral imperative that I get this T-shirt. Maybe two of them. I wonder if CN Warden would be willing to help. Hmmm...

Don't Panic: Semester Transition Point

Hi, folks. I haven't posted very much lately. March has been crazy busy, and it all sort of culminated in this week.

On Wednesday, CN Slapshot and I presented on Persian Gulf security for GSI. I handled the GCC/PSF, while CN Slapshot addressed Iraq's role as an oil producer and provided a comprehensive review of the lengthy history of the Iranian nuclear program. We encountered a few challenges, and had very different ideas of what information to present, and that lack of coordination cost us a couple of points; but, we still did pretty well. I'm taking it as motivation to work that much harder studying for the exam in a few weeks.

The other big item for this week has been the 4-5,000 word essay for SND. I had hoped to write on the potential for Saudi Arabia to acquire nuclear weapons should Iran become a nuclear weapon state; but, after consulting with Critical Mass, I elected to go with one of the following topic: "Assess the value of tactical nuclear weapons in NATO’s deterrent strategy since the end of the Cold War." After several days of hard writing and a couple more days of hard editing to get it under the maximum word count, I submitted my essay twenty-four hours early, with 147 citations (compared to the 25 for my Strategic Intelligence essay from last semester), and just over one hundred words under the word count ceiling - a great accomplishment, given that I didn't cut any actual content and was still somehow able to cut it from the original finished length of 6300+ words. I'll probably post it, maybe in pieces, over the next few weeks.

So, where does that leave me? Simple: Easter Break. For those of you who are uninitiated with the Scottish system, they take three weeks off for Easter, as opposed to the single week that we take off for Spring Break in the States - well, that I always got off. I think some places in the States take two weeks, and which week(s) varies from place to place. Anyway, during the next three weeks, I hope to travel a bit, first up to Shetland, and we'll see where else I find myself wandering off to. I'll also need to spend some of that time studying for exams, since we apparently don't get the same block of time between the end of classes and the beginning of exam week that we did at the end of the last semester. I'll probably wind up spending some serious quality time with my buddies Lawrence Freedman, Colin Gray, Albert Wohlstetter, Bernard Brodie, and Laurence Martin. I'm not quite as sure how I'll study for GSI, but I'm also more confident in my knowledge of global security issues than I am with my understanding of strategic nuclear doctrine.

I wanted to come to Aberdeen for a lot of different reasons, though I'll admit that location was probably higher on the list than the actual program - not that the program was low on the list, because it was still pretty high. Anyway, strategy has interested me for a long time. It's long been said that America teaches its officers tactics, not strategy - that's to say, we teach our officers how to win battles, but not how to win wars. One of the things I've been learning about this semester is what the Director calls "operational strategy", which is a sort of middle point between the art of stitching a lot of battles together to get a specific effect, and the art of stitching those effects together to get a specific end state. I've spent some time studying how America in particular has tried to fine tune its "operational strategy" over the last twenty years, and what that has meant for the way America, its allies, and its enemies have conducted warfare. I've found it particularly fascinating not only because it's relevant to the course material, but also because it's influenced my professional life in a big way.

Anyway, now that I'm not worried about editing memoranda about the Gulf down to a particular word count, or writing about NATO's doctrine concerning tactical nuclear weapons, I hope to blog a bit more. And if I can put a few day or overnight trips under my belt, I shoul dhave some interesting stuff to blog about, too. So, for those of you who are still reading since last Summer, or whom are new, thanks for sticking with me.

Loch Ness, Part 2

Urquhart Castle is located here, about a third of the way down Loch Ness from its head near Inverness. As I was on Jacobite's Temptation tour - why it was called "temptation", I don't know - I enjoyed a half hour cruise on Loch Ness, followed about about an hour at Urquhart Castle.

Urquhart Castle dates back to the 500's, and whoever controlled Urquhart Castle was said to control the entire area. The Battle of Culloden took place nearby in 1746. Urquhart Castle was critical to the security and politics of the area until it was destroyed by Clan Grant in 1692 to prevent it falling into Jacobite hands. I got around to pretty much the entire castle, and took tons of pictures. I love visiting places like this, because it's fascinating to see how past military engineers have used the materials and terrain available to them to create defensible positions.

The last item before heading up to the visitor's center was a trebuchet. I'm pretty sure I saw something about how trebuchets were used against castle walls, when they were, in fact, intended to fling projectiles over castle walls. A buddy of mine wanted to build a full-sized trebuchet in three or four parts to assemble at our university for launching watermelons... That never actually happened, but he did build a little one out of balsa or something, and we used it to launch M&Ms or pennies or something. So, whenever I see anything related to a trebuchet, I think of my buddy, Super Dave.

After buying a bunch of post cards, and a couple of "FORIEGN STUFFFS" for a particular superheroine back home, I joined my tourmates for a short video in the visitors' center before heading up to the bus. Kenny (still with blue eyes) recited history like an encyclopedia as he drove us back to the Inverness high street. I killed about an hour, and then caught the 18:13 train back to Aberdeen, arriving at about 20:30 after having done some planning and some reading. After about half an hour of waiting for the bus, I finally made it back to my place.

It was a great day, with just a touch of adventure and just enough educational value. It was a good transition from spending far too long in Aberdeen without any excursions, into a new phase of stretching my legs to see more of what Scotland has to offer. More on that to come in the next few weeks.

Writing Samples: Kuwait Security Overview

I'm tied up this week with some writing projects for school. I have a few posts that have been pre-written for just such an occasion, so I'll try to hit "publish" on one every day or two. For now, here's a draft version of my section(-in-progress) on security issues in the State of Kuwait to tide you over. More to follow.

* * * Country: State of Kuwait
Religious Affiliations: Sunni (59.5%), Shiite (25.5%), other (15%)
Ethnic Groups: Kuwaiti (Arab) 45%, other (55%)

Remarks: Previously a component of the Ottoman Wilayat of Basra, Kuwait was made an independent province by the British in order to limit Iraq's naval access to the Persian Gulf. Kuwait was granted independence in 1961. The Iraqi annexation of Kuwait in 1990, and subsequent liberation by an American-led coalition liberation in early 1991, continue to define its politics, culture, and landscape. Even Kuwait's national monument, the Kuwait Towers, incorporates crudely labeled photographs of the Iraqi vandalism of the monument as its most prominent interior decoration.

Kuwait and Iraq continue to have periodic naval disputes. In January of 2011, a Kuwait Coast Guard patrol intercepted an Iraqi fishing boat in Kuwaiti territorial waters. In the subsequent standoff and firefight, a Kuwaiti lance corporal was killed.[K1][K2][K3] Kuwait is also building the Mubarak al Kabir port on the northern Bubiyan Island, a project whose obvious purpose is to further restrict Iraq's limited maritime access.[K4] Kuwait and Iraq are still engaged in diplomatic efforts of varying sincerity, focused largely on reparations and settlement for the events of 1990/'91.[K5][K6][K7][K8][K9][K10]

In Spring of 2011, Kuwait disrupted an Iranian spy network that had infiltrated the Kuwaiti military. Three Kuwaiti soldiers, including an Iranian national, were sentenced to death, with several others either detained or deported.[K11][K12][K13] Another spy ring was allegedly broken up later that year[K14], and there was also concern about Syrian intelligence activities in the Gulf[K15]; Syria is a close ally of Iran, and Syrians integrate more easily in the Arab Gulf states than Iranians. There was also concern that Kuwait's loose immigration restrictions made it an ideal transit point for the movement of spies.[K16][K17]

In addition to these external security threats, Kuwait suffers from two internal threats. The first and most prominent of these is political turmoil among Kuwaiti citizens relating to the Arab Spring. The second and less publicized is repeated protests by the Biduns, a disfranchised subset of the Kuwaiti population who do not hold citizenship because they failed to sign up for it back in 1961.

Sources:
[K1] BBC: Kuwaiti soldier killed in clash with Iraqi fishermen
[K2] Arab Times: Kuwaiti coast guard killed in shootout with Iraqi boat
[K3] Khaleej Times: Kuwaiti soldier killed in clash with Iraqi sailors
[K4] Wikipedia: Kuwait Mubarak al Kabir Port project
[K5] Arab Times: Iraq keen to close files of missing Kuwaitis, property
[K6] Kuwait Times: Amir asks govt to iron out pending issues with Iraq
[K7] Arab Times: ‘Need to forget Iraq former regime acts’
[K8] Arab Times: ‘All factors’ exist for good ties with Kuwait: Talabani
[K9] Kuwait Times: Kuwait-Iraq relations move in right direction – Forget the past, look into bright future
[K10] Kuwait Times: Talabani: All factors for good Kuwait ties present – Iraqi president hopes ’90 invasion water under the bridge
[K11] AFP: Kuwait condemns three to death in Iran spy ring
[K12] UPI: Kuwait: Iran involved in spy ring
[K13] Al Jazeera: Iran rejects Kuwait spy cell allegation
[K14] Arab Times: Kuwait Said To Bust Spy Ring
[K15] Arab Times: Govt should monitor Syrian intel activities
[K16] Arab Times: Lot Of Spy Networks Using Kuwait As A Transit Point
[K17] Arab Times: 'Security, stability of Kuwait at risk' - 'Foreign hands at work'