A very nifty mash-up using AIS data visualized in google maps.

[H/T Information Dissemination]

The current issue of the Economist has a special feature on corporate IT, namely cloud computing. Key snip:

…cheap electricity is only one, albeit important, criterion for choosing the site of a data centre. Microsoft currently feeds 35 sets of data into an electronic map of the world, including internet connectivity, the availability of IT workers, even the air quality (dry air makes a good coolant), to see where conditions are favourable and which places should be avoided. Apparently Siberia comes out well.

This is fascinating, and a key element of any future history exercise involved in simulation or forecasting. Thinking about the geography of IT - from long-haul choke-points to optimal locations for server farms - should be on the mind of national security strategists. It would be lots of fun to find out what Microsoft’s metrics are - though I’m sure they’re closely held.

The Economist goes on to discuss an aspect of this that I’ve blogged before:

Google, for its part, seems to be thinking of moving offshore. In August it applied for a patent for water-based data centres. “Computing centres are located on a ship or ships, anchored in a water body from which energy from natural motion of the water may be captured, and turned into electricity and/or pumping power for cooling pumps to carry heat away,” says the patent application.

A few weeks ago I posted an excerpt of a Deutch Bank study that estimated the minimum oil price different OPEC members required to maintain their current budgets:

Iran and Venezuela, who are often the first to call for production cuts, need the highest price per barrel - $95.
Russia needs about $70, while Saudi Arabia, OPEC’s largest producer and de facto ruler, needs about $55 a barrel.

At the time, oil was trading in the high $80s per barrel. It has since fallen to the low $60s per barrel (latest, history), and we’ve seen OPEC call an emergency meeting to cut production and attempt to halt the price slide. One way to understand this is by recognizing that the falling prices threatened the budgets of a critical mass of OPEC members to overcome the price doves and push through a call for an emergency meeting and production cut.

It is important to remember the non-uniformity of interests among the OPEC members as we think about the prospects for future cartel behavior.

Get over to Kings of War, where General Deptula has joined the debate. Good stuff.

Currently reading:

Machavelli’s Discourses on Livy

Klare, Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet

Smyser, From Yalta to Berlin: The Cold War Struggle Over Germany

Col. H. R. McMaster has a new article out that you should read:
Learning from Contemporary Conflicts to Prepare for Future War
For those of you with fancy library services at your disposal, you can read the longer article upon which the FPRI piece is based.

While we’re on the topic, you ought to read Steve Biddle’s latest work on the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah:
The 2006 Lebanon Campaign and the Future of Warfare: Implications for Army and Defense Policy

Two absolutely top-rate minds discussing some of the most important issues in strategy and policy planning.

I just read a powerhouse book review by Freeman Dyson discussing global warming.

The entire article deserves to be read in full. For the moment, I’ll just comment on his conclusion:

All the books that I have seen about the science and economics of global warming, including the two books under review, miss the main point. The main point is religious rather than scientific. There is a worldwide secular religion which we may call environmentalism, holding that we are stewards of the earth, that despoiling the planet with waste products of our luxurious living is a sin, and that the path of righteousness is to live as frugally as possible. The ethics of environmentalism are being taught to children in kindergartens, schools, and colleges all over the world.

This is the most succinct assessment of the state of the debate that I’ve read. Before any adherents to this secular religion start commenting, let me point out that Dyson doesn’t think this secular religion is necessarily a bad thing at all:

Environmentalism has replaced socialism as the leading secular religion. And the ethics of environmentalism are fundamentally sound. Scientists and economists can agree with Buddhist monks and Christian activists that ruthless destruction of natural habitats is evil and careful preservation of birds and butterflies is good. The worldwide community of environmentalists—most of whom are not scientists—holds the moral high ground, and is guiding human societies toward a hopeful future.

Be that as it may, successful policy requires more than good intentions and wishes. On this front, Dyson points out the issues created by the distorted discourse:

Much of the public has come to believe that anyone who is skeptical about the dangers of global warming is an enemy of the environment. The skeptics now have the difficult task of convincing the public that the opposite is true. Many of the skeptics are passionate environmentalists. They are horrified to see the obsession with global warming distracting public attention from what they see as more serious and more immediate dangers to the planet, including problems of nuclear weaponry, environmental degradation, and social injustice. Whether they turn out to be right or wrong, their arguments on these issues deserve to be heard.

I would add that there are also plenty of moral people who are horrified to see the obsession with global warming distracting public attention from more serious and immediate threats to the well-being of humanity, but that’s a discussion for another time.

Ultimately, we need to see clearly if we are to have the best chances of crafting successful policy. Hopefully, with the efforts of thinkers like Dyson, we are improving the precision of our collective sight.

This chart is just crying out for a Junk Charts treatment:

Let’s start with the use of three-dimensional volumes to represent a two-dimensional variable (square footage). This is one of the classic errors Tufte cites. Second, note the non-uniform time scale.: twenty year time steps and then a fourteen year interval (1990-2004). Third, what is the distribution of house sizes? Medians are generally more useful indicators of central tendency when you have a skewed distribution (and I’d expect that home sizes are skewed).

Okay. My crotchety quantitative visualization critic has been placated.

Stratfor offers an interesting, if evidence-free, thought experiment regarding current rumors regarding a devaluation of the ruble (subscription required). The possibility Stratfor considers is whether the US had a role in starting these rumors as an indirect check on Russia’s newly assertive behavior in its periphery. According to this analysis, Russia’s activism has been based on income (largely from commodities), momentum and guts. Stoking fears of ruble devaluation and bank runs would, in theory, weaken all three.

What interests me is less the validity of the story and more what it implies about expectations of American strategic capabilities. We often hear discussions of how much energy the Chinese devote to thinking about unrestricted warfare [pdf], but this example posits that the US could behave in some similarly sneaky ways.

A perverse corollary to the danger of mirror imaging is the danger of assuming others are endlessly more clever than you. One could argue that this isn’t a vice and rather appropriate paranoia. What such a perspective overlooks, however, is that overestimating your enemy’s strength can lead to a distored orientation, just as an inflated view one’s own power can. Overestimating an adversary’s abilities can cause one to miss opportunities to exploit their mistakes - rather like a chess player mistaking an error for a gambit and therefore not exploiting it.

Striking such a balance is difficult, but such is the nature of human competition.

John connects his work in resilience to the STAR-TIDES project I blogged last week.