Foreign Affairs

WashPost: The founder of the company, the SITE Intelligence Group, says this premature disclosure tipped al-Qaeda to a security breach and destroyed a years-long surveillance operation that the company has used to intercept and pass along secret messages, videos and advance warnings of suicide bombings from the terrorist group’s communications network. “Techniques that took years to develop are now ineffective and worthless,” said Rita Katz, the firm’s 44-year-old founder, who has garnered wide attention by publicizing statements and videos from…

Both Vanity Fair and The New Yorker have astonishing profiles of Bobby Egan, a “freelance diplomat” to the DPRK who otherwise runs a BBQ joint in Hackensack, NJ. The New Yorker: Egan, who has run Cubby’s for twenty-five years, is well known in Hackensack, though not solely for the quality of his ribs. For nearly fifteen years, he has served as a kind of unofficial ambassador—a go-between and a gofer—for the government of North Korea. He is, as he puts…

UN: 25 September 2007 – The international community should step up its efforts to defeat cyber crime, starting by acceding to an international convention on the issue and eventually building to the development of a globally negotiated and comprehensive law of cyberspace, Estonia’s President Toomas Hendrik Ilves told the General Assembly tonight. Mr. Ilves said his country’s experience in April and May this year in coping with an extensive cyber attack highlighted both the dangers faced and the value of…

Universities Install Footbaths to Benefit Muslims, and Not Everyone Is Pleased The New York Times August 7, 2007 But as a legal and political matter, that solution has not been quite so simple. When word of the plan got out this spring, it created instant controversy, with bloggers going on about the Islamification of the university, students divided on the use of their building-maintenance fees, and tricky legal questions about whether the plan is a legitimate accommodation of students’ right…

Or, The Izzard Doctrine shows how history repeats itself. LA Times: The flag-planting ritual and the thinking behind the Russians’ audacious territorial claims have their roots in the development and use of the Doctrine of Discovery by European and American explorers from the 15th through the 20th centuries. Starting with Pope Nicholas V in 1455, the Europeans conveniently declared their divine right to empty land or to land occupied by “pagans and enemies of Christ.” The main requirement was just…

Canoe.ca New Pornographers battle Internet leaks on their own terms July 30 2007 “Personally, I don’t have a huge problem with leaks, I’m of the belief that if people get your record for free but they come to your show and buy a T-shirt or whatever, well, it’s the same difference. You’re not really losing much money. It’s better than them not taking the record for free and not coming to your show,” [New Pornographers singer/guitarist/songwriter Carl] Newman says during…

Mohsin Hamid, The Washington Post, July 22 2007: The residue of U.S. foreign policy coats much of the world. It is the other part of the answer to the question, “Why do they hate us?” Simply because America has — often for what seemed good reasons at the time — intervened to shape the destinies of other countries and then, as a nation, walked away. There is so much about the United States that I admire. So when I speak…

FP Passport, via David J. Kilcullen, a senior advisor to Gen. David Petraeus in Iraq: “At present, the U.S. defense budget accounts for approximately half of total global defense spending, while the U.S. armed forces employ about 1.68 million uniformed members. By comparison, the State Department employs about 6,000 foreign service officers, while the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has about 2,000. In other words, the Department of Defense is about 210 times larger than USAID and State combined—there…

CIA: Population of Estonia: 1,315,912 Mobile Telephones in Estonia: 1,445,000 Industries: engineering, electronics, wood and wood products, textile; information technology, telecommunications Or, as my friend, the astute Aaron Azlant quipped in an IM conversation: “haha one of these things is not like the other. specialties: web 2.0, cell tech, cedar”

So here I am, minding my own business, reading The New York Times online, when I come across this article about Bush’s upcoming dinner with the Queen of England. The article mentions that it’s a “white tie” dinner, and not knowing what that is, I go look it up. Then I continue reading the article, and come across this line: Even so, as it does for every official state visit, the White House has been consulting with the State Department…