Taliesin

Here is Part Two of Kawau Summer 2010. A detailed look at where I was staying.

Kawau Summer 2010

I had a great time on Kawau Island, at my sister and brother-in-law's beach house. I took a number of photos to reveal what Kawau reveals in detail. Here is Part One.

This Year's trouble-spots

The Guradian Online article about trouble spots for 2010 is a good starter for analysis. I believe their assessment fair, but they should have put Yemen as number three on their list. Israel-Palestine as number three isn't going to change sooner. Yemen is a new and vitally crictical strategy if the counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency isn't started yesterday. That is to say, it is a more of a priority than Israel. That is to say, there has to be a greater sense of urgency so that Al-Qaeda cannot settle there. Give them no room for lease!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan/04/worlds-most-likely-trouble-spots

Storm of War: a peek

Andrew Roberts book Storm of War: A New History of the Second World War is a stunning read. Quite well written and paced. What is interesting was the comparsion between the US and Germany military as at May 1940. For example FDR put the American economy on a strict war footing (1940 to 1945). This is what they produced:

296,000 aircraft at a cost of $44billion

351 metric tons of aircraft bombs

88,000 landing craft

12.5 million rifles

86,333 tanks

while American shipyards produced:

147 aircraft carriers

952 warships

5,200 merchant ships.

The total munitions budget from May 1940 -June 1945 amounted $180 billion - or as Roberts indicated twenty times the entire 1940 defence budget. Not to mention the 14.9 million people America moblized for the Army, Army Air Force and Navy.

At the begining of the war, America's military had the world's 17th largest largest army numbering 269,023 - smaller than Romania. The US could only put 5 divisions, full-strength - into the field at a time when Germany wielded 180.

I'm interested in learning more about divisions- size, make-up etc.

(from pages 214-215)