• It's getting colder in Moscow, yet the anti-Putin protests are growing larger. FT diplomatic editor Gideon Rachman is there. 
• Coal is in slow but inexorable decline as an energy source for the US.
• The US invasion of Iraq partly 'de-modernised' the country, particularly the higher eduction sector. (h/t 3QD)
• Australia needs to speak louder on Sri Lankan war crimes, says Human Rights Watch. (Thanks Stephanie.)
• If people in the Middle East could democratically choose which country they lived in, what would the regional map look like?
• Drezner flags an FT report about Syria with lots of new information, particularly about Russia's 'squishiness'.
• Last week we talked about the real reason Britain gives aid to India. Turns out India doesn't want the aid anyway.
• From xkcd:

Evan Osnos writes that there is 'a dawning American sense of ickiness about what goes into the electronics we love'.

• At time of writing, The Interpreter had entered Technorati's top 50 world politics blogs for the first time. Last March we entered the top 100.
• What's wrong with India's think-tank scene?
• China's largest freshwater lake is now...well, you'll see.
• The excellent international relations and IT blog Circuit reviews a new book on Asian cyberspace, and has a copy to give away.
• What do Filipinos think about the US military presence there? (thanks Danielle.)
• 'Chinese companies’ increasingly outdated global reputation for being imitative not innovative is because much product innovation in China stays there...'
• IIT-JEE, a 'brooding cultural force' and 'the first abbreviation many Indian children learn'.
• Facebook up, American Airlines down: James Fallows wonders what Dickens would make of the WSJ's front page.

UK Conservative Party MP David Davis may have committed what is known as a 'Kinsley gaffe':

...a Kinsley gaffe...is an occurrence of someone telling the truth by accident. Typically, it refers to a politician inadvertently saying something publicly that they privately believe is true, but would ordinarily not say publicly because they believe it is politically harmful. The term comes from journalist Michael Kinsley, who said, "A gaffe is when a politician tells the truth."

Here's Davis reacting to the news that French aerospace giant Dassault beat Eurofighter, a part-British company, for a huge Indian fighter contract:

In the Commons, (David Cameron's) senior Conservative Party colleague and a contender for the party leadership David Davis called for him to pull his full weight to get India to change its mind pointing out that “we give aid to India many times more than what France gives.”

Ah, so that's what foreign aid is for — to subsidise the marketing efforts of local arms merchants. Really, how could the Indians have been so ungrateful?

A related question: if India can afford £7 billion worth of jet fighters, is Britain's foreign aid actually supplementing the Indian Government's efforts to help the poor, or just substituting for it?

Photo by Flickr user Romeo66.

• John Mueller: '...it seems to me that the United States lives in an environment that is substantially free from threats that require a great deal of military preparedness.'
• Population and urbanisation trends in Asia.
• From 1865, a poignant and powerful letter written by a freed slave to his former 'master' in Tennessee.
• China upstages Europe at the African Union summit.
• Cheaper than kerosene: solar makes big strides in the developing world. (H/t RCW.)
• It's difficult to reconcile Obama's State of the Union remarks on Iran's nuclear program with US missile defence policy.
• The European Council on Foreign Relations has a nice website illustrating findings from its latest EU foreign policy scorecard.
• CFR's Joshua Kurlantzick has a new brief out about the drivers behind Burma's reforms.
• Richard Bitzinger on the historical demons animating Singapore's defence strategy:

The last thing the Singaporeans want is to fight last-ditch battles on Singaporean soil...A lot of this goes back to the fall of Singapore in 1942. That history is very poignant to them - the idea that once the Japanese crossed the straits of Johore, it was all over. They never want to have this happen again. They will take the war to the enemy.

• The visible and subtle signs of Kim Jong Un's legitimisation as North Korean leader.
• The Royal Navy warns Argentina against 'foolish nonsense'.
• Is Germany a model for renewable energy policy, or just a muddle?
• What I learned teaching international relations in Asia: part one; part two.
• A new trailer for 'Game Change', based on events surrounding the 2008 US presidential election. I have a feeling Sarah Palin isn't going to like it.
• In terms of immigration, Japan is a closed society, which is why its population prospects look so grim. But culturally, it is open and vibrant. (H/t Browser.)
• Deal of the century: India has selected French company Dassault to supply 126 new fighter jets. Aviation journalism doyen Bill Sweetman has analysis.
• An actual letter that a kid sent to a US soldier (h/t TDW): 

Two pieces I spotted in the NY Times reveal the heights and depths to which the under-appreciated craft of book reviewing can be subject.

It shocks me slightly to report that the Times' lead critic, the celebrated Michiko Kakutani, has offered up this dull, timid review of Zbigniew Brzezinski's latest effort, Strategic Vision. Among the words I could stand never to read again in a review of a policy book, 'provocative', 'clear-eyed', and 'insightful' would be at the top of my list. Kakutani manages to avoid 'nuanced', thank goodness.

On the other side of the ledger, I offer Alexander Rose's review of 'Manstein', the book Jim Molan just blogged about. The review is not only informed by a deep and critical knowledge of the subject matter and the genre, it's also witty and razor sharp. The Montgomery quote is priceless:

In this respect, Melvin follows the dramatic arc long favored by other biographers of major World War II generals, like Nigel Hamilton in his trilogy on Montgomery and Forrest Pogue with his tetralogy on Marshall. As in “Manstein,” each man undertook a tedious but ultimately invaluable apprenticeship, which is followed by trying reversals redeemed by faith in his abilities and affirmation of his gifts, and then, finally, by vindication amid adulation. In other words, World War II is the grand climax not only of the 20th century, but also of the subject’s career; it is the historical moment that focuses our hero’s martial ambitions and realizes his talents — once latent, now patent.

Inspirational, absolutely, but all this is just a gumbo of dated historiography, hero-genius worship, the 19th-century Great Man Theory of History. Generals may conceive themselves deities — Montgomery, a monster of conceit, once reportedly opened a reading of the Gospel with the words, “And the Lord said unto Moses, and, in my opinion, quite rightly”— but historians and biographers must do better.

• Last week Mark Thirlwell asked if anyone has created benchmarks for what Australian trade with other countries ought to look like. Here's a Treasury paper that makes an attempt (in an aggregate sense, I'm told, rather than country by country), and here's a University of Southern Queensland paper with country-specific estimates.
• The ADF Posture Review team has posted a progress report.
• UN Security Council reform is back on the agenda.
• Reuters has a thorough report about the murder and mayhem on the Mekong. (Thanks Milton.)
• A German newspaper claims to have found an al Qaeda strategy document.
• Tim Harford: 'If the Chinese can’t generate jobs through manufacturing I am not sure we should be expecting too much from that strategy.' (H/t MR.)

A quick reminder that COB tomorrow is the last day we will be accepting applications for the position of part-time assistant online editor at the Lowy Institute. You can read the job description and get all the application details by clicking here.

For those who have already applied, if you did not receive a reply email from me, please send your application again to blogeditor@lowyinstitute.org .

• Time and distance are trade barriers: 'We estimate that each day in transit is equivalent to an ad-valorem tariff of 0.6 to 2.3 percent'. (H/t Free Exchange.)
• How America's clean energy technology boom went bust.
• 'To arrive in Phnom Penh today is to encounter a city teeming with energy and enterprise.'
• The data suggests China's aid allocation is no more politically motivated than any other donor.
• Do states become more aggressive after they acquire nukes? Not really.
• A University of Sydney academic is doing a survey of Australian blog readers. Participate here. (H/t Troppo.)
• From the Jamestown Foundation: 

Transport logistics and the political will to send forces overseas have been missing links to date with respect to creating a large expeditionary capability within the PLA, and the Libya deployments mark a first step to addressing both issues.

I won't bother with a synopsis, since the teaser trailer below tells you pretty much everything you need to know about the premise of this film, which is premiering in Berlin (!) next month.

Looks like a real romp. There's a longer, newer, trailer here which contains strong language.

• We'll have more on PNG soon, but meantime, keep an eye on ABC journalist Liam Fox's Twitter feed.
• One sign you've made it as a world power: The Economist devotes a permanent weekly section to you. (Thanks Graeme.)
• The Asia Foundation's Steven Rood is going to be blogging regularly on The Philippines for the next four months. (Thanks Alma.)
• Gareth Evans gave a speech about Australia's UN Security Council bid yesterday.
• The Government has released an unclassified version of its recent independent review of intelligence agencies. (Thanks Graeme.)
• Strange fact about South Korea: electric fans are often fitted with timers. You won't believe why...
• It's Davos time again, but '...there is no correlation between being a successful business leader and having interesting ideas'. (H/t Browser.)
• Photos of Kazakhstan's spectacular (and spectacularly late — it took 23 years to finish) subway.

 Tomorrow is Australia Day, a national holiday; normal blogging will resume on Friday.

 Photo by Flickr user gordonflood.com.

• The official communique from this year's Australia UK Ministerial (AUKMIN) talks.
• Disgust is an important but under-appreciated human trait, and can be exploited to improve development outcomes.
• Behavioural traits also affect the way we use public transport.
• Thailand is backing a massive infrastructure project in Burma. Naturally, there is a political subtext.
• A detailed report on the winners and losers in Egypt's elections.
• The World Bank blog looks at corruption in Vietnam.
• President Obama delivers the annual State of the Union speech later today. It's true theatre, though not in a good way:

I find the pseudo-monarchial trappings of the speech increasingly repellent. We’re in the midst of an election campaign to decide whether Barack Obama gets to keep his office another four years and yet, for 90 minutes or so, we’re supposed to pretend that he’s our king. The entirety of both Houses of Congress, the Supreme Court, the Joint Chiefs, and the Cabinet–minus, of course, some token unelected apparatchik kept in a safe location somewhere to reconstitute the government in the event a Japanese airliner rams the Capitol– is supposed to clap like trained monkeys while the Campaigner in Chief delivers a partisan stump speech thinly disguised as a plea for national unity. Or, essentially, an insinuation that criticizing the president is somehow unpatriotic.

Just a quick note to anyone who missed this job notice the first time around: you have until 1 February to submit applications for the position of part-time assistant online editor at the Lowy Institute (pictured).

If you've submitted an application already, you should have received a reply email from me letting you know that I'll be in touch in early February. If you did not receive such an email from me, I'd be grateful if you could re-send your application (some applications were diverted to my spam folder; I think I've found them all, but I want to be sure).

• Russia has officially handed over a nuclear-powered submarine to India on a ten-year lease.
• A new Brookings paper throws light on the quality of Australian foreign aid. (Thanks Danielle.)
• Submarines and self-reliance: Ergas pushes back against Dibb and Brabin-Smith.*
• 'The one-child policy has kept China's dependency ratio artificially low, but it has also begun to slow the flow of new entrants into the workforce.'
• A few of you have pointed out that last week's Friday Funny video wasn't working. The producers of the video got in touch to alert me to a new version.
• Convergence: Is China catching up on services while India gets better at manufacturing?
• 'A confluence of largely unnoticed economic, demographic and political trends has put the U.S. in a far more favorable position than its rivals. Rather than the end of preeminence, America may well be entering  a renaissance.' (Thanks Andrew.)
• Kim Carr and Margaret Thatcher have something in common: both tried to save the local car industry with government handouts.

* You can get around The Australian's password protection by just Googling the headline — in this case, 'Sub "self reliance" a blank cheque to protectionists' — and clicking on the link.

Great song, outstanding police-work.

I feel almost guilty posting this, in spite of how good it is, because it seems like such a pathetic gesture towards the Philippines, a country about which The Interpreter has almost nothing to say.

That's something I'd like to fix, so if you happen to live in the Philippines or just know the country well and have something intelligent to say about it, let me know: blogeditor@lowyinstitute.org .

(H/t 3QD.)

Yep, I've witnessed a few of these, and delivered a couple too.

(H/t Browser.)

UPDATE (23/1): Looks like the owner has made this clip private, so you can no longer see it. Talk about a communications fail...

UPDATE (24/1): An updated version is now embedded above. Thanks Jake.

Regarding Europe's travails, this from Francis Fukuyama gets it just right, I think:

A lot of this discussion is dominated by people in finance and by economists because that is the short-term problem that has faced us, a new recession and the collapse of the European banking systems as a result of Europe’s failure to address politically these kinds of problems.

I don’t want to minimize these problems at all, but in a sense, there is a deeper failure at the European level, a failure in European identity. That is to say, there was never a successful attempt to create a European sense of identity and a European sense of citizenship that would define the obligations, responsibilities, duties and rights that Europeans have to one another beyond simply the wording of the different treaties that were signed. The EU in many respects was created as a technocratic exercise done for purposes of economic efficiency. What we can see now is that economic and post-national values are not enough to get people to buy into this community. 

When I hear analysts say that Europe faces a political crisis as much as a financial or economic crisis, my fear is that they use 'politics' in the very narrowest sense, to mean public opinion. They imply that Europe's problems will be overcome if enough European voters can be convinced of the merits of constitutional changes that will deepen the union. But even if that works (and European voters have proven pretty stubborn in the past) it merely defers the real crisis.

• The Jericho Amendments: new Australian Public Service rules for the use of social media. (Thanks Jasmin.)
• Relevant to our recent discussion: how blog debate can stimulate academic research.
• It's an irrational preference, but voters are more likely to trust better looking political candidates.
• The World Bank's latest Global Economic Prospects report is 'chock full of looming risk'. Then again, the latest US data is good.
• Nepal, stranded between two giants.
• Robert Kagan: Against the myth of American decline.
• My thanks to readers who saw my post about Thomas Cole's 'Course of Empire' landscapes and pointed out that Niall Ferguson got there way before me.
• The Center for New Media and Society at Moscow's New Economic School has an impressive website. (H/t Ponarseurasia.)

While searching for an image to accompany Andrew Shearer's post on American decline, I was sent on a serendipitous detour into Robert Hughes' American Visions: The Epic History of Art in America (1997; also a TV series).

In the book, Hughes describes at length Thomas Cole's landscape series, 'The Course of Empire', completed in 1833-36, a five-part series displaying the phases of empire: first savage, then Arcadian or pastoral, followed by consummation, destruction and finally desolation. Here's Hughes' conclusion:

...the anxiety (Cole) expressed in The Course of Empire, for all its universal aims, is a very American one, and it would raise its head at intervals right down to the Cold War: the fear that this culture, so new, so full of shine and strength, could be swept away in one catastrophic eye-blink. Except that for Cole the threat wasn't nuclear, it was moral, and its seed of apocalypse was planted right in the heart of the American democratic experience.

I don't mention any of this to make a specific political point; merely to note that anxieties about American corruption, empire and decline are a near-constant feature of the political discourse. Below, I've embedded each of the paintings in Cole's series (images courtesy of Wikipedia, where you can see larger versions) with some further extracts from American Visions: 

'The Savage State, 1834, is the primitive scene...It is a culture without monuments or records.' 

The Economist's 'Democracy in America' blog calls for a moratorium on the building of memorials in Washington, DC:

There are many culprits in the devolution of much of Washington into a cloddish, ugly, characterless city. And in some neighbourhoods the past 20 years have seen momentum in the opposite direction. But the relentless drive towards ever more memorials is definitely part of the problem. There hasn't been an interesting or culturally significant one built since the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in the early 1980s. The FDR memorial is weird. The second-world-war memorial is pompous, empty of ideas, and militaristic; if the other guys had won, they probably would have built something that looked very similar.

To some degree, this also goes for Canberra, which in some places looks like a theme park for memorials rather than a living city. But Australia as a whole is thankfully bereft of what The Economist calls the 'bold men staring into the distance' style of memorial, preferring tributes on a more human scale. The recent Curtin-Chifley statue (above) is a nice example.

Photo courtesy of the ACT Government.

Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd's recent speech to the Asia Society is a lucid and bracingly matter-of-fact treatment of the challenges presented by the rise of China. Plain English is not the Foreign Minister's strong suit, so when he does deliver a speech that is direct, easily intelligible but never simplistic or condescending, it's worth noting. A good thing, too, that he did it on such an important topic.

The key questions Rudd addresses: 'Can the dissonant values, aspirations and interests of the United States, China and the rest of Asia be managed, embraced or even reconciled in the decade ahead?'

For all the strengths of the speech, I'm not certain the answer he offers — Asian regionalism that embraces all the major players, in the form of the newly expanded East Asia Summit — convinces even Rudd himself:

Major differences in the respective national interests and values systems of China and the United States will, however, be with us for the foreseeable future...If a common strategic vision ultimately proves to be elusive between the United States and China, then common strategic co-existence within the framework of agreed norms should not.

Rudd is quite right that summitry of the kind he endorses is 'itself inherently normalising' and can 'build transparency, confidence and trust'. And to those who measure the utility of international fora by the number of concrete agreements they achieve, Rudd has this important reminder: 'The concept of common security is as much a habit as it is a concrete doctrine on a set of specific actions.'

Yet none of that will make much of a difference if the main players are not prepared to make concessions and curb their ambitions for the sake of the greater good, and this is perhaps where, for defensible political reasons, Rudd's speech falls silent. Yet the question is still out there: given that their national interests are in many ways incompatible, what are China and the US prepared to give up for the sake of regional peace?

• Luxury items are flowing into North Korea. (Thanks Malcolm.)
• One for your bookmarks — The New Atlantis: A Journal of Technology & Society.
• 'I was not aware that Australia was about to be invaded by Papua New Guinea, or by Indonesia'. Lunch with Zbigniew Brzezinski. (Thanks Alex.)
• Matthew Engel has a series in the FT on British Institutions, including this fascinating piece on the London underground (which, BTW, is not a political movement). (H/t Browser.)
• The private papers of George F Kennan.
• AusAID's Office of Development Effectiveness has a series of podcast interviews with aid and development experts. (Thanks Heather.)
• Cordesman on how the Afghanistan war ends. (Thanks Alex.)
• Who are the generals backing Kim Jong-un?
• A great photo essay from Iran.
• Finally, RIP Peter Veness, a talented young Australian defence reporter.

Benjamin Moles writes:

Yes, Kevin Rudd was correct to state what he did. As Foreign Minister, he is responsible for pursuing and furthering Australian national interests abroad. The election of a more traditionally independence minded DPP candidate in Taiwan would certainly ‘rock the boat’ in Beijing. Escalations in tension between the two increases the likelihood of potential miscalculation and miscalculation could eventuate in military conflict between the two- forcing the US to decide with what degree of liberal interpretation they wish to make of the US-Taiwan Relations Act, which would certainly have ramifications regionally for its alliance partners- like Australia, and Australia would potentially be put in its ‘nightmare scenario’ of having to choose between the US and China- not in Australia’s national interest. Rudd is simply, I believe, stating where our national interest rests on the matter and he is quite right to do so.

But Australian political leaders have traditionally avoided involvement in the democratic processes of other countries. And when they do cross that line — recall John Howard saying that Osama bin Laden wanted then-Senator Obama to win the 2008 US presidential election — they are slammed for it. Rudd didn't go as far as Howard, but his comments did suggest he was steering Taiwanese voters toward a particular candidate.

The BBC, in its new nature series 'Earthflight', gets close-ups of cranes flying over Venice. The Guardian has some photos showing how the Beeb got this glorious footage.

Enjoy your weekend.

(H/t TDW.)

Kevin Rudd in an interview with CNN (my emphasis):

JOURNALIST: A man familiar to most of our viewers — Kevin Rudd, the former Australian Prime Minister and current Foreign Minister, joins us from New York. Great to have you with us, because you have such a background in Taiwanese politics, studies. What do you think it should take in the region? What’s at stake in this election on Saturday?

MR RUDD: You know with every Taiwanese election, we always take a deep breath and hope for the best because this is one of the red line issues for Beijing, that is, the future status of Taiwan. We all know mainland China’s policy, which is that Taiwan’s part of China and they want to see it back as a formal part of the motherland. And as your report has just indicated on Taiwan itself, you still have a significant move for a local identity, and ultimately some form of local independence.

So, the key thing with this election is obviously if the Democratic Progress Party wins, there’ll be an audible sucking in of breath in Beijing, and if Ma Ying-jeou from the Kuomintang, the KMT, win, then it will be business as usual. So, I think we’re in for a few rocky days as the Taiwanese people go to vote.

Coming from anybody else, this would be a reasonably conventional analysis of cross-Strait political dynamics. But on the eve of the election, is it really proper for the foreign minister of Australia to be so explicit about the possible consequences of the election? He's effectively telling Taiwanese voters that a vote for the Democratic Progress Party could bring on a more fractious relationship with China. Again, he's probably right about this, but should someone in his position be saying it?

Three-dimensional printers are now affordable enough for home use. No, they can't make food like Star Trek's replicators, but they can make relatively complex solid objects (though note that the makers of the device advertised above have appropriated the term 'replicator'; it wouldn't be the first time inventors have been inspired by science fiction).

Of course, someone needs to design those objects first, and one innovation I was unaware of, explained in the video, is that the design process can be crowdsourced and then shared among users.

Just before Christmas I wrote a post referring to the 'super-empowered individual', and this is the sort of technology I had in mind as providing that power. Currently, manufacturing requires teams of designers and engineers in labs and office blocks, and when they have finished, their ideas get made into goods in large factories with long assembly lines. But devices like this are moving that entire process onto the web and into the home. I don't think we yet have any idea of the disruptive capacity of such technology, for good and ill.

UPDATE: Also on the theme of cheap, radically disruptive technology: the $1000 genome. (H/t 3QD.)

(Video courtesy of The Browser.)

• The Nuclear Threat Initiative ranks Australia no.1 in the world for nuclear security. The ABC's report conflates security and safety. (Thanks Jasmine.)
• India looks set for flight-tests of its longest-range missile to date, the Agni 5, within the next few months. With a range of 5000 km this clearly has China – not Pakistan – as its target and object of deterrence. (Thanks Rory.)
• 'Nuclear deterrence without arms control is like trying to construct a lasting, protective edifice with bricks but no mortar.'
• The recently released Pentagon strategic review explicitly endorsed a new long-range bomber for the Air Force. The Russians are working on one too.
• Nuclear experts have their say on the assassination of an Iranian nuclear scientist. (Thanks Jasmine.)
• The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has moved its doomsday clock one minute closer to midnight. (Thanks Rory.)
• A tale from the Indian Navy: how a one-and-a-half inch crustacean almost foiled a 5000-ton nuclear submarine.
• Could Scotland's impending independence referendum spell trouble for the UK nuclear deterrent? (Britain's ballistic missile submarines are based in Faslane, Scotland.)
• This Friday the US mission in Vienna (home of the IAEA) will hold a 'Virtual Town Hall about nuclear nonproliferation, nuclear security, and nuclear safety' via Tumblr. You are invited to post questions for their Charge d’Affairs Robert Wood to answer via video. (Thanks Jasmine.)

The Nuclear Reactions column is supported by the Nuclear Security Project of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, as part of a wider partnership between the NSP and the Lowy Institute. 

Stephen Grenville's examination of the influence of blogging on economic debate is too pessimistic for my taste.

Do economics blogs change minds? No, says Stephen, based on the argument that googling phrases like 'I was wrong' yields few results. But that's not a terribly scientific measure; humans, proud creatures that they are, tend to be reluctant to admit error. Also, what is Stephen comparing blogs against? Is there some other form of persuasion in economics that shows better results?

Anyway, the 'I was wrong' measure takes no account of the way blogs form opinion rather than changing it — my guess is that figures like Tyler Cowen are much more influential among younger economists than those with long-established views. So maybe it is too early to tell whether econoblogs are improving policy. That may come when the younger generation of economists — who consume blogs alongside their standard texts — move up in the world.

Stephen also laments the partisanship and extremism of much blogging. It may be true that the bloggers who shout the loudest get the most hits, but building an audience through extremism and ideological purity is a formula that goes back to 19th century pamphleteering. Blogs didn't invent it, and blogs aren't uniquely malign in promoting ideological rigidity — they just place it on its fullest display.

Photo by Flickr user flattop341.