December 18, 2022
From a Twitter thread I wrote on May 23, 2022: 1. How to evaluate Biden’s recent statements that the US would defend Taiwan in the event of an attack by China? Is this a smart thing, a dumb thing, or does it even matter? A thread. 2. On the one hand, the US has no […]
December 18, 2022
From a Twitter thread I wrote on October 14, 2012: 1. I’m reading “Red Roulette” by Desmond Shum. While it’s fascinating, I’m a bit concerned that people will read it and think that is how all business in China gets done. Some thoughts: 2. Shum describes a business world in China in which connections to […]
December 18, 2022
From a Twitter thread I wrote on July 24, 2020: 1. I’m often asked, if I’m so critical of Trump’s approach to China, what I think the US *should* do … with the assumption I’ll be stumped, because I have nothing to offer. So let me answer that question, perhaps not exhaustively, but in some […]
December 18, 2022
From a thread I posted on Twitter on February 27, 2022: 1. Some thoughts on the strategic relationship between Russia and China. A thread. The current closeness between the two is basically driven by two factors: 2. First, and this predates Xi, is China’s concern about the vulnerability of its supply lines, particularly oil, to […]
December 18, 2022
Today in Microsoft Flight Simulator, I’m flying the de Havilland DH.82 Tiger Moth, the airplane that trained thousands of pilots from across the British Empire to take to the air in World War II. Born in 1882, Geoffrey de Havilland was the second son of a village pastor. At an early age, he displayed a […]
December 17, 2022
Welcome to Berlin’s Tempelhof Airport, where today in Microsoft Flight Sim I will be flying the Junkers Ju 52, one of the world’s first modern airliners, which became an icon of the Nazi regime. Tempelhof was Berlin’s main airport from 1927 to the 1970s, and was a main site of the 1948 Berlin Airlift. I […]
December 17, 2022
Welcome to Munda, in the Solomon Islands, where I’ll be checking out the iconic the F4U-1 Corsair in its natural WW2 habitat, in Microsoft Flight Simulator. As some of you may recall, I’ve actually been to Munda, where I did an extensive post on the World War II campaign there and at nearby Guadalcanal. Now […]
December 16, 2022
I just read to my 8-year old twin daughters about an exceptional person I never heard of before: Bessie Coleman, the first African-American woman pilot, and the first Native American pilot. Bessie was born in 1892 to a family of sharecroppers in Texas. Her family was part Cherokee. She walked four miles every day to […]
December 15, 2022
Today on Microsoft Flight Simulator, I’m at Homey Airport (KXTA), aka Groom Lake, aka Area 51. I’ve come here, to the remote Nevada desert, to fly one of the most iconic top secret aircraft of all time: the F-117 Nighthawk, commonly called the Stealth Fighter. The story of the F-117 begins in 1964, when the […]
December 15, 2022
Welcome back. Today in Microsoft Flight Sim, I’ll be flying the twin-engine Lockheed P-38 Lightning, one of the fastest and most successful American fighters of World War II. n the process, I’ll be telling the story of Dick Bong, a P-38 pilot in the Pacific who became the top-scoring American fighter ace of all time. […]