Friday’s Reading List

By Taylor Marvin

‘Portrait of Juana Inés de la Cruz’, 17th century. Via Wikimedia.

What I read this week:

An older piece, but nevertheless interesting: Why haven’t the FARC successfully used surface-to-air weapons in Colombia? Possible answers include difficulty acquiring or storing MANPADS, and difficultly using these weapons in the dense jungles FARC operates in.

Brazil in 2014: Will Rousseff change course?

Army’s ‘Pacific Pathways’ initiative sets up turf battle with Marines. Relatedly, maritime strategies and defense budgets.

A reviews of Robert Gates’ Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War by Greg Jaffee.

Jim O’Neill, creator of the BRIC grouping acronym, has a new term for the four large developing economies with young workforces, the MINTs — Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria, and Turkey. It is worth noting that while the BRICs’ total population is nearly 3 billion, the MINTs’ is just over 600 million. We also must give thanks for countries whose names begin with “I”, without which these neat acronyms would be impossible.

From earlier this week, more linkage at Political Violence @ a Glance. I also wrote a brief retrospective of PVG’s first full year this week.

Staff Benda Bilili – Osali Mabe.