Category Archives: military expenditure

AUKUS becomes QuadAukus … and alarms “Raucous-Aucous”

NOTES from “Raucous-Aucous”

ONE: Aukus wins the Marx/Goebbels  Award for propaganda campaign of 2023…………..

Note.  A recent news item in The Australian revealed that plans are being made with Japan, India, UK, US and Australia to combine Quad and Aukus into one alliance – probably to be called QuadAukus.
There is also talk of NZ and the Philippines joining, or at least considering joining.

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Incarceration Camps in the Pacific Theatre of World War II Deciphered

Anoma Pieris presents her work on “Pacific War Incarceration Camps” . to the world 

While there have been many excellent studies on colonial penal environments in the Asia Pacific region, mainly prisons, very few scholars have approached the wartime internment and prisoner of war camps associated with the Pacific War as comparable carceral spaces that might offer deeper insights into imperial and national forms of political sovereignty and border conflict. There are few comparative studies across geographical areas or imperial regimes. Sarah Kovner’s book Prisoners of Empire: Inside Japanese POW Camps (Harvard University Press 2020), though focused on Japanese military imperialism, is important for that focus, and increasingly, several anthologies have offered us a similar analytical breadth by juxtaposing numerous national perspectives. The Architecture of Confinement: Incarceration Camps of the Pacific War (Cambridge University Press, 2022) is similarly ambitious in its scope. It uses the arc of the Pacific Basin to frame a comparative study including Australia, Singapore, North America and Japan as important nodal points in the wartime incarceration camp geography. Its aim is to investigate the impact of the war on settler societies, more so than on the imperial contestants dominating both theatres of World War II.

Anoma Pieris and Lynne Horiuchi at former Cowra POW Camp site in 2016 … photo: Anoma Pieris.

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Saviour Heli-Service: Vital Air Force Link during Eelam Wars

An Item in  http://www.airforcemonthly.com, April 2011, retrieved by a Military Aviation enthusiast friend of Michael Roberts ….

 


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Poppy Day in Ceylon and Sri Lanka

Retd Brig. Hiran Halangode

This year the Armed Forces Remembrance Day and Poppy ceremony is due to be held on Sunday the 13th November 2022 at the Viharamahadevi park in Colombo. Since November is the month of Remembrance universally, it is commemorated world over.

 

 

 

 

 

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Galle Fort Today: Its Dutch Legacy

Mahil Wijesinghe, in Sunday Observer Epaper, 23 October 2022, with this title “Dutch Legacy of Galle fort

The Galle city is home to a population of around 100,000. Easily reached via the Southern Expressway, the A2 Highway or the coastal rail track, Galle is indeed a place worth a stop. A quick walk through the chip-stone laid busy streets, you will discover the rich history of the colonial period and the natural beauty of the seascape.

 

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“Ceylonese” Fighting for Britain during the Two World Wars

Michael Roberts

Following the recent publication of the book Volunteers from Ceylon who served in the British and Commonwealth Forces during World War I (1914-1918) and World War II (1939-1945) . I asked the assiduous compilers of this work to provide a convenient statistical summary of the number of personnel from Ceylon who decided to serve the British Empire in its hour of need (with all the political and cultural implications of these decisions in my ‘compass’).

So, Thuppahi can now present the statistics courtesy of Kumar Kirinde (ex-Trinity College and SL Air Force).

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The LTTE’s Remarkable Capacities: Its Air Tigers

Compiled by Kumar Kirinde, Retd Officer of  the SLAF, whose chosen title was as follows: “The Air Tigers: The Air Wing of A Terrorist Organisation”  …… with information and images  sourced from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Tigers and Google Images)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pirapaharan (ext. left) with Anton Balasingham on his left and KP Pathmanathan in front and Shankar on the extreme right in the Vanni jungles circa 2001(?) … Shankar was in effect the Air Tiger chief

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Forgotten Political Aggression: India in Sikkim and Taiwan under Chiang Kai-she

ONE: Lin Minwang

New Delhi has been making new moves at the border recently. From October 14 to 31, India and the US are scheduled to hold the annual joint military exercise “Yudh Abhyas” in Auli in the Indian state of Uttarakhand – deliberately choosing to hold the event less than 100 kilometers away from the Line of Actual Control (LAC) on the China-India border.

 

 

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HMS “Ceylon”: In Service from 1942-1985

Group Captain Kumar Kirinde, Retd. SLAF whose preferred title is indicated at the end together with detials from one inspiration, that from Richard Boyle.

 

 

Introduction:  HMS Ceylon was a Fiji-class light cruiser of the Royal Navy. She was of the Ceylon sub class, named after the island and British colony of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). The cruiser saw service in the Atlantic and Pacific theatres during the Second World War. In the postwar era, she participated in actions in Egypt and the Korean War. In 1960 she transferred to the navy of Peru and was renamed Coronel Bolognesi. The cruiser was scrapped in 1985.

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Drone Warfare: Picking Its Entrails

Audrey Kurth Cronin, in Foreign Affairs, June 2013  ….. with this title Why Drones Fail. When Tactics Drive Strategy,”

 

 

 

 

Don’t drone me, bro! Pakistani tribesmen hold pieces of a missile, January 2009 Continue reading

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