Leftover Links!

Devour thy leftovers:

• Steve McQueen is planning a movie about Paul Robeson.  Very interesting stuff, although Robeson’s unique physique and carriage will pose some challenges for casting.  I hope that they complicate, rather than whitewash, Robeson’s pro-Soviet attitudes.
• The US and South Korea have given up on developing new arrangements for combat command. The idea of command independence was superficially appealing to the South Koreans (and Don Rumsfeld loved it), but would have required the RoK to moderate its free riding.
• This is why we don’t fly F-14 Tomcats anymore.  Pity the poor bastards in the Iranian Air Force tasked with keeping these birds in the air with spare and jury-rigged parts.
• Heather Roff Perkins on whether the LRASM (Long Range Anti-Ship Missile) should be considered a killer robot autonomous killing machine. My thinking is that such a designation strains the definition, for both good and ill.
• Bill Sweetman on the politics and engineering of installing new engines on the B-52.
• An independent service for the special forces? It’s an interesting notion, but the practical objections are probably overwhelming.