I am in South Korea for about two weeks to begin my a part of the subsequent massive challenge: understanding the connection between protection companies and the navy, they must, uh, uh, one thing. A number of years in the past I’d have stated oversight, however this challenge basically began with an interview with a Division of Protection official who stated his company’s function was to guard the navy from civilians, which may be very a lot the alternative of oversight . So Phil Lagassé, Ora Szekley and I journey to a bunch of nations to catalog the totally different roles that these companies assume they’ve, after which to clarify the variation. That is one other cool challenge that engages with heaps of comparative civil-military relations.
I began on this path accidentally. The expertise I had within the Pentagon raised questions on NATO, however as quickly as I spotted that officers sporting two hats, their NATO function and their nationwide command accountability, would all the time fear extra concerning the nationwide hat, the analysis must happen in quite a few totally different nationwide capitals, moderately than in Brussels or Mons (NATO’s navy headquarters). And it was cool for me because it meant many attention-grabbing journeys, many desirable interviews and eventually my favourite e book: NATO in Afghanistan: Preventing Collectively, Preventing Alone. It basically requested why international locations had totally different guidelines for his or her quotas within the discipline – who needed to name whom to get permission for what sorts of actions.
Which in fact results in the subsequent query: Is there anybody keeping track of whether or not these quotas keep throughout the guidelines? Since many international locations had legislators writing these guidelines, we puzzled in the event that they seemed to see if these guidelines truly restricted habits. Early conversations with Canadian parliamentarians didn’t counsel a lot, and we discovered that Canada was not alone. That e book is now awaiting overview by a couple of publishers, to hopefully see the sunshine of day in your native bookstore (or not less than a web based one) in … 2025?
The following query, as talked about above, is whether or not protection companies oversee their armed forces. Our case choice this time principally repeats the earlier instances – as a result of we have now some understanding, if not experience, in these instances we have now contacts in these locations, so the analysis ought to be pretty simple.
In order that’s why I am in South Korea. It was a captivating case for the legislators’ e book, and is kind of attention-grabbing to date after two interviews. What have I discovered to date?
- there are locations the place you may get a non-public room and a set menu to have a lunch assembly/interview, however wow, the meals retains coming. I misplaced monitor of what number of dishes we had for lunch. It was nice and the room was quiet so I may file the interview.
- I do not keep in mind being turned away from BBQ locations final time, however apparently they do not need solo diners, not less than on this neighborhood.
- I’ve to be extra cautious since I deleted immediately’s pictures.
- I discovered that Google and South Korea have a feud so I can not use google maps to present me good strolling instructions. I’ve needed to obtain different apps that work okay however not fairly pretty much as good.
- I must pay extra consideration to the indicators on the tables. For dinner tonight I went to a spot that serves quite a lot of fundamental dishes and it had a transparent signal taped to the place you should utilize a display to order meals: foreigners order on the counter. I used to be handed a multilingual menu, pointed to what I wished, paid and sat down. When my quantity got here up, I acquired my meals and sat down. However no silverware, no chopsticks. There was a self-service cabin that had energy, glass and a few equipment. No chopsticks no napkins, no spoons. It seems that the spoon/chopstick markings on the desk indicated a sneaky facet drawer that contained them and napkins. I solely realized 3/4 of the best way by the meal once I observed somebody accessing their stuff.
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I discovered that garlic fried rooster is de facto good for dinner and likewise good chilly for breakfast.
- I am a bit off my recreation, not solely with deleted pictures, however my taxi from the airport practice took me to the improper hotel–there are two accommodations of the identical title right here, and I knew that, so I ought to have been clearer. Not an enormous deal, however on the finish of a really lengthy day of journey, it was not welcome.
I ran right into a show of 70 years of US-ROK alliance on the Museum of Up to date Historical past.
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Extra stories from the sphere and maybe fewer deleted pictures within the coming days.