Jokii's Blog

U.S. intelligence agencies thought the Afghan military would last longer and predicted Kyiv would fall faster, showing the difficulty of assessing fighting spirit. A class teaching civilians combat skills this month in Lutsk, Ukraine.Credit...Brendan Hoffman for The New York Times Ukrainian citizens learned to make Molotov cocktails from government public service announcements, then recorded themselves setting Russian armored vehicles on fire. Ukraine’s soldiers waited in ambush and fired Western-provided missiles at Russian tanks. The country’s president recorded messages from the streets of his capital, urging his country to fight back against the invaders. It was a stark contrast from a different set of images, just seven months ago, when the Taliban rolled into Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul, unopposed. Most Afghan troops abandoned their uniforms and weapons. The president fled to the United Arab Emirates, leaving his country to the Taliban militants it had fought for some two d...

Despite exaggerations and inevitable setbacks, North Korea’s missile test programme is increasingly impressive. The launch on Thursday of a long-range intercontinental ballistic missile, or ICBM, by North Korea is the latest test in a growing arms race between North and South Korea. Flying for more than 67 minutes, the missile reached a height 15 times higher than the International Space Station before splashing down into the Sea of Japan. This recent success highlighted an expanding North Korean missile development programme that is as impressive as it is worrying to North Korea’s enemies. As the North attempts to show off new systems, discoveries by analysts have cast doubt on North Korea’s recent achievements and according to South Korean media sources, officials are examining whether Thursday’s launch was of the type of missile that North Korea claimed. Thursday’s launch looked like the successful test of a new missile type, a heavy ICBM, rumoured to be able to carry multiple wa...