A trailer for the Heritage Foundation’s forthcoming video on “the very real threat that hostile nations and rogue dictators now pose to every one of us” is available. Heritage bills the video, scheduled to come out in February 2009, as a “high-definition documentary.” It looks to me more like an infomercial for ground-based national missile …
Sejil Reconsidered
by | 2008-11-21 | 24 Comments
Many people have written in objecting to my theory that the Sejil uses liquid propellant steering engines for thrust vector control and, I have to admit, that they have had some very good arguments. Perhaps the most persuasive arguments have been: The boxes hang far below the end of the solid propellant motor’s nozzle and …
Estimative Language, Then and Now
by | 2008-11-20 | 10 Comments
Of the many reasons I have a soft spot for the intelligence community, one is this: imagine how hard it is to produce a document that is both precise and readable. That’s the same challenge I face on the blog, but the IC can’t include gratuituous jokes of a certain kind just to liven things …
Clustering Engines, Adding Up the Weights
by | 2008-11-20 | 1 Comment
In an unfortunately title article in Jane’s Intelligence Review (“Safir When Ready: Iran sets its sights on long-range capability”; sorry, its subscription only) I discussed why I interpreted pictures of the test-stand version of a Safir second stage as indicating Iran was developing a new advance in its missile program: a clustering of two engines …
