Говори и пиши как The Eсonomist

A weathered Middle East truism holds that, while there can be no all-out Arab-Israeli war without Egypt, there can be no long-term peace without Syria.

On April 2nd 2003, during the second Gulf war, a hundred or so Iraqi armoured vehicles approached a far smaller American reconnaissance unit south of Baghdad. Responding to a call for help, a B-52 bomber at­tacked the first 30 or so vehicles in the column with a single, historic pass. It dropped two new CBU-105 bombs, and the result shocked the soldiers of both sides — and, soon enough, military observers everywhere. While falling, the CBU-105 bombs popped open, each releasing ten submuni- tions which were slowed by parachutes. Each of these used mini rockets to spin and eject outward four discs the size of ice-hockey pucks. The 80 free-falling discs from the pair of bombs then scanned the ground with lasers and heat-detecting infra-red sensors to locate armoured vehicles. Those discs that identified a target exploded dozens of metres up. The blast propelled a tangerine-sized slug of copper down into the target, de­stroying it with the impact and the accompanying shrapnel. The soldiers in the 70 vehicles farther back in the column surrendered immediately.

In the 20 years since the end of the cold war NATO's obituary has been written many times, so far always prematurely. In a world of few dragons but a great many more snakes, it can look clumsy.

Seven of the world's eight most violent countries lie on the bloody traf­ficking route from the cocaine fields of the Andes to the nostrils of North America.

Somalia is not important until it launches a terrorist attack which makes it important.

There are over 17,000 Border Patrol agents on the border with Mexico, a fivefold increase over 1993. They patrol in cars and all-terrain vehicles, on bicycles and horses, in boats, planes and helicopters. When there are no agents around, cameras, reconnaissance drones and three differ­ent types of sensors — seismic, magnetic and infra-red — keep tabs on things. A third of the border is fenced, and most of the rest is in areas so remote or rugged as to make fences pointless or impractical. Some parts of the fence are 17 feet high, with metal plates extending ten feet below ground to prevent tunneling.

To bomb Iran's programme out of existence.

The United States then made some 30 military interventions in and around the Caribbean in the next 30 years, many of them under Smedley Butler, a marine corps general, who summed up his career thus: "I helped make Honduras 'right' for American fruit companies in 1903. I helped make Mexico...safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to col­lect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street...I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-12. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China, I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested."

But then the army began marching in the wrong direction, and its general shot himself in the foot.

Turkish generals are down, but they are not out.

If humans, for example, were black-and-white striped then the history of intercommunal violence the species has suffered when different races have met might not have been quite as bad.

"The Godfather's Michael Corleone: "Never hate your enemies. It affects your judgment."

I Since Dunblane, handguns have been outlawed in Britain, meaning that even the Olympic shooting squad has had to train abroad. Because of these strict laws, plus Britain's relative lack of a hunting culture, gun ownership is unusual: there are just 56 guns per thousand people in Britain, compared with 300 per thou­sand in Germany and 900 in America.

A firefighter's first rule of survival is "know your way ouf.

The defeats are more painful than the victories are sweet.

Napoleon: "Let China sleep, for when she wakes the world will shake."

Mr Putin uses his KGB training to cultivate those who might be of use to him. He likes to quote a remark once made to him by Henry Kissinger, whom he greatly admires: "All decent people started their careers in intelligence."

£ £ Russia, USSR, mysterious Russian soul, communism, vodka, fatalism

But what exactly makes Russia unique?

It was an old rule in Russia that the subordinate must never be cleverer than the boss.

The Crimean war was certainly the most significant conflict of the sec­ond half of the 19th century. If deaths from disease are included, it cost at least 750,000 lives, two-thirds of them Russian, and it triggered big social and cultural changes in all the countries affected.

Catherine the Great: "I have no way to defend my borders but to extend them."

Russia holds plenty of promise.

Only Fyodor Dostoyevsky can offer a double lesson on the love of God and the love of a good woman.