The unraveling of Russia's Far Eastern power
I n the early hours of September 1, 1983, a Soviet Su-15 fighter intercepted and shot down a Korean Airlines Boeing 747 after it had flown over the Kamchatka Peninsula. All 269 passengers and crew perished. While the United Statescondemned the act as evident villainyand the Soviet Union upheld the act as frontier defense, the act itselfunderscored the militarystrength Moscow had assembled in its Far Eastern provinces. Even on the remote fringes of its empire, strong and responsive militaryforces stood ready. As has been the case for much of the twentieth century, East Asia respected the Soviet Union and Russia largely because of their militarymight-with the economics and politics of the Russian Far East (RFE) playing important but secondary roles. Hence, the precipitous decline in Russia's Far Eastern forces during the 1990s dealt a serious blow to the country's power and influence in East Asia. At the same time, the regional economy's abilityto support itsmilitaryinfrastructure dwindled. The strikes, blockades, and general lawlessness that have coursed through the RFE caused its foreign and domestic trade to plummet. Even natural resource extraction, still thought to be the region's potential savior, fell victim to bureaucratic, financial, and political obstacles. Worse still, food, heat, and electricityhave become scarce. In the midst of this economic winter, the soldiers and sailors of Russia's once-formidable Far East contingent now languish in their barracks and ports, members of a frozen force.1
After Primakov [The evolving context of Russian national security policy]
L’apres-Primakov. Evolution dans la politique de securite nationale en Russie. – L’article traite des dangers qui menacent la securite nationale russe depuis la deuxieme moitie de 1999. A cette epoque, la Russie connut de graves crises internes dues au limogeage du premier ministre, Evgenij Primakov, et aux tentatives de la Douma de destituer Boris El’cin. L’auteur maintient que la menace principale sur la securite de la Russie, contrairement a ce que portent a penser les reactions courroucees a la campagne du Kosovo, sont d’ordre interne et proviennent de l’incapacite a construire un Etat efficace, a controler l’armee, a resoudre la question du projet federal de facon adequate, ou a ranimer l’economie. Tous ces facteurs favorisent un processus de privatisation de l’Etat dans lequel des individus ne voient dans celui-ci qu’un moyen de servir leurs interets personnels au detriment de tout interet national. En fait, la Russie eprouve des difficultes a definir un interet national coherent et ne peut faire face ni aux menaces classiques ni aux nouvelles menaces transnationales. Bien que la Russie, ou plutot l’armee et l’elite politique, se sentent menacees par la campagne de l’OTAN au Kosovo, elles sont en fait menacees de l’interieur, et leur obsession de la derzhavnost’ et du statut naturel de la Russie comme grande puissance ne peut qu’entraver tout effort de gestion des dangers effectifs et exacerber ses crises interminables.
Chemical-Looping Combustion of Biomass in a 10 kWth Reactor with Iron Oxide As an Oxygen Carrier
Chemical-looping combustion of biomass was carried out in a 10 kWth reactor with iron oxide as an oxygen carrier. A total 30 h of test was achieved with the same batch of iron oxide oxygen carrier. The effect of the fuel reactor temperature on gas composition of the fuel reactor and the air reactor, the proportion of biomass carbon reacting in the fuel reactor, and the conversion of biomass carbon to CO2 in the fuel reactor was experimentally investigated. The results showed that the CO production from biomass gasification with CO2 was more temperature dependent than the CO oxidation with iron oxide in the fuel reactor, and an increase in the fuel reactor temperature produced a higher increase for the CO production from biomass gasification than for the oxidation of CO by iron oxide. Although the conversion of biomass carbon to CO2 in the fuel reactor decreased with the increase of the fuel reactor temperature, there was a substantial increase in the proportion of biomass carbon reacting in the fuel react...