There is nothing more illustrative of the logistical nature of life than the primal urge to a desired path. After last week’s soft launch of the form, we return today to establish a regular analytical roundup of the logistics in the news, and the news about logistics, that I am following. Because logistics touches every aspect and moment of life and experience, the content ranges from awful to awe-inspiring to aww. It is, however, the broad portfolio of content informing my thinking.
EUROPEAN DEFENCE AND THE UKRAINE WAR
Russia started the week demanding that any ceasefire also be accompanied by a cessation of arms support to Ukraine. Unreasonable, to say the least. Meanwhile, it is struggling mightily against the relentless attacks against the oil infrastructure. Targeted five days ago, the fire at the Kavkazkaya oil depot and Krasnodar Krai pipeline is still burning. The Engels airbase attack damaged as well the surrounding hamlets.
We are only just beginning to understand the magnitude of the damage done by Russia’s destruction of the Kakhovka Dam in 2023, a significant turn in the war that drew resources from the battlefield. On the chemical contamination it caused, read here.
Allies stepping up. Baerbock gives another Euro 3B for Ukraine, delivers protective gabions for border security. Norway promises $7.6B for 2025. Finland is leading a bomb shelter coalition to support Ukraine.
European defense spending and planning is facing a political moment over how to achieve fiscal integration and, potentially, geographic expansion with Canadian participation. When the public politics change, policies and strategies can change. I have said this hundreds of times to students stuck on the seeming durability of statuses quo. We are seeing this across Europe, as noted by Caroline DeGruyter quoting Telegraph (NL): “Dutch central bank president Klaas Knot: ‘Defense is more important for now than book keeping.’ (If even the Dutch say this…)”
Work on the European replacement for Starlink under way. Italian deal seems dead for the moment.
We are here:
“Trust comes on foot and leaves on an F35.” Marietje Schaake’s comment says it all. The turning away from US arms manufacture was accelerating through the week, with more questioning F-35s and similar choices, or announcing local choices, was capped with the egregiously confrontational announcement that the new Boeing aircraft would be shared on a hobbled basis with allies. Oof. Bad marketing.
Here’s some good marketing.
Ukraine’s arm industry continues to rise. Drone manufacture in the country has now achieved 100% local FPV production, loosing the grip of the Asian supply chain in components. This follows a trend in growth in Ukrainian industry, eg, last month, a Norwegian missile maker announced a joint production venture, and the EU is committing resources for electrical infrastructure re/development.
How to expand arms output, from the Finnish experience with 155 mm rounds. It’s fairly basic stuff – more people in more shifts, with expanded facilities – but it’s useful to be reminded of the fundamentals.
Deliveries to the logistics hub in Poland from the Allies continue.
MARITIME
On the maritime front, the Red Sea battle between US led naval forces and Yemen’s Houthi Rebels continues. I reckon its connection to the Israeli campaign in Gaza defines its strategic relevance to the Trump administration, rather than real, consequential thought about the shipping implications.
US ECONOMY
Historical dissonance is the Trump Administration calling a day of tax increases, Liberation Day. But the onset of 2 April tariffs seems inevitable. Steelworkers in Minnesota face layoffs from the tariffs, while US farmers harmed by them already.
US tourism sector is under pressure on several fronts. International travel to the US is down across the board, and in specific locales like Maine coast and their Canadian visitors.
On the Logistics of Things, cuts at USDA threatens the food supply chain.
DOGE is wrong, the USG doesn’t spend enough.
OECD downgrades global economic outlook. “OECD downgraded both the US and global growth forecasts - and raised its inflation forecasts - for 2025 and 2026. Organization primarily blames rising uncertainty and trade wars.” Catherine Rampell
Indicators?
THE LOGISTICS OF WASTE
Bitcoin mining in the US and the environmental consequences in resource and water use, and pollution.
Read a day in the life of sanitation workers in Brussels: “Orange Waste Warriors.”
An understudied area of military history is the garbage of it all. We see peeks on issues like health and burn pits, or “discovered” facts of “landfilled” hardware on foreign fields of battle, but in general most don’t think much about the waste of war. But it is a lurking behemoth of the activity. America’s participation in WWI was once described as visible by the trail of metal ration cans. In Vietnam, the environmental consequences of US chemical warfare are still being felt, and again anew worsened as the State Department cuts off funding for the clean-up of an Agent Orange spill at Bien Hoa airbase.
Polar Bear grease science! "(N)ow that researchers know the formula behind polar bear grease, they hope to design PFAS-free coatings made with similar ingredients.”
INFRASTRUCTURE
Sometimes you need a bit of levity and the earnestness of people doing good work. Who knew wastewater treatment would become so cool? An increasingly popular social media account for the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District makes sincere public service likeable and with a beat you can dance to with their debut release, “Sewer Star.”
Heathrow – two infrastructure issues for the price of one: the grid and the transport. Conversations around resilience are the obvious result. However, given that outages will always be a function of electrical service, what reconsideration of the shift of so much of life to electrical dependence is needed?
Nuclear powered railways in India.
American dam infrastructure is in need of repair that the Trump administration federal workforce cuts are imperiling. “’Without these dam operators, engineers, hydrologists, geologists, researchers, emergency managers and other experts, there is a serious potential for heightened risk to public safety and economic or environmental damage,’ Lori Spragens, executive director of the Kentucky-based Association of Dam Safety Officials, told the AP.”
Clean energy subsidies cut by the Trump Administration likely to lead to higher electricity bills.
New steel! “We're escaping the so-called ‘strength-ductility tradeoff’ too.” Thin glass! The question of how to save information for posterity is dogging humanity driven to digitization. Software and hardware obsolescence cycles imperil future knowledge. My idea is to use the old, established fiche technology, but with thinner glass and nano-font. Magnification is a technology we are bound to keep or be able to re-establish.
DARK LOGS
While the State Department wrangles with the Courts over the deportations to El Salvador and the legal rights due these detainees, the Guantanamo removals continue to veer between on and off and on again.
FIN…
To close, when transport travels: New York City subway cars on barges to go to the World’s Fair, with Manhattan in the background.