Military Balance 2020

The Military Balance is an authoritative assessment of the military capabilities and defence economics of 171 countries. Detailed A-Z entries list each country's military organisation, personnel numbers, equipment inventories, and relevant economic and demographic data.

"The Infanta," the thunderous opening track on the Decemberists' fluid and predictably studious Picaresque, rolls in like a ghost ship at 40 knots in a hail of cannon fire with a mad English professor at the wheel. Colin Meloy and his esteemed West Coast colleagues have no qualms about beginning their third full-length record with a processional about a child monarch, and it's a testimony to their talents as orators and interpreters of both the absurd and the mundane that they continue to assimilate more fans than they alienate.