Google Earth threatens democracy

Military hardware laid bare to Godless commies

Accordingly, we thought we'd have a sniff around for installations belonging to those coutries who do not share our absolute belief in the God-given right to surf the internet for Paris-Hilton-based soft-core porn and military secrets.

As we've already said, scouring the birch forests of Russia for ICBM silos is a fruitless task, although we invite readers to prove otherwise. Yes, we know the Russians are our mates now, but there's something deliciously Cold War about aerial views of Zhukovsy air base - blessed with the longest runway in Europe, we gather, as the pic shows:

Zhukovsky - now the Gromov Flight Research Institute - lies close to Moscow, and is the world's largest centre for aeronautical research and testing. That runway, btw, is a whopping 5.4km long. Crikey.

The Chinese can't match the Russians in terms of sheer runway length, but they've got plenty of air bases to ensure their skies remain secure:

This particular facility is Lingshui, on the island of Hainan. It's home to the 22nd Regiment, 8th Division of the snappily-titled PLANAF, or People's Liberation Army Navy Air Force - charged with providing "air defence of ports and naval installations as well as air protection for fleet units", as GlobalSecurity.org puts it.

What Global Security can't say, however, is what exactly goes on at Beijing Capital, just a short bicycle ride away from China's capital:

Down in North Korea, meanwhile, which was the cause of all this kerfuffle in the first place, there are Migs in that thar Orang airbase, make no mistake:

Not very impressive, we agree - and hardly the kind of top-quality imaging which brought us the US's famous Area 51:

There's more on Google's handling of alien space technology in our previous probe into the matter, but the contrast between the resolution of snaps of America's finest crashed-spacecraft-handling facility and Godless commie airstrips brings us to our final, crucial question: has Google sold the West out to the forces of darkness?