Royal Marines – Is 45 Commando preparing to return to Afghanistan?

• The Scotsman: Royal Marines primed for return to Afghanistan

US Navy – Doing more with less – a plan that will fundamentally change the way the Navy deploys and sustains fighting forces after it recovers from the nearly exhaustive efforts of Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom. Fleet organization and maintenance will be altered favoring a less predictable and more “surge ready” force under the Navy’s Fleet Response Plan, a scheme to reshape the business of naval warfare.

• Sea Power: U.S. Navy’s ‘Fleet Response Plan’ Charts Course

Background – Nuclear Weapons – The U.S. is looking to rightsize its nuclear arsenal to make it a more credible deterrent in the post-Cold War world.

• Daily Telegraph: Pentagon wants ‘mini-nukes’ to fight terrorists

Background – Empire – Robert Kaplan states it is a cliche these days to observe that the United States now possesses a global empireódifferent from Britain’s and Rome’s but an empire nonetheless. It is time to move beyond a statement of the obvious. Our recent effort in Iraq, with its large-scale mobilization of troops and immense concentration of risk, is not indicative of how we will want to act in the future. So how should we operate on a tactical level to manage an unruly world? What are the rules and what are the tools?

• The Atlantic: Supremacy by Stealth