2006

World Naval Operational News Highlights

The ten most significant naval news stories / themes this year included:

• The continued irrelevance of the US Navy to Fourth Generation Warfare. Nearly 4 years after the invasion of Iraq, the US Navy is finally ready to send a brown water / riverine unit to Iraq to patrol the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. What took so long and why was there no sense of urgency?
• The rising awareness within the US military on the best ways to conduct the war in Iraq, evidenced by the new joint manual by the US Marines / US Army entitled FM 3-24 / MCWP 3-33.5 – Counterinsurgency.
• The first successful naval attack by a Fourth Generation entity (Hezbollah) against an Israeli naval vessel with a land-based antiship missile, showing how Fourth Generation opponents can reach out and strike naval targets successfully.
• The rise of Iran as a preeminent regional power in the Persian Gulf, and the implications that could have in a naval conflict in the Persian Gulf.
• The continued slow but steady rise of the Chinese Navy – will it be peaceful – or not?
• The increasing ballistic missile defense capability being forward-deployed at sea by the US Navy.
• The failure of the SeaSwap manning initiative in the US Navy, which shows that too much efficiency can sometimes be a bad thing.
• The successful use of lawfare, by environmental groups, to impede US Navy use of low frequency active sonar systems.
• The slow fading away of the Royal Navy, due to continued deep budget cuts.
• The US Marine Corps devising ways to (literally) shoot troops anywhere around the Earth in a few hours using rockets, showing that long-term planning and thinking is still thankfully alive and well in the Marine Corps???

Statistics
In 2006, there were news stories linked to on 270 / 365 days – that is on 74% of the days.

In 2006, NOSI linked to 556 articles covering 505 news stories.

In 2006, 171 of these stories (34%) were related to the U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps, U.S. Coast Guard, or U.S. Military Sealift Command.

In 2006, 201 of these stories (40%) were background stories and 17 stories (3%) were historical stories.

The remaining 116 news stories (23%) covered the operational activities of 20 nation’s navies, coast guards, and marine corps:

Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Greece, India, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Norway, Pakistan, Russia, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, United Kingdom

In 2006, 216,179 pages of information were read on NOSI by 119,473 users.

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