– Aviation Week – A decade of boots-on-the-ground warfare in the Middle East does not, in late December, appear to have done much to spread democracy or tolerance across the region or indeed to quell the sources of terrorism. Syria, Libya and Egypt waver between rule by more or less secular strongmen and takeover by Islamic radicals. Overwatch by fighters, helicopters and surface-to-air missiles is now a routine feature of global sporting events as well as G20 meetings. On the other side of the globe, however, tensions are reminding many observers of the machinations that preceded previous industrial-age wars such as World War 1. China’s declaration of an air defense identification zone was remarkable not so much for its direct impact as for the fact that it took observers by surprise.
Author Archives: Naval Open Source Intelligence (NOSI)
Geopolitics / Arctic – Putin aims to revive Soviet-era Arctic dominance
– Globe and Mail – While all eight countries that border the Arctic, including Canada, are making claims – and countries as far away as China are expressing an interest – Russia is the technological and military superpower of the far north. And after two decades of post-Soviet neglect, the region is once again a Kremlin priority.
US Navy – New Navy Carrier Shuffle Moves Reagan to Japan, Roosevelt to San Diego
– USNI News – USS Ronald Reagan (CVN-76) has been tapped by the Navy to be the service’s next forward deployed carrier in Japan and move USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71) to Naval Station San Diego. Reagan will replace USS George Washington (CVN-73) ahead of the Washington’s three-year long refueling at the Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII) Newport News Shipyard in Newport News, Va.
US Navy – Just How Stealthy Is the Navy’s Super Hornet?
– War is Boring – Stealthier than you might think.
US Navy – Pentagon Cuts LCS Buy to 32 Ships
– Defense News – The office of the secretary of defense (OSD) has directed the US Navy to limit its overall buy of littoral combat ships to a total of 32 ships, foregoing 20 more of the small, fast and controversial warships, Pentagon sources have confirmed.
Geopolitics – Post-America Conflict From Beijing to Jerusalem
– Politico – Robert D. Kaplan writes that as the events of the past week demonstrate, the Middle East has still not found a solution to the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. Melting away before our eyes is the 1916 Sykes-Picot Agreement, in which the British and French carved out spheres of influence in the Levant, leading to the creation of Syria and Iraq. A terrorist Sunnistan has now emerged between the Lebanese city of Tripoli and the Iraqi cities of Ramadi and Fallujah, while a messy child’s finger-painting of different tribalized sovereignties defines Sunni and Shia areas of control between the eastern edge of the Mediterranean and the Iranian plateau. This happens even as a sprawling and fractious Kurdistan sinks tenuous roots atop the corpses of Baathist regimes. But Middle Eastern chaos is but prologue to the drama sweeping much of the temperate zone of Afro-Asia all the way to China. Indeed, so much else is going on beyond the Levant that the media overlooks: not necessarily violent, but increasingly and intensely interrelated. Understanding it all requires not a knowledge of Washington policy alternatives, but of classical geography.
Chinese Navy – China and the Far Seas
– The Diplomat – China’s Far Seas presence enables it to escort Syria’s chemical weapons marked for destruction.
Russian Navy – Russian Missile Corvettes Ready to Enter Service in Caspian
– RIA NOVOSTI – A pair of new missile corvettes have completed acceptance trials and will enter service in Russia’s Caspian Flotilla in the first quarter of this year.
Russian Navy – Russia’s Navy Rising
– National Interest – Naval analysts for some time have derided the status of the Russian Federation Navy (RFN), falling from its elevated Cold War status as an American near-equal, to an obsolescent non-operational force through the first decade of the 21st century. This less-than-graceful degradation has effectively ceased with a newly invigorated shipbuilding budget, the delivery of a number of warships and, most importantly, the redeployment of this once proud navy into the world’s oceans.
Russian Navy – Russian Carrier Group Skirts Britain on Trip to Mediterranean
– RIA NOVOSTI – A naval task force led by Russia’s largest warship has passed through the English Channel on its way to the Mediterranean.
Chinese Navy – China’s Air Power Future Is Visible in These Two Photos
– War is Boring – Snapshots reveal badly-needed new engine and refueling pod.
Indian Navy – India Outdoes China With TWO-Carrier Photo Op
– War is Boring – New Delhi shows off refurbished Russian flattop.
US Navy – U.S. to Start Cutting Submarine Missile-Launchers Next Year
– Global Security Newswire – The United States next year is slated to begin reducing launch tubes on each of its Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines, a new independent report states. The elimination of four operational launch tubes on each of the 14 submarines that make up the Navy’s Ohio submarine fleet will be the first substantial reduction in U.S. strategic weapon delivery capability since the 2011 New START accord went into effect.
Chinese Navy – China Flaunts First Carrier Battle Group Photo Op
– War is Boring – …but impressive images include hints of naval limitations…
US Marines – Army’s ‘Pacific Pathways’ initiative sets up turf battle with Marines
– Washington Post – As the Obama administration winds down the Army-centric war in Afghanistan, Pentagon leaders are seeking to place the Air Force, Navy and Marines in dominant roles to counter threats in the Asia-Pacific region, which they have deemed to be the nation’s next big national security challenge. Fearful that the new strategy will cut its share of the defense budget, the Army is launching an ambitious campaign to transform itself and assert its relevance in the Pacific. And that, in turn, is drawing the Army into a fight. With the Marines.
US Navy – The Navy’s 2014: Subs, Cyber, & Cheap Support Ships
– Breaking Defense – The Navy, is, hands down, the service in the best shape for 2014. Every act of belligerent idiocy from Beijing – and there’ve been a lot of them lately – makes the Navy budget an easier sell. In stark contrast to the Army, the Navy has the central role in the new Pacific-focused strategy, a high-tech threat justifying high-cost programs, a highly visible role in peacetime engagement around the world, and, perhaps most crucial, a clear set of missions.
Royal Australian Navy – Indonesia says Australian Navy ‘pushed’ back asylum seeker boat that ran aground
– ABC – Indonesian authorities say the Australian Navy forced an asylum seeker boat back towards Indonesia, where it ran out of fuel and ran aground.
Libyan Navy – Libyan Navy Fires on Crude Tanker
– USNI News – Libyan naval forces fired warning shots toward a Maltese flagged tanker attempting to dock near the Es Sider terminal on Monday.
Chinese Navy – China’s Near-Seas Challenges
– National Interest – The U.S. National Intelligence Council forecasts that China will become the world’s largest economy (measured by purchasing-power parity) in 2022. Jane’s predicts that by 2015 People’s Liberation Army (PLA) funding will double to $238 billion, surpassing that of NATO’s eight largest militaries after the United States combined. The International Institute for Strategic Studies says that China’s defense spending might surpass America’s as early as 2025. Even if these projections prove exaggerated, economic, technical and industrial activity of an amazing scope and intensity is already affording China potent military capabilities. This is especially the case when such capabilities are applied—most likely through peacetime deterrence, or a limited skirmish with a neighbor such as Vietnam—to the “near seas” (the Yellow, East China and South China Seas), currently a major Chinese strategic focus.
Allowing Beijing to use force, or even the threat of force, to alter the regional status quo would have a number of pernicious effects. It would undermine the functioning of the most vibrant portion of the global commons—sea and air mediums that all nations rely on for trade and prosperity, but that none own. It would undermine important international norms and encourage the application of force to more of the world’s many persistent disputes. Finally, it would threaten to destabilize a region haunted by history that has prospered during nearly seven decades of U.S. forces helping to preserve peace. No other nation has the capability and lack of territorial claims necessary to play this still-vital role.
A number of strategists appear to believe that America faces the threat of conflict with China in the future, but that it can be avoided through accommodation or prepared for over a protracted period. In fact, a different scenario is more likely: even as the two Pacific powers are sufficiently interdependent to avoid direct hostilities—and share significant interests on which they may cooperate increasingly—China is already beginning to pose its greatest challenge to U.S. influence and interests in the Asia-Pacific.
US Coast Guard – Antarctic rescue: US ice-breaker to help stuck ships
– BBC – A US ice-breaker Polar Star is to help two ships that are stuck in thick ice in Antarctica following a rescue mission.
Chinese Navy – Anti-Access Lessons from the Past
– US Naval Institute Proceedings – Imperial Japan’s plan for fighting the U.S. Navy before World War II and contemporary China’s maritime area-denial tactics share remarkable similarities.
US Navy – The Navy’s Amazing Ocean-Powered Underwater Drone
– Time – If Santa can harness reindeer to fly the globe, the Navy can use “hydraulic buoyancy” to wage underwater war.
Royal Navy – Final Type 45 Destroyer Enters UK Royal Navy Service
– Defense News – The Royal Navy’s sixth and final Type 45 destroyer has entered service four months ahead of schedule.
US Navy – USS Little Rock, From Light to Guided Missile Cruiser: Lessons For The Littoral Combat Ship
– Breaking Defense – The Littoral Combat Ship has come under light fire from Congress because they worry especially about findings by operational testers that the ships cannot survive a firefight. Norman Friedman, a consultant at Gryphon Technologies with more than 30 military books to his name, argues in the following piece that critics need to consider that “change is at the core” of the LCS design, marking a welcome change in naval design. He believes LCS marks “the most fundamental change in warship design” in decades. Friedman compares the just-launched LCS ship USS Little Rock with the history of its predecessor, a light cruiser built near the end of World War II, mothballed a few years later and later rebuilt as a guided missile cruiser at considerable cost.
US Navy – Cede No Water: Strategy, Littorals, and Flotillas
– US Naval Institute Proceedings – For future naval activity that involves closer proximity to potential adversaries’ coastlines—and thus a requirement for more maneuverable ships—the Navy should consider flotilla operations.
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