Author Archives: Naval Open Source Intelligence (NOSI)

South Korean Navy – Korean AIP Submarine Now in Service

Posted on by

Defense Technology International – ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems (TKMS), the German naval shipbuilding group, has released photos of the first Type 214 submarine now in service with the Republic of Korea Navy.

With the handover of the 1,700-ton submarine, named the Son Won Il, at the end of December South Korea has become the third nation after Germany and Italy that operates submarines powered by a combined diesel-electric and fuel cell propulsion.
more…

Editorial Note – Naval Year in Review 2007

Posted on by

2007

World Naval Operational News Highlights

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

  • The US military’s recognition that climate change poses a security threat to the U.S. Most interesting was their recommendation that the U.S. government work to mitigate climate change.
  • The Chinese anti-satellite test which showed that China has the capability to destroy satellites in low earth orbit. Could the U.S. Navy operate today without satellites?
  • The Russian cyberwar waged against Estonia, which showed how wars in cyberspace will be conducted. Could the U.S. Navy have defended itself as well as the Estonians did?
  • The success of the surge / Sunni Awakening in Iraq. Remember that the Sunni Awakening began in Anbar Province and was aided by the US Marines first.
  • The seizure of Royal Navy personnel in the Gulf by Iran. Iran continues to take an offensive rather than defensive attitude in the Gulf.
  • The growing sovereignty claims over the Northwest Passage. This year Russia planted a flag on the seabed there, the US Coast Guard opened a base there, and the Canadian Navy funded a class of arctic patrol ships intended to work there.
  • The resurgence of the Russian Navy, funded by petrodollars. Long range patrol flights coupled with the first task force deployment to the Mediterranean Sea since Soviet times means the Russian Navy is (mildly) back.
  • The decreasing size of the Royal Navy. Note though its two new aircraft carriers were formally funded this year.
  • The deepening disaster of the U.S. Coast Guard’s Deepwater procurement program. It seems empowering contractors to oversee their own contracts was not such a great idea after all.
  • The crisis in the U.S. Navy’s shipbuilding program has come to a head with the canceling of follow-on Littoral Combat Ships due to massive cost overruns. Will the U.S. Navy finally take a more hands-on approach to its shipbuilding programs to keep costs down?

Statistics
In 2007, there were news stories linked to on 275 / 365 days – that is on 75% of the days.

In 2007, NOSI linked to 428 articles covering 394 news stories.

In 2007, 118 of these stories (30%) were related to the U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps, U.S. Coast Guard, or U.S. Military Sealift Command.

In 2007, 186 of these stories (47%) were background stories and 4 stories (1%) were historical stories.

The remaining 85 news stories (22%) covered the operational activities of 19 nation’s navies, coast guards, and marine corps:

Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Iran, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Netherlands, Nigeria, Norway, Poland, Russia, South Africa, Sweden, United Kingdom

In 2007, 177,202 pages of information were read on NOSI by 106,546 users.

more…

Dutch Navy – Dutch Plan for Their Largest Naval Ship Ever

Posted on by

Defense Technology International – The backbone of a modern, 21st-century navy isn’t its surface combatants or submarines. It is the large amphibious and/or logistic support ships it can deploy to trouble spots around the world, carrying helicopters, hospital facilities, an embarked landing force, supplies, fuel and a suite of C4I facilities. The Netherlands is planning to build its largest ship ever to be able to do just that.
more…

Geopolitics / Russia – The Myth of the Authoritarian Model: How Putin's Crackdown Holds Russia Back

Posted on by

Foreign Affairs – A growing conventional wisdom holds that Vladimir Putin’s attack on democracy has brought Russia stability and prosperity — providing a new model of successful market authoritarianism. But the correlation between autocracy and economic growth is spurious. Autocracy’s effects in Russia have in fact been negative. Whatever the gains under Putin, they would have been greater under a democratic regime.
more…

Military Space – How China Loses the Coming Space War

Posted on by

Wired – A year ago, China knocked a weather satellite out of orbit, and threw the international community into panic. Some figured the satellite-killer test was the harbinger of a future war in space — the kind of conflict that could cripple a tech-dependent United States military. Geoffrey Forden, PhD — an MIT research associate and a former UN weapons inspector and strategic weapons analyst at the Congressional Budget Office — examines the possibilities of an all-out Chinese assault on American satellites.

Read all three parts: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.
more…

US Marines – 3,200 Marines to Deploy To Afghanistan in Spring

Posted on by

Washington Post – President Bush has approved an “extraordinary, one-time” deployment of about 3,200 Marines to Afghanistan for seven months starting this spring, the Pentagon announced yesterday, while defense officials continued to urge NATO allies to supply more forces to fill a long-standing shortfall of 7,500 troops that commanders say are needed to improve security.
more…

Geopolitics / Iran – The Costs of Containing Iran

Posted on by

Foreign Affair – The Bush administration wants to contain Iran by rallying the support of Sunni Arab states and now sees Iran’s containment as the heart of its Middle East policy: a way to stabilize Iraq, declaw Hezbollah, and restart the Arab-Israeli peace process. But the strategy is unsound and impractical, and it will probably further destabilize an already volatile region.
more…