Foreign Affairs – Americans are increasingly frustrated with Pakistan’s counterterrorism efforts, but the United States should resist the urge to threaten President Pervez Musharraf or demand a quick democratic transition. Getting Islamabad to play a more effective role in the war on terrorism will require that Washington strike a careful balance: pushing for political reform but without jeopardizing the military’s core interests.
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Author Archives: Naval Open Source Intelligence (NOSI)
US Navy – Warhead Zapper
Aviation Week – Is electromagnetic armor being installed on US aircraft carriers?
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US Navy – Lost That Bet
Aviation Week – The Navy has chosen Northrop Grumman for the Unmanned Combat Air System CV Demonstration (UCAS-D) contract, beating Boeing. It’s no small effort, valued at $636 million between now and September 2013, and it is an important win for Northrop Grumman and an important loss for Boeing.
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Chinese Navy – The long march to be a superpower
Economist – The People’s Liberation Army is investing heavily to give China the military muscle to match its economic power. But can it begin to rival America?
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Information Warfare – Arab Media and the Battle for Ideas
Marine Corps Gazette – The author encourages commanders to recognize that the Arab media, such as Al Jazeera, are critical battlefields that have to be shaped as a part of information operations. You have to know that battlefield as well as you do a battlefield of terrain in order to succeed.
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Russian Navy – As icecaps melt, Russia races for Arctic's resources
Christian Science Monitor – Call it the global warming sweepstakes.
As milder temperatures make exploration of the Arctic sea floor possible for the first time, Russia’s biggest-ever research expedition to the region is steaming toward the immense scientific prestige of being the first to explore the seabed of the world’s crown.
In the next few days, two manned minisubs will be launched through a hole blasted in the polar ice to scour the ocean floor nearly three miles below. They will gather rock samples and plant a titanium Russian flag to symbolize Moscow’s claim over 460,000 square miles of hitherto international territory ñ an area bigger than France and Germany combined in a region estimated to contain a quarter of the world’s undiscovered oil and gas reserves.
The issue of who owns the North Pole, now administered by the International Seabed Authority, has long been regarded as academic since the entire region is locked in year-round impenetrable ice. But with global warming thinning the icecaps, the question has vaulted to the front burner.
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Russian Navy – Russia subs make Arctic test dive
BBC – Two Russian mini-subs have made a test dive to the floor of the Arctic Ocean near Russia’s most northerly islands.
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Iraq – Leaving now not the way out of Iraq
The Times – One of the key strategists behind Americaís last-ditch ‘surge’ in Iraq, Colonel HR McMaster explains his thinking to Marie Colvin, our award-winning correspondent, who has spent decades covering the Middle East and has witnessed the bloody reality of life in Baghdad. McMaster insists that ësustained stabilityí is possible ñ eventually. But was the surge the right policy too late?
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Intelligence – Intelligent intelligence
Washington Times – Arnaud de Borchgrave writes an interesting assessment of the state-of-the-art in open source intelligence.
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Royal Navy – £4bn carriers 'will be jewel in Navy's crown'
Daily Telegraph – The long awaited main gate approval for the UK’s new aircraft carriers was announced this afternoon in London.
Aviation Week – UK Carriers – Now The Work Starts
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US Navy – Sudan 'must pay USS Cole victims'
BBC – A US court has ordered Sudan to pay $8m (£4m) to the families of 17 sailors who died in a suicide bomb attack on the USS Cole warship in Yemen in 2000.
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Geopolitics / Africa – The Americans Have Landed
Esquire – A few years ago, with little fanfare, the United States opened a base in the horn of Africa to kill or capture Al Qaeda fighters. By 2012, the Pentagon will have two dozen such forts. The story of Africa Command, the American military’s new frontier outpost, by Thomas P.M. Barnett.
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Iraq – Exit Strategies
Washington Post – The Pentagon is wargaming possible US exit strategies from Iraq.
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Royal Navy – Scots shipyards to share in £3.9bn super-vessels contract
Scotland on Sunday – Prime Minister Gordon Brown is preparing to deliver a multi-billion-pound boost to his home nation, with confirmation that Scotland’s shipbuilders will help to produce the biggest vessels ever ordered by the Royal Navy. The Prime Minister is set to put an end to years of delay by announcing the decision on the construction of the two “super carriers” within the next few days.
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Iraq – Bush Leans On Petraeus as War Dissent Deepens
Washington Post – Thomas Ricks asks if General Petraeus is being set up by the Bush administration as a scapegoat if conditions in Iraq fail to improve.
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Iraq – My history lesson in the Oval Office
Daily Telegraph – Sir Alastair Horne insightfully compares the war in Iraq to the war in Algeria.
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Fourth Generation Warfare – Institutionalizing Adaptation
Center for a New American Security – John Nagl writes that the counterinsurgency campaigns that are likely to continue to be the face of battle in the 21st century will require that we build a very different United States Army than the enormously capable but conventionally focused one we have today. The long-overdue increase in the size of the Army announced by President George W. Bush in December 2006 can play a pivotal role in helping build it. The best way to use the additional soldiers is not simply to create additional Brigade Combat Teams (BCTs) as currently planned by the Army. Indeed, demand for such forces is likely to shrink as the American combat role in Iraq diminishes. Instead, the Army should create a permanent standing Advisor Corps of 20,000 Combat Advisors-men and women organized, equipped, educated, and trained to develop host nation security forces abroad.
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US Navy – Navy allowed to keep using new sonar
Associated Press – The federal government wants to extend by five years its rules allowing the Navy to use a new low-frequency sonar, despite objections from environmentalists that the technology may harm whales and dolphins.
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Canadian Navy – Canada ups military in disputed Arctic
Associated Press – Canada announced plans Monday to increase its Arctic military presence in an effort to assert sovereignty over the Northwest Passage – a potentially oil-rich region the United States says is international territory.
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US Navy – US Navy To Assert Control Over Shipbuilding To Keep Costs Down
Associated Press – Stung by cost overruns, the U.S. Navy is looking to return to a past when it controlled the shipbuilding process from beginning to end.
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Russian Navy – Russian Navy Successfully Tests New SLBM
CDI – On June 28, 2007, the Russian navyís missile program finally got a break when it conducted a successful flight test of its new RS-30 (SS-NX-30 by NATO classification) ìBulavaî submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM). The successful test comes against a backdrop of failures ñ three since last fall ñ which had some commentators expressing doubt about the missileís future. However, the successful test is sure to boost confidence in both the missileís design and its developer, the Moscow Institute of Thermal Technology (MITT).
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Afghanistan – The Taliban's Opium War
New Yorker – The difficulties and dangers of the poppy eradication program in Afghanistan.
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US Navy – Enterprise group and 7,500 sailors start deploying Saturday
Virginian Pilot – The aircraft carrier Enterprise and its strike group will begin departing Saturday for a scheduled six-month deployment.
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Iraq – Endgame
PBS Frontline – What went wrong, and why, in America’s tragically failed effort to find a strategy for success in Iraq.
Read the transcript and the excellent set of insightful interviews.
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US Navy – Nuclear ships: Millions to build, and now millions to trash
Virginian Pilot – Ditching the nuclear fleet is a complex, budget-draining process. The Navy began planning the program in the 1970s. A vessel is defueled, then its reactor is removed. The core is taken to a nuclear reservation, where it is buried.
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