US Marines – A review of Marine Corps amphibious operations during the Cold Warówith some insightful observations.

• Marine Corps Gazette: Omar Bradley Was Right

Canadian Navy – Aboard HMCS Calgary, the Canadian Navy is burned out from the war on terror.

• Victoria Times Colonist: Tired sailors, tired ships: The cost of war on terror

US Navy – Naval news from around the US fleet.

• SeaPower: DDG Mustin Commissioned in U.S. Pacific Fleet

Background – 4th Generation Warfare – Remarks by H. Thomas Hayden, USMC, Ret., July 18, 2003. Interesting insights from a guy who’s been there and done it.

• Defense and the National Interest: Fourth Generation Warfare Today

Background – Diplomacy – Former Assistant Secretary of State James Rubin asks why did most of the world abandon Washington when it went after Saddam Hussein? The war in Iraq could never have been an easy sell, but nor should it have been such a difficult one. The Bush administration badly botched the prewar maneuvering, presenting a textbook study in how not to wage a diplomatic campaign.

• Foreign Affairs: Stumbling Into War

South African Navy – South Africa will receive the first of its new corvettes this fall.

• Business Day: Navy to Make Big Wave With New Fleet

US Marines – The light armored reconnaissance (LAR) community possesses a weapons system that could be an asset for many missionsóthe special application scoped rifle (SASR). However, there is no clear concept of employment within the LAR community. SASR employment is viewed at best with uncertainty and ambivalence, at worst with disdain. In fact, by giving the scout teams a powerful and precise long-range weapons system, the SASR offers great flexibility to the LAR unit across the gamut of LAR operations.

• Marine Corps Gazette: Scoped Rifle Employment for Light Armored Reconnaissance

Nigerian Navy – Nigeria attempts to clamp down on crude oil smugglers.

• This Day: Naval Chief Promises Crude Smugglers Tough Time

Pakistani Navy – Comments from Pakistan’s Naval Chief of Staff.

• Pakistan Tribune: Global interest focussed on Gulf region: Admiral Karimullah

US Navy – U.S. Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force Share in Army-led Networking Fire Support Program.

• SeaPower: Computer System Helps to Modernize Fire Support

Background – American Empire – The transcript of a lecture given by Professor and author Niall Ferguson on the American Empire. Ferguson is a compelling and witty lecturer, as he attempts to teach Americans some lessons of the British Empire.

• Foreign Policy Association: Is the U.S. an Empire in Denial?

Indian Navy – India looks forward to strengthing ties with the US and French Navies in the near future.

• Central Chronicle: India, US submarines to take part in joint exercise
• Agence France Presse: Indian Navy to strengthen defence ties with France

Background – Airpower – Modern airpower owes much to the elite USAF commandos who hang out with the ground forces.

• Air Force: Controllers

US Navy – The short take-off/vertical landing Joint Strike Fighter is an ideal way to support the Navy’s “Sea Power 21” concept of Sea Basing by enabling the use of unconventional aircraft carriers, allowing increased sorties per mission, and decreasing host nation logistical support. Adoption of STOVL JSFs by the Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force would dramatically increase aviation capability and transform the nation’s carrier air power.

• US Naval Institute Proceedings: STOVL JSFs Put Teeth in Sea Basing

US Navy – The US will send ships from its base at Norfolk to sea to avoid Hurricane Isabel.

• Virginian Pilot: Military prepares to move ships and aircraft out of storm

US Marines – Here are some of the new items the Corps is examining and procuring, as lessons learned evolve into new gear.

• Leatherneck: Marines Continue to Gear up for Every Clime and Place

Canadian Navy – Aboard the submarine HMCS Victoria.

• Times Colonist: View from Below
  – HMCS Victoria is just like subs seen in movies

Background – Piracy – Piracy at sea, far from being a forgotten relic of the world’s buccaneering past, is now a modern growth industry.

• ABC News: Terror on the High Seas?
  

US Navy – How and why to improve ship maintainence.

• SeaPower: SHIPMAIN – Reengineering for a Culture of Readiness

US Navy – The US continues to look for naval applications for blimps.

• San Diego Union Tribune: Navy hopes blimp can be eye in the sky

Background – Secretary of Defense – Thomas Ricks looks at Secretary Rumsfeld’s current standing.

• Washington Post: Iraq Takes a Toll on Rumsfeld

Background – Diplomacy – Former Secretary of State Madeline Albright describes how since the attacks of September 11, 2001, the Bush administration has pressured every country in the world to make a simple choice: Are you with the United States or with the terrorists? But by casting the choice so starkly–and expanding the war on terror to include its campaign in Iraq–Washington has alienated many natural and potential allies and made the fight against al Qaeda more difficult. It didn’t have to be this way. The White House has acted as if it doesn’t care what others think, and the country is paying the price for its mistake.

• Foreign Affairs: Bridges, Bombs, or Bluster

Royal Australian Navy – The first international military exercise on intercepting shipments of weapons of mass destruction has begun in the Coral Sea off the north-east coast of Australia.

• BBC: Pacific weapons hunt drill begins

Indian Navy – India is considering purchasing P-3 Orion maritime patrol aircraft.

• UNI: Navy considering buying US maritime patrol aircraft

US Navy – The USS Carl Vinson battlegroup is set to return to port after an eight month deployment.

• Associated Press: USS Vinson Returning To Bremerton Next Week

US Navy – Some options for the future of the US Navy surface forces.

• SeaPower: Three Options for Change for the Navy’s Surface Force

US Navy – The crew of a Navy spy plane that landed on China’s Hainan Island in April 2001 after colliding with a Chinese fighter jet did not destroy all classified materials aboard, and it is “highly probable” that some fell into Chinese hands, Navy investigators concluded.

• Associated Press: Secrets on Spy Plane May Have Been Found by China

Background – Military Space – A fascinating article describing how an individual, using open source intelligence in the form of commercially available satellite photographs, is trying to open up many secret US installations.

• Map of the Month: Revealing Hidden Places: The Cryptome Eyeballing Map Series

Background – Naval Bases – A list of US naval bases that have been documented by the Cryptome sight. The satellite pictures and maps are most instructive.

• Cryptome: Eyeballing Series

US Navy – Details emerge about the cause of the collision between the nuclear attack submarine USS Oklahoma City and a tanker in the Straits of Gibraltar in 2002.

• Virginian Pilot: Commodore contributed to sub collision, report says

US Navy – An interview with Vice Admiral Phillip M. Balisle is commander of the Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA), largest of the Navy’s five major acquisition and support organizations, managing nearly one-fifth the service’s annual budget, or almost $20 billion annually.

• SeaPower: NAVSEA’s Balisle: Architect of Change in a Violent World

Background – 4th Generation Warfare – Is the war on terror a 4th generation warfare conflict?

• Military.com: 4GW: Tactics of the Weak Confound the Strong

Background – Terrorism – Gwynne Dwyer asks if we are overinflating the threat.

• Toronto Star: West overrates terrorism

US Marines – A large number of Marines who spent time ashore in Liberia have contracted malaria.

• Washington Post: Marines’ Malaria Cases Show Protections Failed
• Virginian Pilot: Outbreak of malaria hits Iwo Jima ready group

US Marines – A review of the fratricide incidents that occured in Iraq.

• SeaPower: Fratricide Mars U.S. Successes in Iraqi Freedom Conflict

Background – Information Warfare – James F. Dunnigan on how important it is to win the media war.

• StrategyPage: Do Media Victories Mean Anything?

Background – Wargaming, Information Warfare, and Transformation – An article by noted wargame designer Mark Herman, which makes the case that to be realistic, future wargames must stop being based upon force attrition models and instead must be based upon a model of a force’s entropy, or cohesion. Written in 1998, the article now appears quite prescient in light of the conflict in Iraq earlier this year in which the entropy of Iraqi forces can be said to have been maximised, leading to their disintegration.

• Joint Forces Quarterly: Entropy-Based Warfare: Modeling the Revolution in Military Affairs (PDF format only)

Indian Navy – India and the United States will hold the biggest-ever joint naval exercises off the Kochi coast in which for the first time an American nuclear submarine is to take part.

• People’s Daily: India, US to Hold Biggest Joint Naval Exercise

Background – Airpower – A look at how the Republican Guard was destroyed from the air.

• Air Force: Saddamís Elite In the Meat Grinder

US Marines – An in-depth look at the Battle of An Nasiriyah on March 23, 2003

• South Bend Tribune: Battle of An Nasiriyah was day their illusions died
  

Background – Empire – The United States has always been interventionist. What is new is the absence of a doctrine ó or even an honest principle or two.

• New York Times Magazine: Why Are We In Iraq? (And Liberia? And Afghanistan?)

Royal Navy – The Royal Navy’s most senior officer has given warning that Britain does not have enough ships to secure the country’s sea lanes from terrorist attack.

• Daily Telegraph: Navy chief has ‘too few ships to guard sea lanes from terrorists’

Background – North Korea – A discussion of the unparalleled cult of personality around North Koreaís President, Kim Jong Il, and the threat that the country poses to international peace.

• The New Yorker: Armies of the North

Background – Naval History – An excellent history of piracy on the high seas.

• The Atlantic: Pirates of the Atlantic

Indonesian Navy – Indonesia needs hundreds of additional patrol boats to police its territorial waters.

• Associated Press: Indonesia’s Navy Says It Needs New Boats

Nigerian Navy – The US will donate patrol boats to Nigeria to help it better patrol its territorial waters.

• Associated Press: U.S. Donates Ships to Protect Nigeria Oil

US Navy – A look at the current state of the US submarine force.

• Virginian Pilot: Submariner sees more potential

US Navy – The U.S. Navy’s formal report on Fleet Battle Experiment Kilo (FBE Kilo) is set for a fall release, but preliminary reports indicate the venture–at least its antisubmarine warfare (ASW) portion–provided numerous insights into managing the underwater battlefield.

• SeaPower: Navy Should Bolster Crisis Planning for Theater ASW

Background – Iraq – General Zinni harshly criticises the US reconstruction of Iraq. As a former Commander in Chief of Central Command, his views should carry great weight.

• Washington Post: Ex-Envoy Criticizes Bush’s Postwar Policy
• Virginian Pilot: Now-retired general says U.S. needs a plan for Iraq

US Navy – The United States and 10 of its allies wil press on with plans to intercept vessels suspected of carrying weapons of mass destruction.

• BBC: US to search ships for WMD

US Navy – An essay by James F. Dunnigan describing how much ship’s sizes and lethality have increased over the last century.

• StrategyPage: Destroyers as Big as Battleships

US Marines – The Marines begin to turn over control of Iraq to a Polish-led force.

• New York Times: Marines Turn Over a South-Central Area of Iraq to a Polish-Led International Force

US Marines – The Marine Logistics Command came of age during Operation Iraqi Freedom, putting velocity and endurance into the logistics support operations for I MEF.

• Marine Corps Gazette: MLC: Sustaining Tempo on the 21st Century Battlefield

Russian Navy – A Russian cruiser makes a port of call in Italy???

• St. Petersberg Times: Putin Keeps Navy’s Flag Flying in Italy

Russian Navy – ???more details emerge about the newly sunken Russian November-class submarine.

• BBC: Submarine search goes on

Russian Navy – More details emerge about the loss of the Russian submarine last week.

• BBC: Negligence blamed in sub tragedy

Russian Navy – A decommissioned Russian nuclear-powered submarine, being towed to a scrapyard, has sunk.

• BBC: Russia pledges to raise nuclear sub

US Marines – The last Marines are about to pull out of Iraq. Here is a look at what they have accomplished during peacekeeping operations, and why we should fear their replacement by a multinational force.

• New York Times: Mind the Gap

US Coast Guard – Defense Secretary Rumsfeld is going to take away the Coast Guard’s warfighting roles.

• Washington Post: Coast Guard Fights to Retain War Role

Background – Al Qaeda – Despite the setbacks al Qaeda has suffered over the last two years, it is far from finished, as its recent bomb attacks testify. How has the group managed to survive an unprecedented American onslaught? By shifting shape and forging new, sometimes improbable, alliances. These tactics have made al Qaeda more dangerous than ever, and Western governments must show similar flexibility in fighting the group.

• Foreign Affairs: The Protean Enemy

US Navy – A look at the USS Ronald Reagan, the newest Nimitz-class carrier.

• Sea Power: Commissioning of USS Ronald Reagan Gives Navy One Hundred Thousand Tons of Combat Capability