Chinese Navy – More details of the Chinese – Indian exercises this week.
Background – Iraq – Ralph Peters analyzes the situation in Iraq.
Background – Air Power – For three months, it was all the rage. Then its popularity faded fast.
Background – Piracy – A look at how deadly links between pirates and terrorists could be in the Straits of Malacca.
US Navy – A profound change is occurring in the way the Navy will acquire computer combat systems. In the past, vessels and aircraft were equipped separately with computers designed to perform specific functions, working together ad hoc when required. But as the Navy now wants seamless, networked cooperation among its warships, airplanes, aircraft carriers, and submarines, a new paradigm is required in computer combat systems.
US Navy – More on the Sea Power 21 vision???
Background – Iraq – John Keegan analyzes the situation in Iraq???
Background – Iraq – ???while Thomas Ricks asks if Saddam’s plan for the war is finally becoming clear???
Sea Power International – The latest naval news from the Spanish, Turkish, UK, Danish, Indonesian, Singaporean, Indian, and South African navies.
Asian Navies – Navies in Asia are expected to double their spending on shipbuilding in the next few years. As the European naval market dries up, the Asian market is expanding???
Taiwanese Navy – Taiwan says the US submarine being offered to it are too expensive.
US Marines – Young Marines went off to war straight from entry-level training and performed superbly, validating the Corps’ quality efforts in making Marines who can win America’s battles.
Indian Navy – India again successfully tests the Brahmos cruise missile.
US Navy – An advanced version of the Tomahawk Land Attack Missile (TLAM), armed with seven warheads rather than one, is under development to improve the Navy’s land attack capability.
Background – Iraq – Two interesting analysis pieces, one of which is by William Lind, stating the tide is turning against Coalitiion forces in Iraq.
Background – Foreign Policy – Ralph Peters argues that the 21st century will not be “The Pacific Century”, but instead “The Atlantic Century.”
Canadian Navy – The destroyer HMCS Huron is formally mothballed.
Background – War Correspondents – What is it like to be a war correspondent? Veteran war correspondent Peter Maass gives us some idea, and gives us the background to his excellent story ‘Good Kills’ from earlier this year about his journey with the US Marines in Iraq.
Background – Electromagnetic Pulse Weapons – An overview of the allure and danger of electromagnetic pulse weapons.
Feedback – Thanks for the 13 Comment Forms I have received in the last week. I have been hard at work improving NOSI over the last month, implementing a set of new features that have been on my “To Do List” for too long. Now that I am caught up on my list, I am analysing the two hundred emails and Comment Forms I’ve received over the last 3 years, looking for new ideas to implement. I’ll summarize what I learned and what I intend to do in the near future. In the meantime, please keep the Comments coming. I am interested in learning how you use NOSI to educate yourself and others. I am especially interested in hearing from military personnel or teachers at all levels.
Indian Navy – India and China will hold their first joint naval exercise.
US Marines – The Marines are headed back to Iraq for occupation duties.
US Navy – The USS Nimitz battlegroup returns home.
Background – War Studies Courses – More courses from the US Naval War College.
Royal Marines – The SBS continue to mount special operations inside Iraq.
Background – War Studies Courses – Over the last two weeks, as I have been putting together the Reading List / Curriculum page, I have realized that taken in whole, this reading list may serve as a basic introduction to, and curriculum in, war studies that may be used to give context to current and future naval operations. Therefore I thought I would provide some pointers to formal courses in War Studies.
Background – US Army – The After Action Report of the US Army’s Third Infantry Division from Operation Iraqi Freedom. Reality is separated from fantasy, and important lessons learned are well documented.
Nigerian Navy – Nigeria arrests more oil pirates.
Background – Operations Other Than War – How the Bush administration’s prewar planners bungled postwar Iraq. A tragic case study of how not to conduct an operation other than war.
Royal Australian Navy – The United States is negotiating a new defence treaty covering the use of the high-tech North West Cape naval communications base in Western Australia to maintain contact with its submarines operating in the region, using very low frequency radio.
Royal Navy – The British continue to hunt drug smugglers in the Caribbean.
Background – US Navy Intelligence Operations – A course designed to provide the minimum essential information for drilling Naval Reserve Intelligence Professionals prior to performing an annual training period at sea. The course gives a good introduction to the type of intelligence processing systems likely to be encountered aboard ship. Highly recommended.
Chinese Navy – China pays a port call to Guam.
Canadian Navy – Aboard HMCS Calgary, patroling in the Persian Gulf.
US Navy – The US is grounding EA-6B Prowlers due to wing wear, pending their repair.
Background – Iraq – Thomas Friedman and Ralph Peters opine as to what the US has at stake in Iraq and why the US must succeed. The Atlantic opines that Thomas Friedman’s view of the Middle East is all wrong. Who is right? Time will tell???
Background – Diplomacy – Niall Ferguson asks “What is Power?” – that is, which global players have power todayóand which are likely to acquire it in the coming decades?
Indian Navy – India’s SU-30MKI aircraft are being adapted for a maritime role.
US Navy – A US ship will make a port call visit to Vietnam, for the first time since the end of the Vietnam War.
Background – Bases – In the former Soviet republic of Kyrgyzstan, Russia has set up a military base – its first on foreign soil since the USSR imploded. The Kant airbase is also close to a US airbase established two years ago. How do the two co-exist?
Taiwanese Navy – Taiwan does not appear to be seriously interested in upgrading its defenses, much to the dismay of the U.S.
Background – Iraq – James F. Dunnigan analyses the evolving civil war in Iraq between the Sunnis and everyone else.
US Marines – The combat development process has undergone many changes in order to be more responsive to the needs of the Marine Corps and its Operating Forces.
Background – Airpower – Mark Bowden, author of “Black Hawk Down,” goes inside the cockpit with members of the 391st Fighter Squadron, veterans of the recent air war in Afghanistan. An excellent illustration of what war in the air is like today???
It is that time of the year again when I ask you for feedback about NOSI. I am interested in learning how you use NOSI to educate yourself and others. I am especially interested in hearing from military personnel or teachers at all levels. Please take a minute to fill out the Comments Form. Your comments and anecdotes are most appreciated!
Japanese Maritime Self Defense Force – Japan sends another supply ship, Tokiwa, to aid coalition ships in the Gulf.
Royal Australian Navy – HMAS Manoora returns home from the Solomons.
US Army – The US Army continues to procure high speed vessels.
US Navy – The Navy and Marine Corps are in the midst of an intense analytical process to determine the range of capabilities expected of their next generation of maritime prepositioning force ships. The Navy anticipates that its analysis of alternatives–a report of possible options–for its Maritime Prepositioning Force (Future) vessels will be complete in January 2004. The results likely will provide more than just answers to the future of MPF(F); they are apt to reveal the direction the Navy plans to take with its joint command-and-control capabilities.
Background – Islam – The growing voice of political Islam suggests that the United States faces a much more nebulous enemy in its war on terrorism than a movement of religious zealots.
Background – History – What qualifies one to be called a hero? An attempt to answer the question by retelling the stories of the U-2 pilots during the Cuban Missile Crisis. During the Cuban missile crisis, Maj. Rudolf Anderson faced the same dangers his fellow U-2 pilots did. But he was the only one to die. Does that make him the hero?
Royal Marines – Is 45 Commando preparing to return to Afghanistan?
US Navy – Doing more with less – a plan that will fundamentally change the way the Navy deploys and sustains fighting forces after it recovers from the nearly exhaustive efforts of Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom. Fleet organization and maintenance will be altered favoring a less predictable and more “surge ready” force under the Navy’s Fleet Response Plan, a scheme to reshape the business of naval warfare.
Background – Nuclear Weapons – The U.S. is looking to rightsize its nuclear arsenal to make it a more credible deterrent in the post-Cold War world.
Background – Empire – Robert Kaplan states it is a cliche these days to observe that the United States now possesses a global empireódifferent from Britain’s and Rome’s but an empire nonetheless. It is time to move beyond a statement of the obvious. Our recent effort in Iraq, with its large-scale mobilization of troops and immense concentration of risk, is not indicative of how we will want to act in the future. So how should we operate on a tactical level to manage an unruly world? What are the rules and what are the tools?
US Navy – The USS Iwo Jima amphibious ready group returns home and the Navy continues transitioning from amphibious ready groups to expeditionary strike groups. Meanwhile, the new deployment schedules of expeditionary strike groups will be similar to that of carrier battlegroups – no more routine 6 month long inflexible deployments.
Canadian Navy – The Upholder-class submarines have difficulty operating in warm climates.
Nigerian Navy – Nigerian pirates are now using tankers to siphon oil out of Nigeria’s pipelines.
US Navy – A look at what U.S. patrol boats are doing off of Iraq today.
US Marines – How one Marine general led from the front in Iraq.
Background – Intelligence – Seymour Hersch on how conflicts between the Bush Administration and the intelligence community marred the reporting on Iraqís weapons of mass destruction.
World Naval Operational News Highlights
Overall, I think it is quite interesting to reflect on just how correct open source intelligence stories were in 2002 in regards to what has subsequently transpired in Iraq. The stories NOSI covered described precisely the buildup of forces and logistics in theater, the evolution of the war plan, and predicted accurately the challenges the U.S. would face in a post-Saddam Iraq.
Statistics
In 2002, there were news stories linked to on 351 / 365 days – that is on 96% of the days.
In 2002, NOSI linked to 1,673 articles covering 1,529 news stories.
In 2002, 614 of these stories (40%) were related to the U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps, U.S. Coast Guard, or U.S. Military Sealift Command.
In 2002, 305 of these stories (20%) were background stories and 27 stories (2%) were historical stories.
The remaining 583 news stories (38%) covered the operational activities of 53 nation’s navies, coast guards, and marine corps:
Argentinean, Bangladeshi, Burmese, Canadian, Chilean, Chinese, Columbian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Indian, Indonesia, Iranian, Iraqi, Irish, Israeli, Italian, Japanese Maritime Self Defense Force, Japanese Coast Guard, Malaysian Navy, Malaysian Coast Guard, Merchant Marine, Myanarese, NATO, Nigerian, Omani, Pakistan, Palestinian, Phillipine Navy, Phillipine Marines, Portuguese, Romanian, Royal Australian Navy, Royal Navy, Royal Air Force, Royal Marines, Royal New Zealand Navy, Russian, Singaporean, South African, South Korean, Spanish, Swedish, Sri Lankan, Taiwanese, Taiwanese Marines, Thai, US Coast Guard, US Marine Corps, US Military Sealift Command, US Navy, Venezuelan
In 2002, 175,462 pages of information were read on NOSI by 67,242 users.
Singaporean Navy – Singapore will send troops and a naval contingent to Iraq, including Landing Ship Tanks (LSTs).
Chinese Navy – The navies of China and Pakistan are exercising together.
US Navy – The Chief of Naval Operations is asked to serve another term.
Background – Intelligence – John Keegan reminds us of the shortfalls of intelligence, throughout time. Spies don’t win wars, soldiers do.
US Marines – A few innovative (and some not so innovative) ways to improve force-on-force exercises in MOUT.
The Reading List / Curriculum section has been completed. Please browse through it, I am sure you will find some new and old articles in it that you will find valuable.
US Marines – With the Marines of the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit off of the USS Peleliu, attempting to stop oil smuggling in Iraq.
US Marines – It looks as if more Marines are going back to Iraq.
US Navy – An interview with John J. Young Jr., assistant secretary of the Navy for research, development, and acquisition.
NOSI - Naval Open Source Intelligence™ 
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