NOSI is taking a short break and will next update on Tuesday February 19th. See you then!
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US Navy – US plans to shoot down satellite
BBC – The US Navy is planning to shoot down a broken spy satellite due to crash land on Earth in the next few weeks.
Air Warfare – Rise of the Reaper
Air Force – Some call it ìPredator on steroids,î but that doesnít begin to describe this new aircraft.
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Russian Navy – Navy intercepts Russian bombers in western Pacific
Associated Press – U.S. fighter planes intercepted two Russian bombers, including one that buzzed an American aircraft carrier in the western Pacific during the weekend. One Russian Tupolev 95 flew directly over the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz twice, at a low altitude of about 2,000 feet, while another bomber circled about 58 miles out.
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Iraq – Army Buried Study Faulting Iraq Planning
New York Times – The Army is accustomed to protecting classified information. But when it comes to the planning for the Iraq war, even an unclassified assessment can acquire the status of a state secret.
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US Navy – The New Line in the Pacific
Air Force – The American emphasis will be on air and sea power, with fewer boots on the ground.
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Miscellaneous – The Professional
New York Times – Defense Secretary Robert Gates is the anti-Rumsfeld: cautious, courteous and conciliatory. But will that be enough to bring Washington together on Iraq and Iran?
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Geopolitics / China – The $1.4 Trillion Question
The Atlantic – James Fallows writes that the Chinese are subsidizing the American way of life. Are we playing them for suckers – or are they playing us?
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Transformation – Robot glider harvests ocean heat
BBC – A sea-going robotic glider that harvests heat energy from the ocean has been tested by US scientists.
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Operations Other Than War – After Hard-Won Lessons, Army Doctrine Revised
New York Times – Michael Gordon writes about a new operations manual that elevates the stabilization of war-torn nations to the same importance as the defeat of enemies on the battlefield.
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Nuclear Warfare – A Strike in the Dark
New Yorker – Seymour Hersh on why did Israel bomb Syria?
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Columbian Navy – Drug Traffic Beneath the Waves
Washington Post – In the annals of the drug trade, traffickers have swallowed cocaine pellets, dissolved the powder into ceramics and flown the drug as far as Africa on flimsy planes — anything to elude detection and get a lucrative product to market. Now, the cartels seem to be increasingly going beneath the waves, relying on submarines built in clandestine jungle shipyards to move tons of cocaine.
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US Navy – Navy ordered to establish sonar-free zones to protect whales, dolphins
San Francisco Chronicle – For the second time this week, a federal court found today that a Navy anti-submarine training program threatened to subject whales and other sea creatures to harmful blasts of sonar and ordered protective measures in several sensitive zones, including one near Monterey Bay.
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US Navy – White House Went Too Far in Sonar Case, Judge Rules
Washington Post – The Bush administration overreached when it sought to limit the Navy’s obligations under national environmental laws related to sonar training exercises off California, a federal judge ruled yesterday.
In a sharply worded decision that will keep the Navy from continuing a series of 14 planned exercises, U.S. District Judge Florence-Marie Cooper wrote that the Navy and the administration had improperly declared that an emergency would be created if they had to accept court-mandated steps to minimize risk to whales and other sea mammals. Because no real emergency exists, she said, the White House cannot override her decisions and those of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit.
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Russian Navy – Heading Back Home: Kuznetsov En-Route to Kola Pensinsula
Defense Technology International – Russia’s aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov is returning home after its saber-rattling voyage into the Mediterranean and participation in naval live firing exercises near French and Spanish waters.
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US Coast Guard – New task for U.S. Coast Guard in Arctic's warming seas
Virginian Pilot – Itís namesake is one of the Coast Guardís most storied ships, but todayís Cutter Bear has colorful chapters all its own as it marks its silver anniversary.
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Air Warfare – Rex Replay
Air Force – Once again, as in 1938, the bombers show they can find ships at sea.
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US Navy – U.S. Navy aims to flex 'soft power'
Christian Science Monitor – Goodwill missions could become the Navy’s chief strategy in the war on terror.
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Geopolitics / China – The Rise of China and the Future of the West: Can the Liberal System Survive?
Foreign Affairs – China’s rise will inevitably bring the United States’ unipolar moment to an end. But that does not necessarily mean a violent power struggle or the overthrow of the Western system. The U.S.-led international order can remain dominant even while integrating a more powerful China — but only if Washington sets about strengthening that liberal order now.
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Russian Navy – Bear is Back: Russian Aircraft Carrier Operations off Gibraltar
Defense Technology International – Russia’s aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov with its flight deck loaded with Su-33 Flanker fighters, Su-25 Frogfoot close air support aircraft and Ka-27 helix helicopters??? that scene could be witnessed off Gibraltar in January.
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Afghanistan – Think tank: Surge now needed in Afghanistan
Army Times – Sean Naylor writes that the American Enterprise Institute, the think tank that came up with the ìsurgeî strategy for Iraq, has just completed a re-evaluation of U.S. strategy in Afghanistan and Pakistan and concluded that another surge of U.S. forces is required, this time into southern Afghanistan.
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Iraq – U.S. Commanders in Iraq Favor Pause in Troop Cuts
Washington Post – Tom Ricks writes that senior U.S. military commanders in Iraq say they want to freeze troop reductions starting this summer for at least a month, making it more likely that the next administration will inherit as many troops in Iraq as there were before President Bush announced a “surge” of forces a year ago.
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Royal Australian Navy – Admiral: May Need to Fight for Sea Control
Defense Technology International – Australia’s Chief of Navy warns that “enormous strategic change” taking place at the moment will have major implications for the maritime forces of Australia and its allies.
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Geopolitics – Waving Goodbye to Hegemony
New York Times Magazine – Just a few years ago, Americaís hold on global power seemed unshakable. But a lot has changed while weíve been in Iraq ó and the next president is going to be dealing with not only a triumphant China and a retooled Europe but also the quiet rise of a ë”second world.”
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US Navy – Why the Navy needs more ships
Armed Forces Journal – The Navy needs a larger number of ships, not only for winning a war at sea against a stronger opponent but also for carrying out diverse missions in peacetime, ranging from humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, security assistance, enforcement of maritime agreements, counterpiracy, vessel traffic service, multinational exercises, countersmuggling and counterdrug, to regional deterrence through forward presence in selected parts of the worldís oceans.
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