Air Force – US armed forces face “peer” adversaries in only one area – military cyberspace.
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Iraq – War, Meet the 2008 Campaign
New York Times – Michael Gordon writes that for the past year, he has led a double existence, dividing his time between military reporting assignments in Iraq and tracking the campaign debate in the United States???Those were parallel universes, in which the discussion of the taxing road ahead and potential fall-back options were often so divergent that the generals and the politicians seemed not to be talking about the same war.
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Geopolitics / Democracy – Slow But Sure
Financial Times – Niall Ferguson writes: Has the democratic wave broken? Is the tide of political freedom now ebbing after the spectacular flow that began in 1989? Recent events on nearly every continent certainly give real cause for concern to those who dream of a world governed by the ballot box rather than the bullet. But they may also provide an overdue opportunity to think more realistically about the way the process of democratisation works.
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US Marines – Guam Braces for Peaceful Military Incursion
Washington Post – People on this faraway island — a U.S. territory 7,824 miles west of Los Angeles — delight in calling Guam the “tip of the spear” for its role defending U.S. interests in the Far East???The Pentagon has chosen Guam, a quirkily American place that marries the beauty of Bali with the banality of Kmart, as the prime location in the western Pacific for projecting U.S. military muscle.
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US Navy – Lincoln strike group begins sonar exercise
San Diego Union Tribune – Despite legal sparring between the Navy and environmentalists over sonar transmissions off San Diego and other parts of Southern California, a sonar exercise involving the Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier strike group began as scheduled yesterday.
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US Navy – Nimitz strike group embarks on special deployment
San Diego Union Tribune – The Nimitz strike group is filling in for the Japan-based Kitty Hawk while that aircraft carrier undergoes several months of maintenance.
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US Navy – U.S. military must consider Japan base's impact on marine mammal
San Diego Union Tribune – A federal judge ordered the U.S. Department of Defense on Thursday to consider the impact of a proposed military base in Japan on an endangered marine mammal revered in Japanese culture.
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Japanese Maritime Self Defense Force – Japan Navy Resumes Anti-Terror Mission
Associated Press – A Japanese navy destroyer departed Thursday to resume the country’s anti-terror mission in the Indian Ocean after a divisive battle in parliament caused a three-month suspension.
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South Korean Navy – Korean AIP Submarine Now in Service
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.
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Russian Navy – RAF alert as Russia stages huge naval exercise in Bay of Biscay
The Times – RAF fighters scrambled to track Russian long-range bombers joining a naval task force yesterday as Moscow practised strike tactics off the coast of France and Spain and test-launched nuclear-capable missiles.
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French Navy – End of a Class
Defense Technology International – The French navy’s last Le Redoutable class submarine has set sail for the final time
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Editorial Note – Naval Year in Review 2007
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.
Editorial Note – 2007 Archives Now Available
Military Space – Disharmony in the spheres
Economist – Modern American warfare relies on satellites. They make America powerful but also vulnerable, particularly in light of China’s new celestial assertiveness
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Royal Navy – Dive bombers
The Times – They can wipe out entire nations, and the British government plans to build even more. Are the Trident nuclear submarines essential for peacekeeping, or are they just expensive relics of the cold war? We meet the men with their fingers on the trigger.
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Dutch Navy – Dutch Plan for Their Largest Naval Ship Ever
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.
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Geopolitics / Russia – The Myth of the Authoritarian Model: How Putin's Crackdown Holds Russia Back
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.
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Military Space – How China Loses the Coming Space War
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.
Military Space – Space and the 2000 ship Navy
Space Review – A new maritime strategy document calls for the creation of a multinational network of sensors and communications to enable better cooperation among the worldís navies. Taylor Dinerman examines the role space would play in such a strategy, and the institutional obstacles it faces within the Pentagon.
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US Navy – Two years later, 40,000 strong
Virginian Pilot – Since its inception two years ago this month, the Navy Expeditionary Combat Command has established several new units, sending sailors into ground and coastal missions around the world. Rear Adm. Donald K. Bullard, who retires today, and his staff have taken the command from a handful of planners to a force of 40,000 sailors.
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Fourth Generation Warfare – High-Profile Officer Nagl to Leave Army, Join Think Tank
Washington Post – One of the Army’s most prominent younger officers, Lt. Col. John Nagl, whose writings have influenced the conduct of the U.S. troop buildup in Iraq, said he has decided to leave the service to study strategic issues full time at a new Washington think tank.
US Navy – White House Fights Ruling Limiting Navy's Use of Sonar
Washington Post – The White House yesterday sought to overrule a federal court’s decision limiting the Navy’s use of sonar in training exercises, exempting the service from complying with two major environmental laws.
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French Navy – French make serious move into Gulf
BBC – President Nicolas Sarkozy has gone beyond France’s traditional policy of selling arms to Gulf states by signing a deal with Abu Dhabi for a permanent French naval base.
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US Navy – Storied Fourth Fleet may sail again
Miami Herald – The Navy is considering restoring the Fourth Fleet in the Atlantic Ocean, a bureaucratic change that would raise the prominence of Pentagon maritime activities in Latin America and Caribbean.
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US Marines – 3,200 Marines to Deploy To Afghanistan in Spring
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.
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