PBS Frontline – As Iraq descends into chaos and civil war; its neighbor — Iran — is on the rise as one of America’s greatest threats and most puzzling foreign policy challenges.
Read the transcript.
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Dutch Navy – Radical Departure
Defense Technology International – The Royal Netherlands Navy is pursuing an Integrated Mast concept for a “radically new” naval sensor and communications suite for anti-air and surface warfare.
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Wargaming – Iran Encounter Grimly Echoes '02 War Game
New York Times – There is a reason American military officers express grim concern over the tactics used by Iranian sailors last weekend: a classified, $250 million war game in which small, agile speedboats swarmed a naval convoy to inflict devastating damage on more powerful warships???yet another look at Millennium Challenge 2002.
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Geopolitics / Iran – The Costs of Containing Iran
Foreign Affair – The Bush administration wants to contain Iran by rallying the support of Sunni Arab states and now sees Iran’s containment as the heart of its Middle East policy: a way to stabilize Iraq, declaw Hezbollah, and restart the Arab-Israeli peace process. But the strategy is unsound and impractical, and it will probably further destabilize an already volatile region.
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Iranian Navy – US reveals new Iran 'incidents'
BBC – Iranian speedboats approached US warships in two previously undisclosed incidents in the Strait of Hormuz in December, a US Navy official has said.
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Japanese Maritime Self Defense Force – Japan revives naval support mission
Associated Press – Japan’s defense minister ordered the navy Friday to ready ships for dispatch to the Indian Ocean to join the fight on terror, ending a three-month hiatus but deepening a political battle at home with the opposition.
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Royal Navy – MoD looks at delays to carrier contract
Financial Times – The Ministry of Defence is examining possible delays to its £4bn contract for two new aircraft carriers as it struggles to meet Treasury demands for swingeing cuts to its budget.
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US Marines – U.S. to Bolster Forces in Afghanistan
Washington Post – The U.S. military is planning to deploy about 3,000 Marines to Afghanistan this spring to counter an expected offensive by Taliban insurgents, a Pentagon spokesman said yesterday, citing NATO allies’ failure to provide additional combat troops.
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Geopolitics / Pakistan – Next-Gen Taliban
New York Times Magazine – Pakistanís younger Islamic militants are bringing the jihad waged in Afghanistan back home: breaking with senior mullahs, renouncing elections and killing police officers, soldiers and, perhaps, Benazir Bhutto.
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Iranian Navy – US releases Iran stand-off video
BBC – The US military has released video and audio recordings of Iranian boats that it says threatened to blow up US Navy vessels in the Strait of Hormuz.
Daily Telegraph – Video shows Iranian ‘provocation’ of US forces.
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Iranian Navy – Iran boats 'threatened US ships'
BBC – Five Iranian speedboats harassed three US navy ships at the weekend, approaching them and radioing a threat to blow them up, US officials say.
CNN – Iranian boats ‘harass’ U.S. Navy, officials say.
Washington Post – U.S. Expresses Alarm After Iranian Boats Threaten Three American Vessels.
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US Marines – Osprey is put to the test in Iraq
Virginian Pilot – A look at how the MV-22 Osprey is doing on its first operational deployment.
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Geopolitics / China – Long Time Coming: The Prospects for Democracy in China
Foreign Affairs – Is China democratizing? The country’s leaders do not think of democracy as people in the West generally do, but they are increasingly backing local elections, judicial independence, and oversight of Chinese Communist Party officials. How far China’s liberalization will ultimately go and what Chinese politics will look like when it stops are open questions.
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US Navy – Navy's Use of Sonar Is Severely Limited
Washington Post – A federal judge yesterday severely limited the Navy’s ability to use mid-frequency sonar on a training range off the Southern California coast, ruling that the loud sounds would harm whales and other marine mammals if not tightly controlled.
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US Navy – Guam, All Over Again
Air Force – The island is the pivot of a sweeping realignment of US forces in the Pacific.
Fourth Generation Warfare – John Robb: Keeping up with Terrorists
Esquire – Thomas P.M. Barnett describes John Robb’s work on Global Guerillas.
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US Navy – Navy, Environmentalists Await Sonar Ruling
Washington Post – A federal judge in California is scheduled to release a decision this week that will outline what the Navy must do to protect whales and other marine mammals from the loud blasts of its sonar equipment.
U.S. District Judge Florence-Marie Cooper’s ruling in the closely watched case, expected by week’s end, will not only affect Navy training exercises scheduled for the waters off Southern California over the next year but could also clarify how closely the military must follow environmental laws.
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Geopolitics / Long War – Recasting the Long War as a Joint Sino-American Venture
Baker Center Journal of Applied Public Policy – Thomas P.M. Barnett writes that the way forward in the Long War is with the Chinese:
In this so-called long war against the global jihadist movement, the Bush administrationís greatest failure has been its lack of strategic imagination. It has added the right enemies to our to-do list, but failed to enlist the necessary new allies, giving our people the misperception that itís America against the world.
This need not be the case. Our natural allies are now located on the frontiers of globalization, or among the three billion-plus new capitalists who joined global markets over the last generation, chiefly among them the Chinese.
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Editorial Note – NOSI will be on break until December 31st
NOSI is taking a short holiday break and will next update on December 31st. See you then!
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Geopolitics – Forgetting the Obvious
American Interest – Robert D. Kaplan writes “Some truths are so obvious that to mention them in polite company seems either pointless or rude. What is left unstated, however, can with time be forgotten. Both of these observations apply today to the American way of war. It is obvious that a military can only fight well on behalf of a society in which it believes, and that a society which believes little is worth fighting for cannot, in the end, field an effective military. Obvious as this is, we seem to have forgotten it.”
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US Navy – Crew of troubled Navy ship finally claims success
Virginian Pilot – The San Antonio broke the mold for amphibious ships but came with plenty broken, too. About $840 million over budget and plagued by design and construction flaws, it finally has been cleared for deployment.
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US Navy – A quarter of the fleet is grounded
Florida Times-Union – One quarter of the Navy’s P-3C Orions are grounded after it was determined that these particular aircraft are likely to develop cracks in the trailing edge of the wing between the engines.
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US Navy – F-35B Rolls Out
Defense Technology International – Bill Sweetman notes that the roll-out of the first Lockheed Martin F-35B is a milestone in the development of a runway-free supersonic fighter. But it does raise a huge question: what is it for?
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Japanese Maritime Self Defense Force – Japan tests anti-missile system
BBC – Japan has for the first time shot down a ballistic missile in flight, testing a defence system aimed at warding off any missile threat from its neighbours.
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Piracy – U.S. Steps Up Anti-Piracy Actions
Washington Post – The U.S. Navy is adopting more aggressive tactics to counter piracy off the coast of Somalia, helping last week to make the area free of captured vessels for the first time since February, according to a senior U.S. Navy commander in the region.
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