New Yorker – Can the United States be made safe from nuclear terrorism?
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Editorial Note – NOSI on break until Tuesday March 27
NOSI is taking a spring break and will next update on Tuesday March 27. See you then!
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Royal Marines – Talking, waiting, joking, killing . . . ten days in the Taleban's sights
The Times – As Nato begins its biggest offensive in the country since 2001, two Times journalists report from a risky mission into the insurgentsí heartland in lawless Helmand province. The Royal Marines of J Company, 42 Commando, sometimes sat down with local Pashtuns and sometimes skirmished. Then they fought them in pitched battle.
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Ground Warfare – Iraq's Mercenary King
Vanity Fair – As a former C.I.A. agent, the author Robert Baer knows how mercenaries work: in the shadows. But how did a notorious former British officer, Tim Spicer, come to coordinate the second-largest army in Iraq – the tens of thousands of private security contractors?
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Intelligence – A Swedish Lesson
Defense and the National Interest – An interesting essay from William Lind on what military intelligence *should* be – “a correction from below.”
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Ground Warfare – Be More Than You Can Be
Wired – Heat-resistant. Cold-proof. Tireless. Tomorrowís soldiers are just like todayís – only better. Inside the Pentagonís human enhancement project.
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Non Lethal Weapons – Marines Want Pain Ray, ASAP
Wired – The Pentagon says its millimeter-wave pain ray won’t be ready until 2010, despite years and years of tests. Marines in Iraq can’t wait that long. They want the weapon — which uses invisible waves to heat up the top layer of the skin and cause a whole lot of hurt — ASAP
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Iraq – No U.S. Backup Strategy For Iraq
Washington Post – Thomas Ricks says eager to appear resolute and reluctant to provide fodder for skeptics, U.S. officials rebuff questions about failure with a mix of optimism and evasion.
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Miscellaneous – At the Pentagon, Gates Seen as Liberator
Washington Post – Meet the new boss, not like the old boss — according to Thomas Ricks.
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US Marines – Marines Open Fire After Afghan Ambush
Washington Post – At least eight Afghan civilians were killed Sunday in eastern Afghanistan when U.S. Marines traveling in a convoy were hit by a car bomb and responded by firing in a way that some witnesses called reckless.
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Ground Warfare – The Making, and Unmaking, of a Child Soldier
New York Times Magazine – One boyís tortuous entanglement in an African civil war.
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Chinese Navy – China expands sub fleet
Washington Times – China’s military is engaged in a major buildup of submarines that includes five new strategic nuclear-missile boats and several advanced nuclear-powered attack submarines, according to the Office of Naval Intelligence.
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Geopolitics / Russia – Post-Putin
New York Times Magazine – Who will be ruling Russia next year? And what of the democracy that will decide that?
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Iran – The Redirection
New Yorker – In the past few months, as the situation in Iraq has deteriorated, the Bush Administration, in both its public diplomacy and its covert operations, ha significantly shifted its Middle East strategy. The ìredirection,î as some inside the White House have called the new strategy, has brought the Unite States closer to an open confrontation with Iran and, in parts of the region, propelled it into a widening sectarian conflict between Shiite and Sunn Muslims.
Is the Administrationís new policy on Iran benefitting our enemies in the war on terrorism?
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Afghanistan – A double spring offensive
Economist – After a dreadful year in Afghanistan, a newly confident NATO is preparing itself to take on the Taliban. Success will be difficult, but not impossible.
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Transformation – New Sub Dives Crushing Depths
Wired – Scientists at the University of Washington have developed an autonomous underwater vehicle that can stay out to sea for up to a year and dive to depths of nearly 9,000 feet — nearly three times deeper than the deepest-diving military submarines.
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Nuclear Warfare – The Stuff Sam Nunn's Nightmares Are Made Of
New York Times Magazine – Can the head of the Nuclear Threat Initiative do more now to curtail uranium smugglers, loose nukes and the proliferation of nuclear states than he could as chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee?
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Piracy – Pirates seize UN ship off Somalia
BBC – Pirates are reported to have hijacked a UN-chartered cargo ship delivering food aid to north-eastern Somalia.
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Royal Navy – Stand-off in Gulf with Iran 'a bit like Cold War'
Daily Telegraph – Britain’s most senior naval officer in the Gulf has likened the West’s tense stand-off with Iran as being akin to “the height of the Cold War”.
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History – The Greely Relief Expedition and the New Navy
International Journal of Naval History – On July 10, 1881, U.S. Army First Lieutenant Adolphus W. Greely sailed north in command of a small polar expedition. After making an unexpectedly easy passage,the expedition settled into a well-supplied base they named Fort Conger and began their mission of scientific exploration and astronomical observation. After that, everything went wrong. Thick ice prevented the scheduled resupply missions from reaching them. Greely and his men were stranded, and after two years faced starvation. After much debate, President Chester Arthur sent the Navy to rescue them???
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US Navy – American armada prepares to take on Iran
Daily Telegraph – Aboard the USS Dwight D Eisenhower in the Persian Gulf.
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US Navy – Carrier John F. Kennedy stops in Norfolk for last time
Virginian Pilot – The aircraft carrier John F. Kennedy is visiting Norfolk this week before heading to Boston for its final port.
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US Marines – Marines fighting to win hearts and minds
Los Angeles Times – In contrast to the security crackdown in Baghdad, most Marines in Iraq’s western desert are engaged in nation-building, the kind of venture President Bush had publicly disdained, most notably during the 2000 presidential campaign.
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Transformation – Darpa Chief Speaks
Wired – An interview with Tony Tether who has headed up the Pentagon’s way-out research arm, Darpa, since 2001. That makes him the longest-serving director in the agency’s nearly 50-year history.
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Ground Warfare – Soldiers Face Neglect, Frustration At Army's Top Medical Facility
Washington Post – An interesting look at what happens to wounded Soldiers and Marines who get their care at Walter Reed.
Washington Post – The Hotel Aftermath.
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