New York Times – A critical look at the troubled gestation of the Littoral Combat Ship.
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US Navy – Norfolk-based destroyer Stout deemed unfit, triggering fleet review
Virginian Pilot – The Navy will review maintenance and training across the surface fleet after a recent inspection found the Norfolk-based destroyer Stout unfit for sustained combat.
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US Navy – What makes a Global Hawk into a BAMS?
Defense Technology International – Surprisingly few airframe changes are needed to make Northrop Grumman’s Global Hawk into the US Navy’s Broad Area Maritime Surveillance System, although the RQ-4N will have a different mission profile than the US Air Force’s RQ-4B.
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US Navy – Flight-Test Program Accelerates for U.S. Navy's E-2D
Aviation Week – Within three years, the U.S. Navy’s fleet will have fielded the technology for precisely locating small, flying targets. The target set embraces some of the Navy’s latest nightmares, including the next-generation of stealthy – sometimes supersonic – cruise missiles.
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Information Warfare – Behind Analysts, the Pentagon's Hidden Hand
New York Times – The Pentagon has cultivated “military analysts” in a campaign to generate favorable news coverage of the Bush administrationís wartime performance.
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History – Teamwork saved stricken warship
San Diego Union Tribune – A look at what saved the frigate Samuel B. Roberts when it hit an Iranian mine in the Persian Gulf 20 years ago.
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Geopolitics / Venezuela – An Empty Revolution: The Unfulfilled Promises of Hugo Ch-vez
Foreign Affairs – Even critics of Hugo Ch·vez tend to concede that he has made helping the poor his top priority. But in fact, Ch·vez’s government has not done any more to fight poverty than past Venezuelan governments, and his much-heralded social programs have had little effect. A close look at the evidence reveals just how much Ch·vez’s “revolution” has hurt Venezuela’s economy — and that the poor are hurting most of all.
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Geopolitics / Asia – Robert Kaplan on the new balance of power
Spero – An essay summarizing Robert Kaplan’s keynote address at Foreign Policy Research Instituteís Fourth Annual Partners Brunch.
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German Navy – Germany Fields Braunschweig-Class
Defense Technology International – The Germany navy this week has formally put into service the K-130 Braunschweig corvette, the first of five boats in a new class.
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US Navy – Taking risks
Armed Forces Journal – A comparison of good risk with bad risk. Successful implementation of the new maritime strategy depends on the Navy leadership seizing the first while mitigating the latter.
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US Navy – The big gamble
Armed Forces Journal – A questioning of the wisdom of introducing three major new ship platforms (DDG 1000 destroyer, CVN 78 carrier and LCS) at the same time – all based on untested designs. Is this bold new thinking or reckless risk?
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Geopolitics – War Plans
New York Times – Niall Ferguson review’s Philip Bobbitt’s new book, entitled “The Wars for the Twenty-First Century.”
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French Navy – Where French Naval Aviation Stands Today
Defense Technology International – The state of France’s naval air fleet.
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Royal Navy – Pirates can claim UK asylum
The Times – The Royal Navy, once the scourge of brigands on the high seas, has been told by the Foreign Office not to detain pirates because doing so may breach their human rights.
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Geopolitics / India – Oh! Kolkata!
The Atlantic – Robert Kaplan writes that Calcutta has been renamed. Now, with investment on the rise, tech companies moving in, and a growing middle class, can it be reborn?
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French Navy – French commandos swoop after pirates free hostages
Reuters – French commandos seized six pirates in Somalia on Friday during a daring helicopter raid launched shortly after the bandits had released the 30-strong crew of a luxury yacht hijacked last week.
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French Navy – Desperately Seeking Better Quality Recruits: French Navy
Defense Technology International – The French navy has to recruit 4,000 men and women annually??? and it’s becoming tough.
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US Navy – Undersea warfare: The hidden threat
Armed Forces Journal – The author points downward to a potential threat still overlooked: an attack on seabed infrastructure critical to the economy and to U.S. security.
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Royal New Zealand Navy – New Zealand Shows Off its New Multi-Role Vessel
Defense Technology International – HMNZS Canterbury (L 421), the Royal New Zealand Navy’s brand-new multi-role vessel (MRV) amphibious transport ship, is on its first major multinational exercise.
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Nuclear Warfare – A Smuggler's Story
The Atlantic – Meet Oleg Khintsagov, a small-time hustler in Russia who can get you dried fish, furs, Turkish chandeliers Ö and weapons-grade uranium. Heís not the only one.
The Atlantic – Uranium on the Loose – Lawrence Scott Sheets discusses the lawlessness of the former Soviet republics and the nuclear threat no one talks about..
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French Navy – France is tracking hijacked yacht
Angola Press – The French coastal frigate Le Commandant Bouan had been sent to monitor the luxury yacht seized, with its crew, on Friday by Somali pirates.
Associated Press – Pirates Dock French Boat in Somali Port.
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US Navy – Nuclear carrier GW on voyage of diplomacy to Japan
Virginian Pilot – When the George Washington ties up in Yokosuka, Japan, in August, it will become the first nuclear-powered carrier based in the only nation ever to be attacked by nuclear weapons.
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Geopolitics / Nationalism – Us and Them: The Enduring Power of Ethnic Nationalism
Foreign Affairs – Americans generally belittle the role of ethnic nationalism in politics. But in fact, it corresponds to some enduring propensities of the human spirit, it is galvanized by modernization, and in one form or another, it will drive global politics for generations to come. Once ethnic nationalism has captured the imagination of groups in a multiethnic society, ethnic disaggregation or partition is often the least bad answer.
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US Navy – GW leaves for new base in Japan on Monday
Virginian Pilot – The aircraft carrier George Washington, with a crew of about 3,200, is slated to depart Monday en route to its new home base in Yokosuka, Japan, where it will replace the Kitty Hawk as the United Statesí only permanently forward-deployed aircraft carrier.
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US Navy – Carried Away
Armed Forces Journal – A challenge to the US Navy to align its old-style, carrier-heavy procurement strategy with the new maritime strategy.
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