Iraq – Leaving now not the way out of Iraq

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The Times – One of the key strategists behind Americaís last-ditch ‘surge’ in Iraq, Colonel HR McMaster explains his thinking to Marie Colvin, our award-winning correspondent, who has spent decades covering the Middle East and has witnessed the bloody reality of life in Baghdad. McMaster insists that ësustained stabilityí is possible ñ eventually. But was the surge the right policy too late?
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Royal Navy – Scots shipyards to share in £3.9bn super-vessels contract

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Scotland on Sunday – Prime Minister Gordon Brown is preparing to deliver a multi-billion-pound boost to his home nation, with confirmation that Scotland’s shipbuilders will help to produce the biggest vessels ever ordered by the Royal Navy. The Prime Minister is set to put an end to years of delay by announcing the decision on the construction of the two “super carriers” within the next few days.
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Fourth Generation Warfare – Institutionalizing Adaptation

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Center for a New American Security – John Nagl writes that the counterinsurgency campaigns that are likely to continue to be the face of battle in the 21st century will require that we build a very different United States Army than the enormously capable but conventionally focused one we have today. The long-overdue increase in the size of the Army announced by President George W. Bush in December 2006 can play a pivotal role in helping build it. The best way to use the additional soldiers is not simply to create additional Brigade Combat Teams (BCTs) as currently planned by the Army. Indeed, demand for such forces is likely to shrink as the American combat role in Iraq diminishes. Instead, the Army should create a permanent standing Advisor Corps of 20,000 Combat Advisors-men and women organized, equipped, educated, and trained to develop host nation security forces abroad.
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Russian Navy – Russian Navy Successfully Tests New SLBM

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CDI – On June 28, 2007, the Russian navyís missile program finally got a break when it conducted a successful flight test of its new RS-30 (SS-NX-30 by NATO classification) ìBulavaî submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM). The successful test comes against a backdrop of failures ñ three since last fall ñ which had some commentators expressing doubt about the missileís future. However, the successful test is sure to boost confidence in both the missileís design and its developer, the Moscow Institute of Thermal Technology (MITT).
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US Marines – Six Methods

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Marine Corps Gazette – As the Marine Corps seeks to increase its size incrementally over the next several years to 202,000 active duty Marines, concerns have arisen over how to recruit the additional personnel we will require. In this article the author, who has commanded a recruiting station, postulates six ideas that he believes will improve recruiting productivity immediately.
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Iraq – The General's Report

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New Yorker – How General Antonio Taguba, who investigated the Abu Ghraib scandal, became one of its casualties.

Most interesting is this ending quote from General Taguba: “From the moment a soldier enlists, we inculcate loyalty, duty, honor, integrity, and selfless service. And yet when we get to the senior-officer level we forget those values. I know that my peers in the Army will be mad at me for speaking out, but the fact is that we violated the laws of land warfare in Abu Ghraib. We violated the tenets of the Geneva Convention. We violated our own principles and we violated the core of our military values. The stress of combat is not an excuse, and I believe, even today, that those civilian and military leaders responsible should be held accountable.”
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Iraq – Iraq Push Revives Criticism of Force Size

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Washington Post – Thomas Ricks writes that the major U.S. offensive launched last weekend against insurgents in and around Baghdad has significantly expanded the military’s battleground in Iraq — “a surge of operations,” and no longer just of troops, as the second-ranking U.S. commander there said yesterday — but it has renewed concerns about whether even the bigger U.S. troop presence there is large enough.
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