Washington Post – Thomas Ricks notes that the growing chorus of official voices blaming Iraqis for continuing violence may mark the beginning of the end of U.S. involvement.
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Monthly Archives: November 2006
Iraq – Algeria was worse than Iraq ñ so far
Daily Telegraph – John Keegan says that Sir Alistair Horne, the great historian of modern war, believes that the war in Iraq most resembles the Algerian war against the French of 1954-62, of which he wrote a celebrated history, just reissued.
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US Navy – Missions of Mercy keep ship in service
San Diego Union Tribune – The USNS Mercy’s hugely popular humanitarian missions to Asia in the past two years may have saved the San Diego-based hospital ship and its East Coast sister vessel, the Comfort, from a trip to the scrap yard.
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Iraq – Anbar Picture Grows Clearer, and Bleaker
Washington Post – Thomas Ricks gives a more detailed look at the problems faced by the Marines in Anbar province.
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Fourth Generation Warfare – The Way to Win a Guerrilla War
Washington Post – Thomas A. Hammes on how to win in Iraq and Afghanistan.
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Ground Warfare – Weapon Of Mass Destruction
Washington Post – The AK-47 has become the world’s most prolific and effective combat weapon, a device so cheap and simple that it can be bought in many countries for less than the cost of a live chicken.
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Transformation – Jets or GIs? How Best to Address the Military's Manpower Shortage
Foreign Affairs – The U.S. military needs more manpower, badly. And this means reordering budgets, putting troops over technology. Or does it?
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History – Suez 1956: A Successful Naval Operation Compromised by Inept Political Leadership
Naval War College Review – The British and French forces that saw action during the abortive Suez invasion of 1956 produced a “copybook” performance in military terms. But flawed political decisions are likely to lead to flawed operational strategy, and today the entire episode is remembered as an embarrassing failure.
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Iraq – Flaws Cited in Effort To Train Iraqi Forces
Washington Post – Thomas Ricks on how the U.S. military’s effort to train Iraqi forces has been rife with problems, from officers being sent in with poor preparation to a lack of basic necessities such as interpreters and office materials, according to internal Army documents.
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US Navy – Davy Jones's Locker
Defense and the National Interest – William Lind comments on the recently reported Chinese submarine tracking of US aircraft carriers.
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Geopolitics – Interventionism's Realistic Future
Washignton Post – Robert Kaplan comments on the future of US intervention abroad.
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US Marines – Under fire, US marines hand off battered Fallujah
Christian Science Monitor – Just 300 marines now patrol Fallujah as the Iraqi military takes over.
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US Marines – Top Marine: Troops under too much strain
CNN – The new Marine Corps commandant said Wednesday that the longer than anticipated pace of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan is putting an unacceptable strain on his troops. Gen. James Conway said the service is unable to meet its goal of giving Marines twice as much time at home as in a war zone. He said unless the demand on the corps eases, he may have to propose increasing the size of the force.
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Iran – The Next Act
New Yorker – Seymour Hersch asks if a damaged Administration less likely to attack Iran, or more?
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Iraq – Pentagon May Suggest Short-Term Buildup Leading to Iraq Exit
Washington Post – Thomas Ricks writes that the Pentagon’s closely guarded review of how to improve the situation in Iraq has outlined three basic options: Send in more troops, shrink the force but stay longer, or pull out, according to senior defense officials.
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Royal Navy – New Trident to go ahead
The Times – The government will signal within the next two to three weeks that it wants to continue with the submarine-based Trident missile system as the UKís nuclear deterrent.
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Royal Marines – Meet the air-conditioned Marines at Camp Do-Nothing in Afghanistan.
Daily Mail – With 42 Commando in Afghanistan.
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US Navy – U.S. Navy says it will replace frigate with Aegis destroyer in Japan
Associated Press – The U.S. Navy will deploy its guided-missile destroyer USS McCampbell at Japan’s Yokosuka naval base, taking over from frigate USS Gary as the navy moves to replace some of its aging fleet. The deployment of McCampbell is to increase missile defense capabilities around Japan. The U.S. Navy will have nine Aegis-equipped vessels at Yokosuka.
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Chinese Navy – China, U.S. stage search-and-rescue drill
Xinhua – The navies of China and the United States held a search-and-rescue exercise on the South China Sea on Sunday morning.
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Geopolitics / Rules of War – How We Fight
Foreign Affairs – Reports that U.S. troops may have killed 24 civilians in Haditha, Iraq, last November have renewed fears that the U.S. military routinely violates the laws of war. But is the Haditha incident the exception or the rule? In fact, U.S. compliance with noncombatant immunity in Iraq has been relatively high by historical standards, and it has been improving since the beginning of the war.
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US Navy – Navy may send hospital ships on regular humanitarian cruises
Virginian Pilot – Spurred by a surge in international goodwill after one of their hospital ships completed a five-month humanitarian cruise to Southeast Asia last summer, the Navy’s top leaders are considering regular deployments of the floating medical centers.
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US Navy – Double war duty a first for Enterprise Strike Group
Virginian Pilot – Ending an unusual deployment to four fleets and two wars, the aircraft carrier Enterprise will return Saturday after six and a half months at sea.
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History – Fort Fischer: Amphibious Victory in the American Civil War
Naval War College Review – The first attack on Fort Fisher, during the American Civil War, failed utterly; the second succeeded magnificently. The commanders of the latter learned from the experience of the former; the lessons of both attempts were valuable for the great amphibious operations of the mid-twentieth century, and they remain instructive today.
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Transformation – Downfall
New Yorker – How Donald Rumsfeld reformed the Army and lost Iraq.
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US Marines – Operation AL FAJR
Marine Corps Gazette – While the combat phase of Operation IRAQI FREEDOM (OIF) reasserted American supremacy in a classic combined arms campaign on open terrain, success against the protracted insurgency in urban areas is more elusive.
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NOSI - Naval Open Source Intelligence™ 
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