2006

World Naval Operational News Highlights

The ten most significant naval news stories / themes this year included:

• The continued irrelevance of the US Navy to Fourth Generation Warfare. Nearly 4 years after the invasion of Iraq, the US Navy is finally ready to send a brown water / riverine unit to Iraq to patrol the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. What took so long and why was there no sense of urgency?
• The rising awareness within the US military on the best ways to conduct the war in Iraq, evidenced by the new joint manual by the US Marines / US Army entitled FM 3-24 / MCWP 3-33.5 – Counterinsurgency.
• The first successful naval attack by a Fourth Generation entity (Hezbollah) against an Israeli naval vessel with a land-based antiship missile, showing how Fourth Generation opponents can reach out and strike naval targets successfully.
• The rise of Iran as a preeminent regional power in the Persian Gulf, and the implications that could have in a naval conflict in the Persian Gulf.
• The continued slow but steady rise of the Chinese Navy – will it be peaceful – or not?
• The increasing ballistic missile defense capability being forward-deployed at sea by the US Navy.
• The failure of the SeaSwap manning initiative in the US Navy, which shows that too much efficiency can sometimes be a bad thing.
• The successful use of lawfare, by environmental groups, to impede US Navy use of low frequency active sonar systems.
• The slow fading away of the Royal Navy, due to continued deep budget cuts.
• The US Marine Corps devising ways to (literally) shoot troops anywhere around the Earth in a few hours using rockets, showing that long-term planning and thinking is still thankfully alive and well in the Marine Corps???

Statistics

In 2006, there were news stories linked to on 270 / 365 days – that is on 74% of the days.

In 2006, NOSI linked to 556 articles covering 505 news stories.

In 2006, 171 of these stories (34%) were related to the U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps, U.S. Coast Guard, or U.S. Military Sealift Command.

In 2006, 201 of these stories (40%) were background stories and 17 stories (3%) were historical stories.

The remaining 116 news stories (23%) covered the operational activities of 20 nation’s navies, coast guards, and marine corps:

Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Greece, India, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Norway, Pakistan, Russia, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, United Kingdom

In 2006, 216,179 pages of information were read on NOSI by 119,473 users.

more…

NOSI’s 2006 archive can be found here.
more…

Virginian Pilot – In a region rife with poverty and despair, a Navy-led U.S. task force is using unorthodox techniques to prevent the spread of terrorism – Part 2???
more…

Virginian Pilot – In a region rife with poverty and despair, a Navy-led U.S. task force is using unorthodox techniques to prevent the spread of terrorism – Part 1???
more…

Washington Post – The Coast Guard’s newest cutter, the flagship of a $24 billion plan to modernize the nation’s coastal fleet, suffers from significant design flaws, and the service has failed to properly supervise the contractors doing the work, government inspectors have found.
more…

Foreign Affairs – Much of the already voluminous commentary on the war on terrorism centers on the question of whether it is a war at all. Here is an analysis of three books that are willing to stipulate, with varying degrees of enthusiasm, that it is. They differ dramatically, however, over what tactics this war allows and, more broadly, what it means for governing within the limits of the U.S. Constitution.
more…

New Yorker – The making of an Al Qaeda homegrown.
more…

Virginian Pilot – The Defense Department gave the Navy permission Tuesday to keep training with sonar for another two years, a move denounced by activists who say the sound waves can harm dolphins and other marine mammals.
more…

Washington Post – Thomas Ricks writes that the battle for Baghdad will start in mixed Sunni-Shiite neighborhoods chosen by military strategists as being the least likely to offer stiff resistance, raising the odds of early success, according to military planners and officials familiar with the thinking of the incoming Iraq commander, Lt. Gen. David H. Petraeus.
more…

Los Angeles Times – The story of one unusual former US Marine. Hussein Mohammed Aidid, the son of Somali warlord Mohammed Farah Aidid who was one of the key players in “Blackhawk Down,” was General Zinni’s Marine interpreter in Somalia at that time???now he wants to be President of Somalia.
more…

Los Angeles Times – Robert Kaplan writes that just as the demise of Slobodan Milosevic in Yugoslavia closed the lid on national communist parties in Eastern Europe, the demise of Saddam Hussein in Iraq appears likely to do the same for secular Arab nationalism across the Middle East.
more…

Air Force – A look at the US Air Forces current plans for unmanned aerial vehicles???In just a few years, USAF will have more than 200 armed Predators and Reapers on hand, with lots more to come.
more…

Foreign Affairs – The smooth transfer of power from Fidel Castro to his successors is exposing the willful ignorance and wishful thinking of U.S. policy toward Cuba. The post-Fidel transition is already well under way, and change in Cuba will come only gradually from here on out. With or without Fidel, renewed U.S. efforts to topple the revolutionary regime in Havana can do no good — and have the potential to do considerable harm.
more…

Daily Telegraph – The prospect of “Star Wars” between China and the West loomed last night after Beijing used a ballistic missile to destroy a satellite in space.

BBC – US condemns China ’space weapon’.

The Times – ‘Star Wars’ missile test heralds new arms race in space.
more…

Defense and the National Interest – An excellent analysis / refutation of George Packer’s recent article in the New Yorker on new approaches to Fourth Generation Warfare that I previously linked to.
more…

Daily Telegraph – With the Royal Marines in Afghanistan.
more…

Associated Press – The deployment of the USS John C. Stennis strike group to the Middle East will put two U.S. aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf region for the first time since the 2003 Iraq invasion, in a clear response to Iran’s aggressive posture in the region.
more…

The Day – A long-delayed decision on a replacement warhead for the missiles carried on Trident submarines may mean more work for nuclear warhead designers ó but possibly at the expense of funding for submarines.
more…

Washington Post – Another look at Admiral William J. Fallon, the new nominee to head Central Command.
more…

Virginian Pilot – Just over a year ago, the Navy Expeditionary Combat Command existed as a broad concept worked over by a dozen busy senior Navy officials. That small group has swelled to a 200-person headquarters at Little Creek Naval Amphibious base that is responsible for 32,000 sailors around the globe.
more…