Financial Times – China has surprised the Pentagon with the pace of development of a new class of submarine that threatens the nuclear balance by providing Beijing with a more robust nuclear deterrent. The Chinese navy is developing a fleet of five nuclear ballistic missile submarines. The Jin class submarines would provide a much stronger nuclear deterrent because they would be armed with the new long-range JL-2 missile.
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Aviation Week – The Defense Department has released its annual report on China’s military strategy and modernization, which seems focused on information warfare and joint forces. The whole report is here.
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Aviation Week – The General Accountability Office explains in a new report how the Navy’s Advanced SEAL Delivery System program got so messed up that the service had to cancel its orders last year in favor of an ASDS improvement program. GAO says the Navy paid $885 million over 13 years for the first and only ASDS which is so flawed that it’s only available for limited operational use, prompting Congress to ask for a detailed investigation.
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Navy Times – Sean Naylor reports that tribes that once resisted the coalition are now volunteering to become police???a potentially extremely positive development???a very interesting analysis of the current situation on ground in Iraq.
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Washington Times – The new commander of U.S. military forces in the Pacific and Asia says he found Chinese military leaders intensely interested in acquiring aircraft carriers during a recent visit to that country.
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Washington Post – The creation of the Defense Department Africa Command, with responsibilities to promote security and government stability in the region, has heightened concerns among African countries and in the U.S. government over the militarization of U.S. foreign policy.

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New York Times – Another look at the cyberwar between Estonia and Russia.
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Los Angeles Times – Niall Ferguson documents how the Soviet Union is being recreated.
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NOSI is taking a short break and will next update on Tuesday May 29. See you then!
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Economist – Defences against cyberwarfare are still rudimentary. That’s scary.
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PBS Frontline – A fascinating interview from 2003 to read with the man who coined the term cyber war, especially in light of this month’s events in Estonia.

I also recommend the fictional account he wrote in 1998 of the first cyber war???very insightful fiction:
Wired – The Great Cyberwar of 2002.
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Daily Telegraph – Families expelled from the Chagos Islands by Britain to make way for an American airbase won their legal battle to return home yesterday. The only island that they will not be able to resettle under original High Court orders allowing their return will be Diego Garcia, where the airbase is situated.
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Seattle Times – The USS Kitty Hawk, the U.S. Navy’s oldest ship in full active service, embarked on its last major deployment Wednesday before being decommissioned next year.
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Virginian Pilot – Several thousand sailors from the carrier Dwight D. Eisenhower and three smaller ships arrived in Norfolk Naval Station on Wednesday, weary from an extended, nearly eight-month deployment fighting wars and securing seas in the Middle East.
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Slate – An early lessons-learned article on the Russian-Estonia cyberwar.
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The Scotsman – The RAF’s Nimrods are worn out???
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New York Times – Russia wages the first country-on-country cyberwar, against Estonia.

Washington Post – Cyber Assaults on Estonia Typify a New Battle Tactic.
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Foreign Affairs – Global financial instability has sparked a surge in “monetary nationalism” — the idea that countries must make and control their own currencies. But globalization and monetary nationalism are a dangerous combination, a cause of financial crises and geopolitical tension. The world needs to abandon unwanted currencies, replacing them with dollars, euros, and multinational currencies as yet unborn.
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Aviation Week – A look at a new AESA radar for the P-3 Orion.
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Reuters – NATO is talking to oil and gas producing companies and countries about how it could help combat security threats to energy infrastructure???the likely measures would involve providing sea-borne rapid reaction forces to combat attacks on facilities, hostage taking and piracy in Africa, Asia and the Middle East.
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