BBC – Two Russian mini-subs have made a test dive to the floor of the Arctic Ocean near Russia’s most northerly islands.
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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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Washington Times – Arnaud de Borchgrave writes an interesting assessment of the state-of-the-art in open source intelligence.
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Daily Telegraph – The long awaited main gate approval for the UK’s new aircraft carriers was announced this afternoon in London.

Aviation Week – UK Carriers – Now The Work Starts
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BBC – A US court has ordered Sudan to pay $8m (£4m) to the families of 17 sailors who died in a suicide bomb attack on the USS Cole warship in Yemen in 2000.
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Esquire – A few years ago, with little fanfare, the United States opened a base in the horn of Africa to kill or capture Al Qaeda fighters. By 2012, the Pentagon will have two dozen such forts. The story of Africa Command, the American military’s new frontier outpost, by Thomas P.M. Barnett.
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Washington Post – The Pentagon is wargaming possible US exit strategies from Iraq.
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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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Washington Post – Thomas Ricks asks if General Petraeus is being set up by the Bush administration as a scapegoat if conditions in Iraq fail to improve.
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Daily Telegraph – Sir Alastair Horne insightfully compares the war in Iraq to the war in Algeria.
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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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Associated Press – The federal government wants to extend by five years its rules allowing the Navy to use a new low-frequency sonar, despite objections from environmentalists that the technology may harm whales and dolphins.
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Associated Press – Canada announced plans Monday to increase its Arctic military presence in an effort to assert sovereignty over the Northwest Passage – a potentially oil-rich region the United States says is international territory.
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Associated Press – Stung by cost overruns, the U.S. Navy is looking to return to a past when it controlled the shipbuilding process from beginning to end.
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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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New Yorker – The difficulties and dangers of the poppy eradication program in Afghanistan.
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Virginian Pilot – The aircraft carrier Enterprise and its strike group will begin departing Saturday for a scheduled six-month deployment.
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PBS Frontline – What went wrong, and why, in America’s tragically failed effort to find a strategy for success in Iraq.

Read the transcript and the excellent set of insightful interviews.
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Virginian Pilot – Ditching the nuclear fleet is a complex, budget-draining process. The Navy began planning the program in the 1970s. A vessel is defueled, then its reactor is removed. The core is taken to a nuclear reservation, where it is buried.
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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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