The Daily Show – Jon Stewart interviews LTC John Nagl.more…
Monthly Archives:: August 2007
Intelligence – Virtual Earth image reveals Trident sub's secret propeller
Navy Times – This month, a photograph appeared on the Internet of the propeller on an Ohio-class ballistic missile submarine at Trident Submarine Base in Bangor. A key to the submarine’s ability to deploy and remain undetected, propeller designs have been kept under wraps for years, literally. When out of the water, the propellers typically [...]
US Navy – Carrier-based Herks?
Aviation Week – The Office of Naval Research has been funding designs for a Heavy Air Lift Seabasing Ship (HALSS) – a monster high-speed trimaran with hangars on its Nimitz-sized deck for six C-130J transports.more…
Geopolitics / Russia – The making of a neo-KGB state
The Economist – Political power in Russia now lies with the FSB, the KGB’s successormore…
Geopolitics – Dollar Diplomacy
New Yorker – Niall Ferguson reviews how much did the Marshall Plan really matter?more…
Ground Warfare – Challenging the Generals
New York Times Magazine – Americaís junior officers are fighting the war on the ground in Iraq, and the experience is making a number of them lose faith in their superiors.more…
Geopolitics / Defense Budgets – The Long Haul: Fighting and Funding America's Next Wars
Foreign Affairs – Two new books discuss how Washington should fight the wars of tomorrow — and pay for them. But to balance the conflicting demands of strategy and finance, the next president ought to take a page from Eisenhower’s playbook.more…
Information Warfare – Web War I: How Europe's Most Wired Country Beat the Botnets
Wired – An excellent indepth look at the cyberwar waged against Estonia this spring.more…
US Coast Guard – Five tons of cocaine found on submarine
Daily Telegraph – A submarine-like vessel carrying an estimated five metric tons of cocaine worth over 350 million dollars has been intercepted by US border patrol agents off the Guatemalan coast.more…
Russian Navy – NATO steps up monitoring of Russia
Daily Telegraph – Nato vessels are closely monitoring the sea trials of Russia’s latest submarine, following Moscow’s increasingly provocative tests of Western airspace.more…
Geopolitics / Religion – The Politics of God
New York Times Magazine – After centuries of strife, the West has learned to separate religion and politics – to establish the legitimacy of its leaders without referring to divine command. There is little reason to expect that the rest of the world – the Islamic world in particular – will follow.more…
Fourth Generation Warfare – The Coming Urban Terror
City Journal – John Robb nicely summarizes his work on Global Guerrilas in this essay where he notes that for the first time in history, a majority of the worldís population is living in urban environments. Cities – efficient hubs connecting international flows of people, energy, communications, and capital – are thriving in our global [...]
Wargaming – Virtual Worlds: The Future of Military Training
Virtual Worlds News – A look at the future of military training – the use of virtual worlds as “first person thinkers” for training.more…
Chinese Navy – Chinese navy starts long march
UPI – China is bent on the simultaneous development of both an aircraft carrier and a strategic nuclear submarine, or SSBN. Discussions over which should take priority are over, as a higher military budget allocation has accelerated the Peopleís Liberation Army navyís ambitious plan. more…
Geopolitics / Soviet Union – Seeing Red: Why Communism Really Failed
Foreign Affairs – Robert Service’s Comrades! tells the story of world communism — but leaves the reader still hungry for explanations of why the movement lasted so long and what, if anything, it accomplished.more…
Russian Navy – Russia restarts Cold War patrols
BBC – Russia is resuming a Soviet-era practice of sending its bomber aircraft on long-range flights, President Vladimir Putin has said.more…
Intelligence – Overhauling Intelligence
Foreign Affairs – Sixty years ago, the National Security Act created a U.S. intelligence infrastructure that would help win the Cold War. But on 9/11, the need to reform that system became painfully clear. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence is now spearheading efforts to enable the intelligence community to better shield the [...]
Information Warfare – Arab Media and the Battle for Ideas
First Monday – David Ronfeldt and John Arquilla, authors of Netwar, write: As the information age deepens, a globe-circling realm of the mind is being created – the ìnoosphereî that Pierre Teilhard de Chardin identified 80 years ago. This will increasingly affect the nature of grand strategy and diplomacy. Traditional realpolitik, which ultimately relies on [...]
Royal Navy – HMS Daring eases through first sea trials
Daily Telegraph – A new warship that can defend the entire city of London from missile and aircraft attack has completed its first Royal Navy sea trial.more…
Geopolitics – Entente Infernale: How 300 Years of Anglo-French Rivalry Shaped the World
Foreign Affairs – Robert and Isabelle Tombs’ superb chronicle of 300 years of Anglo-French rivalry reveals how the love-hate relationship between France and the United Kingdom has left an indelible mark on today’s world.more…
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