HG S2 (Intel Bot)

Our friends at the Congressional Budget Office have done it again. Their analysis of the Navy's shipbuilding plan came out this week. You can get your copy here, or read at the bottom of the post. You need to read it all, there is a lot here - but here is what I found the most interesting at second reading. They lay it all out in the summary; we have garbage in and garbage out. Once you read the cold, hard, facts given by the CBO and then look at DoN's numbers, it almost seems like the two organizations are living in parallel universes. We'll get to the numbers in a bit - but one thing that kept coming to mind as CBO sliced off each of its thousand cuts was that the Navy continues to be undermined by the intellectual cancer of happy-talk and best-case COAs/CONOPS, leavened by the intellectual terrarium that is the Beltway. As a result, we prevent ourselves from even starting an informed discussion by intentionally injecting inaccurate, ahistorical, and deeply flawed assumptions in to our entering arguments. We do this over and over, yet wonder why we have so little credibility. Over promise and under deliver is no way to run a business. Anyway .... let's go! The latest plan—submitted to the Congress in late March 2012 and covering fiscal years 2013 to 2042—contains some significant changes in the Navy’s long-term goals for shipbuilding. In particular, the Navy’s latest plan would: - Reduce the goal for the inventory of ships, - Reduce the number of ships to be purchased, and - Alter the composition of ships to be purchased, buying fewer less-expensive support ships and more high-end combat ships. The total costs of carrying out the 2013 plan—an average of about $22 billion per year in 2012 dollars over the next 30 years—would be much higher than the funding amounts that the Navy has received in recent years and higher than the costs for the 2012 plan, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates. Out of the block, CBO puts USN on report; "Your numbers are bogus." Remember since the end of last decade the discussions we've had about the funky numbers? Well it hasn't gotten any better and in may ways if drifting further from reality. The Navy assumes that most of its destroyers will serve for 40 years. In the past, the Navy’s large surface combatants have typically served for 30 years or less. If the destroyers serve for only 35 or 30 years, the shortfall in large surface combatants could be more than twice as large as projected under the Navy’s plan, unless more ships were purchased. ... The assumptions about the service life of large surface combatants remain the same under the 2013 plan. The 2012 plan assumed that all Arleigh Burke class destroyers commissioned after 2000 would have a service life of 40 years; earlier versions of the ship would remain in the fleet for 35 years. ... The Navy assumed it would keep its LHD class amphibious assault ships for 43 to 45 years (up from 40 years under the 2012 plan). Have we shown any success in either INSURV or OPTEMPO that leads us to believe that we will be able to make these ships last that long in an economic manner? No. So ... Speaking of ignoring present facts and creating your own, CBO accounted for the fact that costs of labor and materials have traditionally grown faster in the shipbuilding industry than in the economy as a whole, whereas the Navy does not appear to have done so; that factor produces a widening gap between the estimates over time. ... If the Navy receives the same amount of funding for new-ship construction in each of the next 30 years as it has on average over the past three decades—$14.3 billion annually—it will not be able to afford all of the purchases in the 2013 plan. Given the budgetary crisis that is only starting, does anyone here think that the USN will be able to keep shipbuilding at steady-state? Ask the Royal Navy. Looking for Fords out in the parking lot? The number of support ships was lowered from 45 to approximately 33. Specifically, the planned number of joint high-speed vessels (JHSVs)—small, fast ferries for transporting small numbers of personnel or equipment within a theater of operations was reduced from 21 to 10 ships. ... Altogether, the Navy would buy almost the same number of ships over 30 years under the 2013 plan as it would have bought under the previous plan.11 However, the composition of ship purchases—particularly the mix of combat ships and logistics and support vessels—is quite different under the 2012 and 2013 plans. No. Ferraris it will be then. Wait ... there is a little goodness here we should smile about. I wish it were earlier, but take what you can get. Unlike the Navy’s 2012 plan, the 2013 plan also included the purchase of replacements for its 2 command ships in the early 2030s. Those ships are scheduled to retire in 2039. Whoever made that happen, send me an email - I owe you a beer. Back to the green eye-shade: The full annual cost of the 2013 shipbuilding plan, in CBO’s estimation, would average $21.9 billion over the 2013–2042 period—about 17 percent more than the Navy’s estimate of $18.8 billion and about 37 percent more than the average funding the Navy has received in the past three decades. With this budgetary head wind, really? Like your humble blogg'r, CBO likes to repeat the very important items. NB: In addition to the ship purchases, a critical element of the Navy’s plan to achieve its projected inventory levels is the assumption that all DDG-51 Flight IIA and subsequent destroyers would serve in the fleet for 40 years. The class was originally designed to serve for 30 years, but the Navy has subsequently increased the planned service life first to 35 years and then, for Flight IIA ships and beyond, to 40 years in the 2009 shipbuilding plan. Historically, 12 of the last 13 classes of destroyers and cruisers were retired after having served 30 years or less, and many ships (including, in recent years, Spruance class destroyers and some Ticonderoga class cruisers) have been retired after 25 years of service or less (the only exception was the CGN-9 Long Beach, a class of one). The Navy retired those ships because they reached the end of their service life, because they became too expensive to maintain in the waning years of their service life, or because improving their combat capabilities to meet existing threats was not cost- effective.20 If the DDG-51 class met the same fate, the shortfall in meeting the Navy’s inventory goal for destroyers and cruisers would grow substantially (see Figure 7, which illustrates the effect on the force level for large surface combatants if the service life of those ships is only 35 or 30 years and the Navy does not increase the number of such ships it plans to purchase). I'm sorry - but all this does is set up future leaders for failure in order to make your own PCS cycle easier. Ungh. Is that what you worked so hard to be promoted for? Really? Of course - no post like this would be complete with out the required Salamander swipe at the Little Crappy Ship. CBO estimates the average per-ship cost of the 43 LCSs in the plan at about $500 million. Of course, that does not count all the Mission Module and logistic/enabling etc in order to make it actually anything more than a helo pad with a 57mm and smaller caliber weapons. The Navy would also buy 27 next-generation littoral combat ships—called LCS(X)s— beginning in 2030. Hey - I have an idea; let's call them "frigates." Oh, we don't need frigates, right? Really ... then why is LCS defined on page 29 as, More routinely, they will also patrol sea lanes, provide an overseas presence, and conduct exercises with allies. Ummm .... that's a frigate. Words are nice, but I really like the graphs and numbers starting on page 31. As I like to toot my own horn more than anything else and to beat home my cute little catch phrases - you know our "Terrible 20s" that I keep bringing up? Well- here it is in a picture. No further discussion needed on my part. Somethings got to give - and will have to give. Pick your poison. At the beginning of the post I made a comment about over-promising and under-performing. This is how CBO puts it. An important factor affecting the Navy’s and the Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO’s) estimates is assumptions about future increases in the cost of building naval ships. The Department of Defense (DoD) has an overall estimate of future inflation (known as an inflator) that it uses to project increases in the costs of its procurement programs. However, according to the Navy, DoD’s inflator is lower than the actual inflation that occurred in the naval shipbuilding industry in the past decade. Again - you need a picture. I, ahem, know the Navy sends officers off to get their PhD in Economics - aren't we getting their input on our planning? On the team? I hope? Maybe they were told to shut up and color or their slides went in to backup? Harumph. Well - on the official Navy blog at least we are firing back at the CBO. About as accurate as Admiral Nebogatov's 3rd Division at the Battle of Tsushima - but firing we are; Based on a report issued by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) , there has been media reporting and discussion about the cost estimating methodology used by the Navy to forecast over the 30-year shipbuilding plan. The Navy’s 30-year plan assesses DoN investments in battle force ships in three 10-year periods , called near, mid, and far-term. The near-term 10-year period (FY13-FY22) comprises the FY13-FY17 Future Years Defense Program (FYDP) and the next FYDP. The mid-term planning period covers the two FYDPs between FY23-FY32, and the far-term planning period covers the two FYDPs between FY33-FY42. Confidence in cost estimates over these time periods inevitably declines over time. Unsurprisingly, then, the difference in Navy and CBO forecasts for new ship construction increases over time. Depending on the costs being considered, CBO’s numbers are 9-11 percent higher in the near-term planning period, 11-13 percent higher in the mid-term planning period, and 30-33 percent in the far-term. The Navy’s confidence in our cost estimates in the FYDP (i.e, the current budget window) is extremely high. Yes, as high as our "all children are above average" self-esteem, I am sure. I just wish the response was as fact based as the CBOs. Too much feeling, hoping, believing, and not enough knowing. Sigh. That is what I got out of it. Over to you! View the full article

For the Little Crappy Ship and its sub-optimal construct; it's the easiest thing to do. We've been discussing Chris Cavas's articles on LCS for well over a half decade - and his latest work outlines in painful detail what critics have been warning about from the start. More from the Perez report is so Salamanderesque that I swear their team has been hanging out on the front porch. As we said in the middle of last decade, once hulls displace water in number; our reality will trump your PPT. The limited ability of the LCS crew to perform onboard maintenance, and the need to return to port for even basic repairs, “negatively impacts†the ships’ availability to operational commanders, according to sources familiar with the classified report. Further, the contractor teams handling maintenance duties are not performing up to snuff or being held accountable for their work. Many contractors are doing the work twice — the second time to correct problems with their initial work — avoiding penalties and billing the Navy twice for the jobs. According to some LCS crews, the reliance on contractors actually results in more work for the crew, which is too small to supervise the contractors. Navy sailors often have to fix the problems after the contractors have left. Extensive contractor services also are required to maintain spare parts inventories for the ships, since each of the two ship designs features a number of non-standard systems and the vessels are too small to carry many spares. Ships will be based on either the Lockheed Martin Freedom-class design or Austal USA’s Independence class. ... while LCS crews are functioning at the current 40-sailor level, safety and readiness are being harmed as a result. Crews tend to be exhausted after only three days of normal operations and soon begin to perform poorly. Navy studies show that the effects of several days of low-tempo LCS operations equate to high-tempo operations for a cruiser crew. Even when in port, LCS duty sections are limited to three sections, meaning fewer days off and less time off the ship, and underway watches rarely exceed two or three sections — at a time when increased automation on ships with larger crews is seeing increases in many cases to five or six sections. The manning margins are so thin on an LCS that crew members who need to be off the ship for training, briefings or any other reason may find the request denied if they can’t be even temporarily replaced. If a sailor holding one of 21 critical positions on the ship isn’t available, the ship might not be able to get underway, since there might not be another crew member with the required qualifications. View the full article

Christopher Carlson has produced a very good analysis on the ASCM hit on the INS Hanit. You can get the whole thing here. The Executive Summary: If missiles have your puzzl'r puzzl'n - then make sure and listen to yesterday's Midrats if you have not already. View the full article

Packed away in one of my boxes is a speech I outlined back in 2004. It was concerning a concept, a word, that with the last few generations we seem to have forgotten about.This forgetfulness manifests itself in different ways and in different degrees throughout history’s path. This isn't the first time - but in our living memory it is acute.It was on a word that is both a concept and a worldview; stewardship. I can’t find my outlined speech, but I was reminded of it Friday when I read this line from David Brooks article, Why Our Elites Stink: … today’s elite lacks the self-conscious leadership ethos that the … old boys’ network did possess. If you went to Groton a century ago, you knew you were privileged. You were taught how morally precarious privilege was and how much responsibility it entailed. You were housed in a spartan 6-foot-by-9-foot cubicle to prepare you for the rigors of leadership. The best of the WASP elites had a stewardship mentality, that they were temporary caretakers of institutions that would span generations. … they … believe(d) in restraint, reticence and service. Today’s elite is more talented and open but lacks a self-conscious leadership code. The language of meritocracy (how to succeed) has eclipsed the language of morality (how to be virtuous). Stewardship in question is defined as; stew·ard·ship noun ˈstü-É™rd-ËŒship, ˈstyü-; ˈst(y)u̇rd- ... 2: the conducting, supervising, or managing of something; especially : the careful and responsible management of something entrusted to one's care Stewardship in practice is something more, something deeper. Stewardship is more often than not a hidden thing, an undercurrent.A person or an organization who practices good stewardship often does so without being noticed by those looking for the "flash" for the squirrel that is all so interesting. Stewardship isn’t flashy, it isn’t zippy, it isn’t apparent – it just is. Good stewardship is, “what it should be.†One does not see it, as it is expected.Many failings we see, from painting over rust, to selecting the best case scenario to plan from, to having a command climate that only allows concurrence – all derive from a desire to have the appearance of stewardship, but to not suffer the effort of actually practicing it. It is easier to paint than to do preservation. It is easier to ignore risk than to mitigate it. It is easier to say “yes†and let someone else’s PCS cycle clean up, than say “no†and work towards a better solution for others to enjoy.That is the difference between being inwardly focused towards self, vice outwardly focused towards the institution. It is the difference between a love of the narcissism of now, vice the respect of the legacy of stewardship.Where is our focus, and what is the focus of our Commands? Do we have the personnel, funds, and time to properly take care of our equipment – or do we simply slap some paint on it? Are all the spaces well taken care of – or only those that will be seen immediately? Do we have our ships in the best condition for the stage of the cycle they are in, or do we have “Tiger Teams†that rush to get things INSURV ready? Are we in an organization that never wants to CASREP an important item, or one that CASREPS now to make sure those in the future are ready? “Now†doesn’t, as that might imply up the chain of command something negative. “Stewardship†does as they know that it is the future that matters, not the now.Here and at Midrats, we’ve discussed the General Board and the successful programs of the past. Is a General Board part of a culture of stewardship? Would a new General Board be the answer to the system that brought us the parade of program horrors of the last decade? Perhaps, it all depends though on who is on the board, what their charter is, and what the focus is of the individuals and the board.Regardless if we have a new General Board or the system we have now, it isn’t the name that is so important, but the mindset of the individuals who make it up. If we have people who are directly or indirectly ear-deep in the food-trough, we will have no improvement. If we have people who continue to promote the plague of buzzwords, repackaged concepts, and a historically ignorant transformationalist mentality, we will have no improvement.The intellectual adhesions we have accrued over the last few decades must be broken. Just taking the next group off the established conveyor belt that gave us everything else will not get different results.Let’s get back to Brook’s article. Where is the sense of an ethos of stewardship in some of our decisions? In the 1990s – was a culture of stewardship responsible for the half-baked JFK yard period? Was it stewardship that in both name and concept ignored decades of history in the development of LCS? Was it stewardship that allowed LPD-17 & DDG-1000 cost to saddle future budgets?What was it then that brought these and others? What is the underlying intellectual basis of our decision making processes? Are our leaders focused on building a legacy for themselves, or for those who follow?William F. Buckley had a phrase, “I'd rather entrust the government of the United States to the first 400 people listed in the Boston telephone directory than to the faculty of Harvard University.†He knew his "elites." What about our elites?What results, priorities, and D&G would you get by pulling the first 40 officers coming through the gate a Norfolk? Would their decisions have been any better or worse than those of the last decade and a half?Why? View the full article

Nice. No sketchy sound track. Just Sailors and their ships.Me? I like it because it reminds me of one of the best views in my Navy career - early AM when an UDALOY and a RAPUSHKA came out of the fog off Portugal en route to the STROG.This is the ADMIRAL CHABANENKO of Udaloy II class. The Russians do make attractive ships. View the full article

We've covered the Battle of Tsushima before - but who can say no to this quality cut from the NHK mini-series? If nothing else we can once again see that no one has a better war face than the Japanese. BTW - the Japanese flagship is still out there. Now if we can only save the USS OLYMPIA .... Hat tip CB. View the full article

http://www.navyhistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Hendrix-Roosevelt-195x300.jpgBy Henry J. Hendrix, Naval Institute Press (Annapolis, MD), 2009. Reviewed by Thomas P. Ostrom Captain Henry J. Hendrix, USN brings an impressive background of naval professionalism and scholarly credentials to the task of writing this history of President Theodore Roosevelt (TR) and the 14-month global cruise of the Great White Fleet of U.S. battleships named after U.S. states, and assorted auxiliary vessels in 1907-1909. The author, a 20-year veteran at the time of his book’s publication, performed six overseas deployments, studied at the Naval Postgraduate School, and earned a Ph.D. from King’s College in Britain. Captain Hendrix is the recipient of several literary awards, has written a number of articles for prestigious journals, has served as a policy adviser in the Defense Department, and is currently the Director of the Naval History and Heritage Command (read our earlier interview with Captain Hendrix). Hendrix traced TR’s formative background from sickly child to rancher, boxer, New York City police commissioner, state legislator, governor, Republican progressive reformer, distinguished historian and author, Assistant Secretary of the Navy, and role as a U.S. Army officer in Cuban combat in the Spanish-American War (1898), from and after which the U.S. acquired colonial possessions that included the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Guantanamo naval base in Cuba. The U.S. president (1901-1909) made a post-presidential Third (Progressive/ Bull Moose) Party run during which he survived an assassination attempt. TR was a hunter, explorer, conservationist, and builder of the Panama Canal. Hendrix explained TR’s expressed need to control the Western Hemisphere via the Monroe Doctrine and his interpretation of it, and commitment to a strong U.S. Navy to deter Japan by exhibiting U.S. geostrategic power, naval bases, and coaling stations. Hence the motive behind TR’s ordering the Great White Fleet of the U.S. Navy to circumnavigate the globe and visit foreign ports. President Roosevelt was sensitive to Japanese pride and interests, and the discrimination Japanese suffered in America. Yet he was also conscious of Japanese Pacific objectives, and wanted the Great White Fleet to send a message. Hendrix gives kudos to TR for negotiating the Treaty of Portsmouth (at the New Hampshire naval base) between tsarist Russia and Japan after the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905). Roosevelt ironically received the Nobel Peace Prize for his diplomatic achievements, and the animosity of a victorious Japan whose officials concluded TR’s “peace” deprived them of more extensive territorial spoils. After the successful White Fleet voyage, the former U.S. Navy secretary decreed that the white navy warships (that were cooler in tropical temperatures) be painted a more concealing gray. The U.S. Coast Guard (then the Revenue Cutter Service) kept its vessels white, until World War II, Vietnam, and Persian Gulf combat convinced that sea service to go navy camouflage in wartime. As Captain Hendrix points out, Roosevelt’s award winning naval history, The War of 1812 against Britain, won praise, and the reciprocal influence and support of famed U.S. Navy leaders, Captain (later Rear Adm.) George Alfred Thayer Mahan, and Spanish-American War hero, Adm. George Dewey. The then retired naval commanders advised President Roosevelt on logistics and operational strategies for the White Fleet voyage. The Great White Fleet was accorded hospitality at a plethora of ports in the U.S., Latin America, Asia (including Japan), the Mediterranean, and Atlantic Europe. The power and technology of the well-armed, steam-powered, coal-burning fleet convinced the Japanese, as did Adm. Matthew Perry’s 1850’s visits to Nippon, that it must expand its naval assets to counter European and American Asiatic imperialism. The author described the White Fleet’s welcome in 20 world ports, docking for supplies and fuel (coal), gunnery and mine-laying drills conducted en-route, crew and officer skills in heavy seas and typhoons, and communications methods (semaphore flag signals; wireless telegraphy). Fourteen thousand sailors and U.S. Marines constituted the crew complement. The U.S. Marines were a backup force,Hendrix revealed, in case TR’s intervention in Panama (to build the Panama Canal across the isthmus) caused Columbian military action. The author used his naval expertise to compare and contrast the coercive, humanitarian, and nation-building paradigms of TR’s 20th century U.S. Navy, and the requirements and missions of today’s Navy with missiles, aircraft carriers, submarines, and advanced technology in the age of international terrorism. Captain Hendrix has written a magnificent U.S. naval history that includes a detailed bibliography, photographs, notes, and index. But, given the complex geopolitical and diplomatic elements explained in this compelling history, the reader would benefit from the inclusion of maps to illustrate the historical geography of the voyage. Thomas P. Ostrom is the author of three books on U.S. Coast Guard history, including “The United States Coast Guard and National Defense: A History from World War I to the Present.” http://www.navyhistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/buy1._V192207739_1.gif The post Blog first appeared on Naval Historical Foundation. View the full article

Standard launching announcement; Minister for Defence Stephen Smith and Minister for Defence Materiel Jason Clare today announced the launch of the second Landing Helicopter Dock (LHD) at the Navantia shipyard in Spain. The launch represented a major milestone in the shipbuilding process and was attended by the Chief of Navy, Vice Admiral Ray Griggs. Australia is acquiring two amphibious ships for the Australian Defence Force (ADF). The LHDs are the largest ships ever built for the Royal Australian Navy and will provide the ADF with one of the most capable and sophisticated amphibious deployment systems in the world. The Canberra Class LHDs are bigger than Australia’s last aircraft carrier HMAS Melbourne (II). When completed they will be more than 230 metres long, 27.5 metres high and weigh around 27,500 tonnes. Each ship can carry a combined armed battlegroup of more than 1100 personnel, 100 armoured vehicles and 12 helicopters and features a 40-bed hospital. Based on the Spanish JUAN CARLOS I - its an ugly ship; but great capability for our Australian friends.Thing is - I that picture raises a couple of questions I can't get answers to:1. Why is there a German flag on the bow next to the Australian flag?2. What in the name of all that is hydrodynamically sound are those things surrounded the bulbous bow? This will be interesting to watch over the next few years. Both of these ships have ski jumps ... but the RAN says they have no intention to have fixed wing aircraft .... OK .... UPDATE: Via NAVSSER in comments, the video answers all questions. Oh, BTW - Chaplain, put down the video camera, ok? View the full article

http://www.navyhistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/DSC_6693-300x200.jpgADM James Holloway, USN (Ret) tells the story of Operation Lion’s Den The Naval Historical Foundation 2012 Annual Meeting was held on Saturday, 23 June, and featured the debut of a brand new exhibit for the Cold War Gallery. Admiral James Holloway, USN (Ret), christened the new exhibit with a riveting firsthand account of the 1972 battle in Haiphong Harbor that is memorialized in the new “Into the Lion’s Den” exhibit. The meeting began with the vote for a new President, RADM John T. Mitchell, USN (Ret). RADM Mitchell succeeds VADM Robert Dunn, USN (Ret), who served in the position for 14 years and will continue on as a member of the Board of Directors. Upon the conclusion of the elections, a brief update was given to the members and friends assembled in the Cold War Gallery. The remarks were facilitated by NHF Chairman ADM Bruce DeMars, USN (Ret). Topics covered included the transition of leadership from VADM Dunn to RADM Mitchell; finance, membership, and audit updates; and a briefing on NHF educational initiatives such as the STEM-H Teacher Fellowship Program, Mission Ocean, and the Exploration Command Console. NHF recognized two Volunteers of the Year, Captain Roger Jones, USN (Ret), and Charles Bogart, both of whom have been key contributors to our Naval History Books Reviews e-letter. VADM Dunn also had the opportunity to share his farewell remarks to the crowd. At the conclusion of the annual meeting, the foundation members and visitors moved to the South Gallery for the formal ribbon cutting of the “Into the Lion’s Den” exhibit. This display tells the story of four U.S. Navy warships steaming into Haiphong Harbor in 1972 to shell North Vietnamese shore positions. They came under attack by enemy shore batteries, as well as Russian built North Vietnamese PT boats. With the help of two A-7 Corsair II Navy jets, the PT boats were destroyed, and the four ships exited the harbor safely after completing their mission. Admiral Holloway was on board the cruiser USS Newport News as Commander Seventh Fleet, and personally called in the air support that helped ensure their safe departure. At the NHF meeting, a crowd gathered around the exhibit, and Admiral Holloway shared the exciting story of the battle. Following his remarks, he cut the ribbon on the new exhibit. When the “Start” button on the exhibit was pushed for the first time, the deck of the exhibit began to shake and rattle from simulated naval gunfire, while the portholes of the simulated cruiser bridge lit up with flashes of the 8″ and 5″ guns. The audio portion of the exhibit featured recorded audio from the 1972 battle, as well as newly recorded clips from Admiral Holloway himself. Following the ribbon cutting, NHF members, staff, leadership, and representatives from the U.S. Navy Museum gathered for a buffet lunch. Included in the crowd were other veterans of Operation Lion’s Den. We hope to share some of their experiences in the coming weeks. Many thanks go out to the donors and friends who brought this exhibit to life! http://www.navyhistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/DSC_6611-1024x689.jpgInto the Lion’s Den Exhibit ready for the ribbon cutting ceremony http://www.navyhistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/DSC_6649-1024x685.jpgAssembled crowd listens to remarks by NHF Chairman ADM Bruce DeMars, USN (Ret) http://www.navyhistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/DSC_8433-1024x680.jpgADM James Holloway, USN (Ret) cuts the ribbon for the Into the Lion’s Den exhibit. Standing behind (L to R): Navy Museum Director Jim Bruns; RADM Tom Rowden, Director, Surface Warfare Division (OPNAV N96); ADM Bruce DeMars, USN (Ret); VADM Robert Dunn, USN (Ret); and Naval History and Heritage Command Director CAPT Jerry Hendrix. (US Navy Photo MC1 Rubin) At the conclusion of the annual meeting, the foundation members and visitors moved to the South Gallery for the formal ribbon cutting of the new “Into the Lion’s Den” exhibit. The post Blog first appeared on Naval Historical Foundation. View the full article

As outlined first and foremost by B.G. Burkett's book, Stolen Valor - we all know that the fakes and poseurs out there are not just harmless braggarts. They are harmful frauds that smear those who actually served, and through their false statements, absorb funds and benefits from those who deserve them.The Supreme Court - being without benefit of having served - just doesn't get it. They killed the Stolen Valor Act and there is nothing more to be done.What we can do is continue to do what we have done for years and the internet makes possible. Find the poseurs and publicly shame them. Partner with local news organizations to get the word out. If we no longer have the law - at least we will have fear and shame.I wonder what they would think if a bunch of people went around claiming to be a Judge? View the full article

One of the few fiction books on nuclear war I recommend is "Alas Babylon." Well worth a read even today, and an excellent addition to a survival library. It came to mind when catching up on news today. The war in that book began with an incident involving a military plane at Latakia. Some of the comments from the Turkish government could be quotes from the book... LW View the full article

Dr. Andrew S. Erickson is an Associate Professor in the Strategic Research Department at the U.S. Naval War College and a core founding member of the department’s China Maritime Studies Institute (CMSI). Are China’s Near Seas “Anti-Navy†capabilities aimed directly at the United States? Yes, but it’s more complicated than that. In the military realm, Washington and Beijing face a situation that is complex both in concept and in policy implications. In contrast to its mostly-settled land borders , China’s island and maritime zone claims in the “Near Seas†remain mostly unresolved. To further its still-contested claims in these “Three Seas†(the Yellow, East China, and South China Seas), China is developing increasingly-sophisticated capabilities to hold at risk forces of the U.S. and its allies and friends in that region and its immediate approaches. While some of these anti-access/area denial (A2/AD)—or, from Beijing’s perspective, “counter-interventionâ€â€”capabilities are naval in nature, land-based missiles controlled by the Second Artillery Force and land-based aircraft constitute many of the most potent and potentially effective ones. Thus, merely comparing the two nations’ navies as a whole, whatever allowances are made for the fact that the globally-distributed and -tasked U.S. Navy could not divert the majority of its platforms to the Near Seas even in wartime, fails to capture the true extent of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA)’s emerging challenge to the U.S. Navy. For this reason, some U.S. government analysts refer to China’s A2/AD forces as an “Anti-Navy .†Chinese policymakers by no means desire war with the U.S., which would be ruinous to both sides, as well as to the region more generally; and would completely derail China’s domestic development, which remains a priority of China’s leadership second only to the survival of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in power. Rather, their goal is to deter U.S. forces from intervening in regional disputes in which Beijing is involved in the first place. For instance, the cross-Strait military balance has shifted dramatically over the past decade. While the U.S. military retains great capabilities vis-à-vis mainland China, Taiwan has no major areas of superiority left with which to resist coercion—save for the substantial natural defenses that have been conferred on it by geography and which could be enhanced significantly should Taipei pursue a “Porcupine Strategy †more robustly. Likewise, in all major bilateral scenarios, China enjoys substantial military advantages over each of its neighbors in the South China Sea. Moreover, Chinese policymakers believe that their nation has far stronger, more enduring interests in the Near Seas than does the U.S. So it’s readily apparent why Chinese military planners view developing credible capacity to deter American military intervention as essential to realizing their major strategic objectives, and are optimistic about their long-term prospects in this regard. Despite these undeniable challenges, however, the U.S. retains significant advantages that are likely to persist in many respects, even as the world changes significantly in coming years. Moreover, beyond the Near Seas, Sino-American strategic dynamics are very different. With no claims to inflame Chinese sensitivities, and with sea lanes on which both nations rely for their economic lifeblood but which are threatened by non-state actors such as Somali pirates, the “Far Seas†of the Indian Ocean and beyond offer a zone of potential cooperation for the U.S., China, and a host of other nations that can play a constructive role in sustaining and defending the global system. Global Context Near Seas dynamics are important, then, but must be viewed in larger perspective. Several pronounced trends are shaping a world in which the U.S. is moving beyond its “unipolar moment,†yet appears poised to remain the world’s sole superpower for years to come. First, the world is witnessing the rapid ascension of several developing regional powers—namely China, India, and Brazil—of potentially pivotal importance geostrategically and economically, particularly because of their strategic locations, vibrant populations, productive societies, and governmental ambitions. Second, diffusion of knowledge and the education of talented individuals are dispersing technological development around an increasingly “flat†(interconnected) world. For a long time to come, the U.S. will remain the only nation capable of operating militarily in the vast majority of the global commons, thanks to continued superiority in long-range precision strike, power projection, and non-military operations support capabilities. But the rise of irregular tactics and cyber warfare may prove increasingly difficult to address decisively. Third, the world is entering an unprecedented, likely irreversible, demographic transformation. Henceforth, the developing world will produce the majority of population growth, thereby increasing its influence; but within the developed world, the U.S. will experience similarly disproportionate growth. The result is that some of the societies with which the U.S. shares the most common values and closest alliances are aging to the point that their populations are likely to suffer from constrained economic growth and reduced willingness to expend resources for military purposes. Fourth, a vast global middle class is emerging that desires “Western†living standards. Coupled with overall population growth, stressing the global environment, and in particular on water, energy, food, commodities, and other strategic resources. Fifth, the interconnected nature of the post-Cold-War twenty-first-century world, while yielding unprecedented prosperity and life possibilities, has also unleashed unprecedented potential for their disruption. Finally, while non-state and transnational factors may provide potent rationale for states to cooperate, differences in national interest may complicate matters even here. Furthermore, there is a potential collective action problem as more great powers and regional powers active in international organizations mean more difficulty in reaching consensus, and more vetoes over potential courses of collective action. At the same time, the rise of so many developing powers with low per capita resources means that they are likely to want increased status and influence, yet be reluctant to commit major resources to global public goods provision. These factors suggest that the role of the U.S. as the world’s preeminent provider of public goods, e.g., securing the global commons, is likely to remain indispensable for the foreseeable future. However, providing security for the global commons must be a multilateral effort to ensure maximum success. Asia-Pacific: Key Region As the world’s most economically dynamic region, its greatest source of climate-changing pollution, and the one most militarily dynamic—the most at risk for high-intensity conflict as well as perhaps the most vulnerable to non-traditional security threats—the Asia-Pacific is the most critical area for Washington to understand the aforementioned trends and act accordingly. The world is witnessing an unprecedented transfer of wealth and influence from West to East. The Asia-Pacific is emerging not only as the twenty-first century’s most critical arena of world affairs, but also as a bellwether and microcosm of key trends that are already beginning to define the emerging international system. China: Center of a Rising Asia China in particular is enjoying remarkable growth that is funding robust civil and military development, and greatly increasing its diplomatic and environmental influence. To understand key world energy and resource trends over the next two decades, one must look to Asia—particularly China. China’s tremendous appetite for natural resources in particular will remain a key influence behind economic and security policies in the East Asian region and abroad. Possessing the world’s largest foreign exchange reserves, a formidable yet opaque sovereign wealth fund, and recent investment overseas further enhance Beijing’s leverage. China’s rise offers many positive opportunities for all Asia-Pacific nations, including the U.S. China shares national interests in development, trade, and security from sub-state and transnational threats with nations throughout the region and around the globe. Unfortunately, however, it also poses increasing challenges to other nations’ interests and key elements of the existing order. A fundamental question, then, is how China envisions the future role of the U.S. in the Asia-Pacific. The coincidence of America’s rise on the world stage with China’s more than a century of withdrawal from it means that China and the U.S. have never been powerful simultaneously. This unprecedented situation will require considerable adjustment in thinking on all sides, and here again the Asia-Pacific region is bearing witness to the evolution of key trends well before they characterize the world as a whole. While it has been noticeably flexible and positive in other areas, with respect to its present territorial and maritime claims, China is unyielding. Aided by the fact that the U.S. Senate has yet to ratify the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), Beijing is attempting to lead a small minority of 23 of 192 UN member states in promoting revisionist and inconsistent interpretations of the convention in order to prohibit undesired operation of foreign military platforms in its claimed EEZ and the airspace above it . Chinese prohibition of military operations in virtually the entire South China Sea would threaten freedom of navigation in some of the world’s most important shipping and energy lanes, as well as set a precedent for 38% of the world’s oceans potentially claimed as EEZ areas to be similarly restricted—even by nations that lacked the capacity to maintain order there in the face of sub-state threats. The U.S. is therefore working with interested members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), not to adjudicate regional maritime claim disputes—which as a matter of policy it does not do—but rather to ensure that these nations are not unfairly pressured by China. Given China’s increasingly assertive rhetoric, reliance on nationalism as a source of CCP legitimacy amid possible economic and social challenges, and preoccupation with bureaucratic politics leading up to the transition to fifth-generation leadership this year, it is unlikely that China’s approach will become more positive or conciliatory in the near future. Where many of China’s neighbors were recently attracted by its impressive soft power approach, they are now increasingly concerned and seek U.S. support as a hedge against Chinese irredentism. The U.S. thus remains critical to maintaining a stable balance of power, and thereby preserving peace, in the Asia-Pacific. Since World War II, the U.S. has helped to secure and maintain the global commons—key mediums used by all but owned by none. Initially, this involved the sea and air; more recently, it has come to include the space and cyber dimensions. In order to further its parochial interests, Beijing wishes to impose antiquated territorial notions on the portions of these commons that adjoin its territory, and to do so it is developing A2/AD capabilities designed specifically to prevent U.S. and allied military intervention in any related scenarios. Like other lesser potential military competitors, it purposely avoids matching U.S. forces directly, and instead privileges operations optimized for a relatively narrow range of contingencies and missions. To avoid excessive vulnerability to Chinese coercion, the U.S. and its allies and friends in the Asia-Pacific should therefore pursue force structures and operational approaches that are less susceptible to asymmetric challenges while not so escalatory in nature as to be difficult or problematic to use, and hence not credible deterrents in many scenarios. The U.S. must understand challenges inherent in its alliances and partnerships themselves, and work closely with its counterparts to address them. Washington must be sensitive to historical grievances and symbolism, and maintain robust connections and dialogue with actors across the political spectrum in each of its allies and friends. People matter, and so too do population trends: by 2025-30, China and India will trade places demographically, when India will achieve the world’s largest population and will be growing rapidly as China’s population peaks and begins to decline slightly. China is thus emulating its Northeast Asian neighbors Japan and South Korea in rapid aging, the U.S. is holding steady, and India is in demographic ascendance. Exceptional demographics will increase the proportion of American population, wealth, and influence in the developed world, maintaining Washington’s appeal as an alliance partner. The U.S. and its allies must work with India and other more youthful powers to further international norms and the rule of law in a changing world. As for mainland China, its current trajectory with respect to economic development and military growth is impressive, and is likely to remain so for at least another decade. But ca. 2030-35 by even the most optimistic estimates, China will start aging to such a degree as to call any straight-line projections of these trends into serious doubt. More likely, China’s accretion of comprehensive national power will resemble an “S-curved †pattern, in which a great power in its early years of modernization can exploit low labor costs and initial infrastructure investment to grow rapidly, but ultimately assumes social welfare and international burdens that progressively slow its growth, and may even check its rise in the international system. Cooperation against Common Threats Overall, there is reason for considerable optimism: all East, Northeast, and Southeast Asian states are opposed to terrorism and other illegal and disruptive activities by non-state actors. Even North Korea, while still engaging in limited lethal military actions and criminal activities to obtain hard currency, does not currently support sub-state terrorist activities—unlike Iran, for example. Despite their differences regarding appropriate definitions of, and policies toward, terrorism, the U.S., India, China, and other nations have all suffered severely from it and are working hard to prevent it. These shared threats—which reveal shared interests in economic development, trade, and the security of the global commons—offer a compelling rationale for further cooperation among regional nations. This is particularly true as globalization generates further nontraditional security threats, and nations develop better military and non-military means to address them—thereby furnishing more capabilities and expertise to share and compare. The potential for this approach is demonstrated even in the volatile U.S.-China relationship. The tragic events of 11 September 2001 helped to “reset†relations between Washington and Beijing temporarily, with the latter offering significant assistance. More recently, China has developed military capabilities to provide public goods that it lacked utterly a decade ago. Ultimately, America’s position in the international system is a question of its power, purpose, and provision of goods that benefit allies and other nations, as well as such component systems as the global commons. The U.S. now faces a world in which some of its weightiest historical missions of previous years have been largely accomplished. But it remains preeminent and indispensable, the only power with the ability and willingness to accomplish certain things that are vitally necessary for the continued function of the international system. In today’s “unipolar†or “uni-multipolar†world, being a good global citizen for the U.S. will increasingly entail assembling and working with coalitions, and even to encourage other nations to engage in positive leadership of their own. The former is the very essence of the U.S. Maritime Strategy ; the latter is the essence of Washington’s encouraging Beijing to act as a “responsible stakeholder.†Recognizing that China is an increasingly powerful state that desires to build great power status and play an important role on the world stage, Washington rightly suggests that the U.S. and other nations will recognize China in this regard in proportion to the contributions that it makes to the public good. Or, as the concept is expressed in the popular American movie ‘Spiderman’, “With great power comes great responsibility.†Conclusion As we move further into the twenty-first century, it will increasingly be an Asia-Pacific century. Several trends seem likely to define the emerging international system, and America’s role within it. China is clearly poised to play an important role in the region and the world even as the U.S. does as well; Washington and Beijing must come to terms with their unprecedented coexistence as great powers. Fortunately, Washington is well-placed to turn these challenges into opportunities, provided that it pursues intelligent, pragmatic policies and works well with a growing network of allies, friends, and partners—including, in many areas, China. For the foreseeable future, then, a key question is to what extent the U.S. and China will be willing to cooperate in the Far Seas, even as their relationship suffers from profound strategic distrust and they experience strategic friction in the Near Seas. Washington seems open to such a bifurcated approach, but it remains uncertain whether Beijing will embrace it given historical sensitivities, nationalism, and possible erosion of economic growth as a source of CCP legitimacy. China, for its part, lacks aspirations or capability to dominate the Far Seas for the foreseeable future, but appears already to be seeking influence in the Near Seas and the East Asian region sufficient to achieve veto power over major activities there that it believes inimical to its core interests and security. The U.S., meanwhile, is a status quo power that is strongly committed to maintaining the existing global system, which could not be sustained in its present form if China carved out a zone of exceptionalism in the Near Seas. Current trends suggest that Beijing’s growth in capabilities, while extremely dynamic of late, will slow; while Washington’s strengths, while not unchallenged as before, will endure to a considerable extent. The two great Asia-Pacific powers must thus continue to manage a difficult relationship in the Near Seas, even as they enjoy significant prospects for achieving competitive coexistence more generally. View the full article

Today's guest is Robert C. Rubel, Dean, Center for Naval Warfare Studies at the Naval War College. Is China the real Mahanian maritime power of the 21st century? Alfred Thayer Mahan’s book The Influence of Sea Power on History, 1660-1783 was published in 1890 and became a global best seller. The book itself had an influence on history, being read and acted on by Theodore Roosevelt and Kaiser Wilhelm, among others. Of late, the Chinese seem to have developed an attachment to it also. Whether it will exert similar influence on their naval policy remains to be seen, but the question posed by Information Dissemination reveals the continuing reverence that is paid to Mahan’s work in this country, even though its ideas are dated and inconsistent with the current geopolitical circumstances of the Republic. The popularity of Mahan’s work in China seems to emanate from similarities in the geostrategic situation between the United States of 1890 and modern day China. In 1890 the key policy of the United States was the Monroe Doctrine, a continental strategy of hemispheric defense. Mahan had a dichotomy to reconcile: his historical analysis was based on the success of Great Britain, a global maritime power with a colonial empire, whereas his own country was a continental power with no (formal) ambitions to colonize. The French project to dig a canal through Panama helped him square the circle. Mahan realized that the completion of such a canal would not only significantly alter the patterns of global maritime commerce; it would allow the US Navy to more rapidly shift naval forces between the coasts. The canal thus became, even before the US took ownership of the project, a key piece of maritime infrastructure that would be critical for the security and prosperity of the country. It therefore needed to be defended. At the time there were, in the US, two general schools of thought about the composition of the Navy. Those of a “Jeffersonian†bent favored a distributed fleet of coastal gunboats that would guard individual ports. Mahan led the constituency that favored a capital ship fleet that would be concentrated in order to conduct a mobile defense of not only US East Coast ports, but also the Canal and Caribbean positions covering its approaches. Moreover, the mobile fleet could be shifted rapidly to the West Coast as necessary. Flowing from this logic was the primacy of interior lines and the central position, which Mahan extolled in a number of lectures at the Naval War College, using land combat examples in Europe to support his point. Emerging naval technology of the day also influenced Mahan’s thinking. The transition from sail to coal, and the unreliability of steam propulsion plants in those days meant that warships required overseas bases for refueling and repair. Given the American tradition of dispatching ships and squadrons overseas to support our commercial interests, obtaining such an infrastructure featured prominently in Mahan’s later writing. The expectation in some quarters that China will develop a “string of pearls†in the Indian Ocean may be an outgrowth of this kind of thinking. All of this reasoning resonates, apparently, with the continental-minded Chinese. It not only squares well with their reflexive center – out perspective as an authoritarian power whose security starts with the capital and emanates outward, but it also serves as justification for a big navy. One can easily see how the Straits of Malacca represent in their minds a clear analogue to the Panama Canal. So in this sense, the Chinese are indeed the emerging Mahanian maritime power of the 21st Century. However, the question contains an imbedded assumption that a Mahanian navy is desirable; the sine qua non even, of naval capability. This is open to debate. In order to clear the decks for action, so to speak, let’s dispense with a canard that has developed gradually and insidiously over the decades. That canard is that Mahanian thought represents the exclusive logic of a big, ocean-going navy, and non-Mahanian means attachment to some kind of smaller or coastal navy, or at least one composed of smaller vessels. Sir Julian Corbett attempted to supplant Mahan’s view of a concentrated, continental defense force with one that was based on the perspective of a global maritime power. Corbett was most concerned with the distribution of naval forces for the purposes of sea control, the protection of commercial shipping and of those forces involved in transporting the army overseas. The geostrategic geometry of such a perspective was the reciprocal of that of Mahan and the US in 1890; it was based on the global exterior position in which command of the seas allowed Britain to maintain credible contact with allies, provide sanctuary for her internationalized economy and create multiple strategic lines of operations in the event of hostilities. Halford Mackinder, that oracle of continental power, himself acknowledged that in the Napoleonic Wars, Great Britain “enveloped†France. Thus, the alternative to Mahanian thought is not anti-big navy; it is rather a global, external position view rather than a continentalist, central position view. Today, although not possessing an empire, the US, as the leading proponent of a globalized liberal trading system, has adopted the maritime style of geostrategy, driven to it really, because of the world wars and the challenge from the Soviet Union. Our navy, the largest in the world and more powerful than Mahan could have imagined, is not Mahanian in any way. Our aircraft carrier strike groups and our amphibious groups are strategically dispersed in a way that Mahan would have abhorred, but Corbett would have applauded. Its purpose for routine dispersed deployment is to exercise command of the sea and to provide security for the global system, because the proper functioning of that system is now critical to the economy and security of the country. Continental defense is no longer a matter of capital ships; it is dependent on the cooperative operations of all the world’s navies to achieve global maritime security so that terrorists cannot smuggle weapons of mass destruction or disruption into the country. Maritime security requires the utmost in naval dispersion, something anathema to Mahan. China is a free rider on the US Navy, a situation PLAN officers have acknowledged, just as the US was a free rider on the Royal Navy back in the Monroe Doctrine days. China is building a blue water fleet for much the same reasons we did back in the early 20th Century; prestige and expanding national interests. The real rub comes in with regard to strategic ethos. Despite wanting to protect the Caribbean and Panama Canal with a capital ship fleet, it did not occur to Mahan or any American administration to try and territorialize the Gulf of Mexico or the Caribbean; we were always committed to an open and free commons. In the three “Near Seas†(Yellow, East China, and South China Sea), by contrast, China makes no such commitment, and is in fact pursuing a combination of increased jurisdiction and outright sovereignty, together with a growing set of anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) capabilities to attempt to deter outside influence in its disputes. The coupling of a “Mahanian†navy with an ethos of continental-style buffering and exclusion at sea is a recipe for conflict. This is not that different from what Japan attempted to do in the 1930s. Our objective should be to try to convince China to build her navy, which she has every right to do, for the right reasons – to do her part to defend the global system. US Navy Photo The danger represented by the question Information Dissemination has asked is not that the US will allow its navy to decay; rather it is that we will confuse ourselves through an unthinking attachment to a famous American oracle of sea power whose perspective is out of sync with the geopolitical realities of today. Using Mahan as a basis for advocating a big navy is misguided. The United States certainly does need as big a navy as it can afford, since the world depends on us to keep order in the commons and even on land, and that good order is a vital security interest for us. More to the point, a Mahanian outlook connotes an all-capital ship navy. Here again a focus on Mahan could lead us down a blind alley. We do indeed need a force of nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, along with the escorts to protect them. We also need sufficient amphibious shipping to get the Marines in force to where they might be needed. We also need a robust submarine force, a robust mine clearing capability and all the attendant logistic, scouting and auxiliary forces. But we also need some smaller forces – a “flotilla†if you will, to advance the cause of global maritime security and to fight for littoral sea control at an acceptable degree of risk. The USN should be a tailored force whose structure is aligned to the modern geopolitical needs of the nation. A basic element of Mahan’s theory is that a key function of a navy is to blockade and strangle enemy sea commerce. I am not convinced that in today’s world we could effectively do this to Chinese commerce without a) harming neutrals and allies due to the highly interdependent nature of today’s economic system and inviting nuclear escalation. Moreover we ought to be very careful about invoking not just Mahan, but Corbett too. Corbett's work comes closer to being relevant to today's naval circumstances, but he too is fading. Corbett, like Mahan, says that the first function of a dominant navy is to protect one’s own trade and deny trade to an enemy. This is not true anymore, at least not in the way Corbett meant. Sea trade today is so internationally intertwined, with flag, ownership and cargo all being mixed and matched in ways not seen before, that the disruption of trade to one country inevitably imposes dire economic consequences on many others. The world has become very dependent on the uninterrupted flow of resources and goods among the large majority of the world’s nations. In the world of today, the first function of our dominant navy is to ensure the US can maintain the rules of the international order. A book by George Modelski and William Thompson entitled Seapower in Global Politics 1494-1993 does a quantitative study that correlates sea power with overall national power. Their conclusion is that command of the sea allows its possessor to set the rules of the international order, which the US did in 1945 and at least reinforced them again in 1992. Once the global system became truly universal, the dominant navy's function is to help provide system security and flow, which includes preventing war. A war between the US and China is not very likely, and a global naval war even less likely. However, in the event something was to happen, it most likely would be a sea control fight somewhere along the Chinese littoral, ranging from the Yellow Sea down to the Straits of Malacca. If the Chinese follow their own script of “localized warfare under high tech conditions,†and If we play our cards right, we neutralize the PLAN relatively quickly, and it then becomes a matter of China deciding whether to embargo the US by not buying from us or not selling to us. If we thought through the matter objectively, we would see that our preference would be for everyone’s commerce, including China’s, to continue unmolested throughout the whole affair. Commercial shipping is perhaps less threatened in today’s world than ever before. Where shipping is potentially threatened is two places: the Strait of Hormuz and the South China Sea. Hormuz is a systemic vulnerability because there is no alternate route around it. The South China Sea is a vulnerability because China seems to be claiming it as internal waters, which would present a critical constriction on a key conduit of world trade, a “strategic maritime crossroads†according to Admiral Greenert, all the more so because if she were successful in this project, the precedent would open the door for 38% of the world’s oceans, now defined as exclusive economic zones, to become claimable as sovereign territory, which would ultimately generate a mare clausum. In reality, both the USN and PLAN have a shared interest in keeping Hormuz open, just as both navies cooperate in anti-piracy efforts off Somalia. However, in the South China Sea, our interests collide. China’s “Mahanian†navy is being designed to muscle out both the USN and the small forces of bordering countries. Chinese Type 022 Houbei Squadron It has been common to associate Mahanian theory with the notion of sea control. In fact, Mahan does not mention the term in his most famous work. What he does say is that capital ship forces would engage in a decisive sea battle to achieve “overbearing power.†Corbett called this command of the sea, and acknowledged that it could be so achieved, but went further to recognize that command was not enough; sea control would have to still be exercised as a kind of naval housekeeping task that would be made possible by the precursor seizure of command of the sea. In today’s world, and especially in the South China Sea, the whole framework has changed. China, in order to exert control over that sea and the islands within it, is building a range of combatants, ranging from the Houbei, a small catamaran coastal missile craft, to an aircraft carrier. The task for the USN is to ensure China cannot exercise such control if it is being used in the furtherance of policies inimical to ours. In this area, the USN’s potential task would be sea denial, something best conducted by submarines, mines, unmanned systems and perhaps LCS or some other form of small littoral surface combatant. There is no percentage in using our most capital intensive units – the carriers – for this task. However, a reflexive but distorted focus on sea control a la Mahan would lead us into disaster by doctrinally associating our large units – the carriers – with a function for which they are no longer suited. So, to get back to the original question, yes, one could make the case that China is becoming a real Mahanian power, and this is of concern to the United States, but not for the reasons I suspect are behind the question. There should be no race to achieve Mahanian sea power. Rather, it would be better for both China and the US to steer a course away from Mahan’s vision and logic. The current US maritime strategy, A Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower†(CS21) incorporates valid modern logic based on the interdependent global system. If we could convince the Chinese to adopt this view, both nations would be more secure in the future. Both the US and China are great nations that have good and sufficient reasons for maintaining large navies, but an attachment to Mahanian thinking – on both our parts - is a recipe for conflict and war in a way not so very unlike the British/German naval rivalry leading up to World War I. The question suggests that America needs a new round of naval education. We must give Mahan credit for performing this function 120 years ago, and his lessons served the nation well. However, the world has moved on, and we must release our attachment to Mahan and engage in the kind of creative thinking in our time that he exercised in his. View the full article

Today's guest is Stephen Carmel, Sr. Vice President Maritime Services at Maersk Line, Limited. With so few U.S.-Flagged ships and carriers, is America still a maritime power? A.T. Mahan is perhaps the most widely quoted and authoritative strategic thinker on the relationship between commercial shipping and maritime power. That is probably because today any discussions of maritime power outside of those promoted by parochial industry interests rarely touch on any dimension of maritime power other than naval. Thinkers today just don’t ponder that relationship in any serious way. Consequently there is no discussion of the actual condition of the foreign going US flag merchant marine or whether or not that has any bearing on our maritime power or meaning to the overall welfare of the country. This is a discussion that needs to be refreshed based on the world we are faced with today, not the world Mahan lived in. While the opening question is one way to explore the issue, perhaps a more relevant phrasing of the question would be "Is it necessary for the US to have a US flag merchant fleet to be considered a maritime power?" To the first question I answer yes, and to the second I answer no. In The Influence of Seapower Upon History Mahan is emphatic that the basis of a strong Navy is a vibrant commercial fleet since “…in a representative government any military expenditure must have a strong represented interest behind it, convinced of its necessityâ€. A few today might echo that general sentiment, although without the conviction of Mahan, such as the recent article by Ron O’Rourke in Proceedings wherein he stated that “Maritime power is a broad term that includes not just the Navy and Marine Corps, but also the Coast Guard, the Merchant Marine, the supporting technological and industrial base, and other elements†. But his article then deals exclusively with naval matters. The USN/USMC/USGC Cooperative Strategy for a 21st Century SeaPower, which emphasizes the vital role the global maritime commons plays in world economic activity, describes the six capabilities that are core to US maritime power. All six are naval capabilities, none, contrary to Mahan, are related in any way to the carriage of the nation’s foreign commerce . It would seem then that Mahan is due for serious reconsideration and revision, on how, or if, the merchant marine fits into the concept of maritime power in this country. If Mahan remains relevant, then the US is no longer a maritime power and, according to Mahan’s analysis, the level of expenditure on a foreign going Navy is not sustainable in the long run in peace time. If, on the other hand, Mahan’s analysis is applicable to the version of globalization that he experienced, but not the one we are experiencing today, then the US remains the world’s dominate maritime power. What is then needed is a revision to Mahan and a redefinition of what it is to be a maritime power. A new, overarching strategy, on the order of Mahan in authority, explicitly tying our Naval power to the country’s economic interests across the maritime commons that is more reflective of the world as it is today and likely to be in the next hundred fifty years rather than the world 150 years ago is in order. Trade is of course central to the overall economic well being of the US. The US is one of the worlds dominate trading nations, and trade makes up a significant portion of our total economic output. The US Business Roundtable estimates that over 30 million US jobs are attached to trade, about 18.2 percent of total employment. The US is the world’s third largest exporter, behind Germany and China, but the US domestic market is so large that only a very small portion – somewhere around 1 percent - of US businesses view exports as a potential market. That percentage is likely to grow under the current administration’s National Export Initiative which seeks to double this country’s exports over the next few years. Further, the US actually runs a trade surplus with the group of countries with which it has free trade agreements. Contrary to what appears to be a commonly held misperception and erroneous studies reported in the mainstream press, the US has not completely outsourced its manufacturing base to China and remains the world’s largest manufacturer. In fact the US manufacturing sector is expanding and the combination of high productivity and comparatively low energy costs will ensure the US manufacturing sector remains the world’s most vibrant for many years to come. The US has certainly moved up the value chain in terms of what is manufactured here so much low value manufacturing has indeed moved offshore but in its place we manufacture, and export, complex high value goods. Manufacturing employment therefore is steadily shifting from low skill assembly line type work to high skill, high tech, and high paying work requiring significant experience, education, and training. Ocean shipping is a central link in our complex global supply chains. About 1.5 billion tons of import and export cargo moves through US ports each year, an amount that is roughly 20 percent of total world merchandise trade and after a dip due to the global recession, that number is again growing. The US is a world leader in the export of agricultural products which move primarily by bulker (although containerized bulk agriculture products are becoming more common). China is one of our largest customers in this area. Our oil imports move by tanker, and as US domestic production of natural gas ramps up through development of shale gas it is entirely probable, absent untoward political interference, the US will become a major exporter of LNG on par with Russia and Qatar. This is a development no-one would have bet on only 10 years ago. Those exports, which will aid significantly in reducing our merchandise trade deficit, will move by ship, and license applications are already pending to put liquefaction plants in at what were originally designed to be import terminals in the US. But even though nearly three quarters of US trade is in bulk commodities, perhaps the most visible reminder to the average citizen of the role maritime commerce plays in their daily life is the container. Containerization and parallel developments in information technology have led directly to the form of globalization we see today. Disaggregation of supply chains, trade in intermediate goods, and leveraging of comparative advantage at ever more granular levels to the point where the distinction between goods and services is blurred, or trade in tasks as the WTO calls it, has afforded the average consumer a range of goods almost unimaginable not long ago. Prices are lower than could otherwise be the case making those goods accessible to more people and contributing directly to an increasing standard of living in the US. In addition, the cost of many types of goods declines rapidly from initial introduction to the marketplace as manufacturing matures and the product is adapted to and exploits a global supply chain. The range of types of goods we trade, and the geographical range of countries we trade with, is far greater than ever before. The US Maritime Administration has 173 countries in its data base with which the US has containerized trade. In 2010 roughly 45,000 containers entered the US by water every day, 365 days per year. China was the source of 48 percent of them. China (including Hong Kong), on the other hand, is also the single largest destination of US containerized exports, taking over 2.3 million TEU of goods from the US each year, an amount nearly triple the next largest, which is Japan and six times larger than the largest single importer in Europe. There can be little doubt that balanced and vigorous trade is indispensible to our economic security. While one can quibble with the version of globalization outlined in the Cooperative Strategy and some of the supporting statistics, the centrality of the role the global maritime commons plays in our economic well being is not in doubt. The role of ocean shipping in our foreign commerce is also without question. Trade across the surface of the ocean requires ships, and the US has been very successful over many years exploiting the maritime commons for our economic benefit. What is in question then is the role of the US flag merchant marine in our foreign commerce, economic security, and status as a maritime power. In order to answer that question a summary of the state of the US flag merchant marine is in order. At the outset we will exclude from consideration hybrid organizations such as Military Sealift Command (MSC) and the Ready Reserve Force (RRF) of the Maritime Administration. There is no question that those organizations play a significant role in our nation’s military power, national security and, not inconsequentially from a political perspective, employment in the heavily unionized maritime industry. Strategic Sealift to support the nation’s military is not in question. But Mahan was clear that he interpreted maritime power in the broad sense to be about the movement of the nation’s foreign commerce. While MSC and RRF ships are crewed by merchant seamen, they do not engage in the foreign commerce of the US and therefore are excluded from this discussion. As an aside, there is a significant side issue here in that many propose a direct link between surge strategic sealift and the commercial merchant marine, particularly as a source of labor. There are arguments on all sides of that debate, not least of which is whether or not this model is the most efficient for supplying surge strategic sealift at all. Since that is a debate in itself, this article will note that it is there and leave discussion of it for future work. And, since the notion of a maritime power is focused on the nation’s foreign commerce, the Jones Act fleet employed in purely domestic transportation is also not under discussion. Since many of the issues related to a foreign going commercial fleet cross the boundaries between the two however, reference will be made to the Jones Act fleet where appropriate. The blunt answer to the question of the role of the foreign going US flag merchant marine in our economic security is that it is insignificant. While much visibility is given to our dependence on foreign oil wells in nasty parts of the world for a significant part of our oil needs, much less visibility is given to the fact that we depend 100 percent on foreign tankers to deliver it. There are no US flag crude tankers in international trade, and have not been for many years. Crude oil deliveries to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve during the last fill program which ended in Dec of 2009, technically subject to cargo preference, were all done via foreign flag tankers. Likewise agricultural exports, a crucial component of our overall exports, also all go via foreign flag bulkers. While there are a few US flag bulkers in the fleet, they are engaged in food aid, an extension of US foreign policy, not the foreign commerce of the US. Overall US flag ships carry less than two percent of the foreign commerce of the US according to the US Maritime Administrator in testimony to Congress. But even that number is artificially high and a spillover from military programs. In truth there are no US flag ships purely in the foreign commerce of the US. There are currently just fewer than 100 US flag ships in non-domestic service. There are over 20,000 ships of over 10,000 tonnes in the international merchant fleet, so the US has less than one half of one percent of the global fleet. Sixty of the US flag ships are in the Maritime Security Program, which provides an operating stipend to partially offset the higher cost of operating under the US flag in exchange for making the ship available to the US military in times of need. That stipend is not enough to fully offset the higher US flag costs so access to US Government (largely military) cargo preference volumes, a separate US government funding stream, is also required. In short, these ships exist to service the US military, not the foreign commerce of the US, and to the extent they carry commercial foreign trade it is not enough to make a living. From the perspective of Mahan, those ships, like MSC and RRF, should arguably be excluded from the analysis. The balance of most remaining US flag ships in non-domestic service also are dependent on US cargo preference programs such as food aid, and spot military work. Even the now famous Maersk Alabama was not, and is not, in the foreign commerce of the US. That ship is fully employed in food aid programs. Being completely dependent on government funds these ships are not genuinely in the foreign commerce of the US, they are extensions of US government programs. The only ships that could arguable be considered in the foreign commerce of the US would be the handful of ships focused on cargo subject to cargo preference through Ex-Im bank financing which are pure commercial cargos. But even those are still dependent on government money to survive. None of these programs, either individually or collectively, have been successful in sustaining a commercially viable US flag merchant marine. In addition these programs have led to a US merchant marine that is increasingly behind the international community in technology. The median age of the US Jones Act fleet is 27.5 years old; the median age of US flag ships in foreign trade is 14 years, while the median age of ships in the international container fleet is about 5 to 6 years. The age of ships in the international fleet is likely to decline further as the international community invests in state of the art, fuel efficient or alternative fuel (e.g. LNG fueled) ships to survive the twin threat of high fuel costs and strict emissions standards; investments the US fleet, Jones Act or foreign going, are not making. In fact the response of some segments in the US Jones Act fleet to emissions control requirements was to petition for waivers and exemptions. US mariners are working with technology that is at least a generation behind that of their foreign counterparts, and for the Jones Act folks several generations, casting doubt on claims that the US flag fleet is either modern or efficient (a possible exception is the Jones Act tanker fleet, which has seen significant recapitalization). A sad related fact is that about 29% of US flag foreign going deep sea billets are on ships that don’t actually go anywhere such as RRF and MSC prepositioning ships. Merchant mariners who spent their tours swinging on the hook or welded to the dock are not exercising and honing their skills, and probably just the opposite. When we combine the two major parts of the foregoing discussion what emerges is a United States, a US economy, and US globalized production processes that are deeply interconnected with the rest of the world, and the maritime commons is a primary pathway for those interconnections. The US is a dominant global manufacturer and trader. We have one of the world’s highest standards of living, built on an international system of trade that the US itself is the primary architect and defender of. The US has been as successful as any country in the world, including China, at leveraging and exploiting the global maritime commons, and we have done so with no US flag merchant fleet of any significance. The US economy has never suffered supply chain disruptions as a result of foreign registered shipping being unavailable to carry foreign commerce. In short, the US has no overarching Maritime Strategy which addresses the US flag merchant marine’s role in our Nations maritime power, nor does one appear to be necessary given the obvious and overwhelming success we have experienced across the years between the end of WWII – the beginning of this age of globalization – and today. Therefore, returning to the original questions, The US remains the world’s dominate maritime power despite having no US flag merchant marine of any significance. And in answer to the second, a flag state merchant fleet is no longer necessary to be classed as a maritime power. A maritime power must be a globally significant naval power supporting the ability to first consistently and reliably exploit an international trading system across the surface of the ocean in furtherance of national economic well being, and second be a force in shaping the rule set and international institutions within which maritime trade is conducted. The US clearly meets that definition. In short, Mahan is in need of revision. _______________________ [1] A.T.Mahan The Influence of Seapower Upon History1660-1783 American Century Series 1957 edition. Page 76 [1] RonaldO’Rourke. US Naval InstituteProceedings. Jan, 2012 [1] http://www.navy.mil/maritime/Maritimestrategy.pdf [1]“Trade and American Jobs; The Impact of Trade on U.S. and State Level Employmentâ€The Business Roundtable, Feb, 2007. http://trade.businessroundtable.org/trade_americanjobs.pdf [1] For anexcellent discussion of US manufacturing prowess see “Made in America Againâ€Boston Consulting Group. 2011 at http://www.bcg.com/documents/file84471.pdf [1]“Assessment of the Marine Transportation System (MTS) Challenges†VolpeNational Transportation Systems Center, USDOT. Dec, 2009 [1] Seefor example “Export floodgates are ready to burst†LNGUnlimited, Tradewinds, 14 May, 2012 [1] For amore detailed account see Stephen M.Carmel, “Globalization, Security, and Economic Wellbeing†NavalWar College Review forthcoming winter 2012/2013 [1] USMaritime Administration data http://www.marad.dot.gov/library_landing_page/data_and_statistics/Data_and_Statistics.htm [1] TheJones Act is the US cabotage lawreserving for US built, US owned, and US crewed ships all cargo moving from oneUS port to another [1] USMaritime Administration. http://www.marad.dot.gov/library_landing_page/data_and_statistics/Data_and_Statistics.htm [1] Dataon the US fleet complied from the US Maritime Administration statistics. Data on the foreign fleet is from UNCTAD Review of Maritime Transport, 2011 http://unctad.org/en/docs/rmt2011_en.pdfand Bloomberg “No Slower Steaming asContainer Lines Run Like Clippers : Freight†http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2012-01-25/container-ships-at-clipper-speed-run-out-of-option-to-stem-losses-freigh View the full article

Today's guest is Mike Petters, President and Chief Executive Officer of Huntington Ingalls Industries. How long would it take the shipbuilding industry to grow capacity and throughput if the nation faced a naval crisis or conflict? Anticipation, Not Reaction, is Critical The fact is the shipbuilding industry is not designed to respond rapidly to a crisis. Whatever the conflict, the nature of our business dictates that we play with the team we’ve got. Ours is a business of anticipation, not reaction. There is nothing magical about it. To meet tomorrow’s crisis or conflict requires continuous investment today to ensure we can deliver capability critical to our nation and economic security. It requires that we have robust, stable and efficient operations and a supplier base that allow us to build ships as quickly and as affordably as possible. I know one thing for certain: Further budget cuts in defense could have a potentially devastating impact to our healthy but fragile industrial base. The shipbuilding business operates on extended cycles. Ships take years to construct. For example, it takes eight years to build a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. A stable, strategy-driven shipbuilding plan is crucial. We are sizing ourselves today to support the Navy's 30-year shipbuilding plan. If the Navy decided to double the numbers in the plan—for whatever reason—it wouldn’t necessarily take twice as many people or twice as long for us to build those ships, but it would take a long time (on the order of years) for us to hire and train the shipbuilders and create the infrastructure to do it. By the same token, we can’t cut ships from the 30-year plan and expect to be able to quickly “ramp up†production years down the road when we decide we need more ships after all. That’s why maintaining the industrial base is so critical. I look at it in terms of software (hiring, training and retaining the right employees) and hardware (facilities, tools and equipment). It’s all about the people People are our most important resource. Building military warships today is highly specialized and complex work requiring specialized, skilled and talented workers. And retention of these skilled workers is most vulnerable during a crisis as the hiring landscape becomes more competitive. The nature of today’s potential crises requires us to move away from commercial solutions and look to a more specialized workforce and product. That workforce must be able to create complex technology that meets the demands of the time. If we don’t maintain that workforce, we could find ourselves without the requisite skills needed to build the ships of the future. When the Royal Navy set out in 1997 to develop a new class of nuclear attack submarines, it discovered some five to six years into the program that it did not have vital design and production skills to produce the Astute-class ships. The Royal Navy looked to the U.S. for assistance. Where would we look if we lost those skills? Newport News Shipbuilding, a division of Huntington Ingalls Industries, is one of only two remaining shipyards capable of constructing nuclear-powered vessels; it is a national asset that must be sustained and preserved. That includes sustaining and preserving the knowledge base. Building a workforce to meet increased demand requires hiring people with the requisite skills and education, training that workforce and then retaining that workforce. These processes must be in place and robust to be able to react to a crisis. You cannot grow a highly specialized workforce overnight. I know this from experience. Following Hurricane Katrina, HII’s Ingalls Shipbuilding division on the Gulf Coast was devastated. From that crisis we learned that you can’t rapidly recreate a shipbuilding capability. It took several years to rebuild our human capital and return to what we define as pre-storm “normal operations.†If you wanted to create today’s shipbuilding capability from scratch, which for HII means hiring nearly 40,000 people, it would take years. In a perfect world, we might be able to hire 1,000 people a month, which equates to more than three and a half years to get to our roll numbers of today. Add to that another three to five years to train that workforce with basic skills and longer for specialized skills. Undoubtedly, it’s more challenging for us to hire qualified employees than it is for other industries because of our citizenship and security clearance eligibility requirements. Let me share some basic facts on growing skilled shipbuilders: It takes three to five years to hire someone off the street then train and develop him or her into a journeyman-level employee; this can be significantly longer for someone to become qualified to perform nuclear work. For example, it takes an average of eight years to develop a fully certified nuclear pipefitter. Our apprentice schools at Newport News and Ingalls take four to five years to graduate a journeyman-level employee. Infrastructure requires investment There are basically two shipbuilding companies (HII and General Dynamics) remaining in this country building complex and technologically advanced military ships today. Again I think back to just after Hurricane Katrina and what it took to retool and rebuild the shipbuilding infrastructure on the Gulf Coast. If we were to start with a “green field†today, it would require a capital investment costing hundreds of millions of dollars. Where does this capital investment come from absent of a stable shipbuilding plan? Stability attracts both investment in our shipbuilding infrastructure and the critical talent. Assuming that this level of capital investment is available, you’d then have to build the facilities including steel, pipe and sheet metal lines, all of which would take two to three years due to lead time on equipment, adding buildings to house the equipment and getting the lines up and running. Like our skilled workforce, we have to look at ways of sustaining and preserving our current shipbuilding infrastructure to build the nation’s military ships. Supply Chain is the third leg of the stool Sustaining and preserving the supply chain is the third component of maintaining our shipbuilding capability. Each of our suppliers would face similar challenges, although they would likely be on a smaller scale and a much shorter timeline. Over the past two decades, we have witnessed a contraction of the supply chain for shipbuilding due to both decreasing shipbuilding demand and program instability. This has already impacted our nation’s ability to rapidly increase shipbuilding capacity. Some resource areas will be drivers of ship schedules due to the time it would take to get new capacity online such as foundries and major machine works. I can tell you that more than half of HII’s 5,000 suppliers are the sole source of particular parts and services. If you step back and think about what sequestration could do to that, the more than half that are sole source, that number could go up. That can dramatically impact cost and schedule. In recent years I have seen greater use of multiyear procurements for submarines and destroyers, and most recently, the block-buy contracts for the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS). These types of contracts enable greater economic efficiency to provide the shipbuilder and industrial base with a stable, relatively long-term business base that helps us justify maintaining a highly skilled workforce, process investment and infrastructure improvements that better position us to respond to the nation’s security requirements. The success of the Virginia-Class Submarine Program is a perfect example of the benefits of serial production. These ships are consistently delivered early and the efficiencies are greater from ship to ship to ship. I would encourage the Navy to make broadest use of multiyear contracts and block-buy contracts. The U.S. has traditionally been sea dependent. Ninety percent of the world’s commerce moves on the water. Failure to protect our sea lanes of trade, shipbuilding industrial base and seaport infrastructure would severely damage the economy and our ability to maintain a strong national defense. To not invest today and to let this industry wither away is more than just a budget decision. I strongly believe it is a strategic decision with serious, long-term national security implications. As I asserted earlier, shipbuilding is a business of anticipation, not reaction. Today it takes about three years to deliver a surface combatant ship, four years to deliver a large-deck amphibious ship and eight years to build an aircraft carrier. In a time of crisis or conflict, these times could possibly be condensed, but it would still be a matter of years before those currently unplanned warships went operational unless we have been leaning forward as a country, anticipating and building industrial base capacity in support of a long-range Navy strategy, and continuing to invest today to ensure the security of our country’s future. View the full article

h/t Hot Air The official White House photo of the day for Memorial Day was A. a tasteful shot of Arlington Cemetery B. A pic of a Gold Star Mom at her son's grave C. An image of an inverted rifle and empty boots signifying the death of a soldier. NOPE! The answer and an F- for the Campaigner in Chief was: A picture of the Campaigner in Chief reflected in the Vietnam Memorial with a halo around his noble warrior, gutsy-call-making head. In addition to the F-, he gets a D for Disgrace. The entire purpose of Memorial day is to honor those who laid down their lives in defense of our freedom. Obama didn't serve and since his coronation has used the military as nothing more than a tool to obfuscate the fact that he is the weakest leader we have had since Jimmy Carter. His gutless, politically-driven policies have put in peril a victory in Iraq won by those who should be remembered on this day. And his sorry, election-driven, faux surge into Afghanistan has added many hundreds of names to the list of those this holiday memorializes. But who does he think the day is about? You guessed it, BHO. He ought to be on his knees begging forgiveness for the lives he spent like they were so many campaign contributions. View the full article

Seriously though, go read Ranger Up founder Nick's latest about Chris Hayes... MSNBC’s Chris Hayes proclaimed on Memorial Day that he was uncomfortable labeling fallen troops as heroes as he felt the term is used as an excuse to engage in “Unjust Warsâ€. Somewhere Michael Moore, Bill Maher, and the Westboro Baptist Church just had a Douchegasm... And it just gets better after that. Go check out ultimate in chops busting. View the full article

I came across the bit of pseudo-intellectual mental masturbation you called a thoughtful discussion just before going to be part of an honor guard for a parade and memorial service for those who fought and died for freedom. Part of what they died for is your right (and that of your fellow panelists) to display your intellectual and moral shortcomings to the world, and I would have that no other way. That said, I think your apology has far more to do with realizing you stuck another shortcoming into a 220 socket and flipped the switch, hurting both you and your struggling network. As such, I'm afraid I can't and don't accept it as I don't believe it. In fact, I have a reaction that -- given that we do strive to keep this site family friendly -- I will render by quoting some Brit friends and their phrase "Sod Off." LW View the full article

Politics can be pretty disgusting on a good day, but this is a new low. My good friend, combat veteran and legitimate American hero David Bellavia is running for Congress in NY's 27th District. He would be an Allen West-ian breath of fresh air in the House and God-willing and the creek don't rise we will see him there. He is running against a rich guy (and kicking his ass) who is willing to throw money and now disgraceful allegations at David and a charity that we both helped found, the Warrior Legacy Foundation (WLF). There have been claims made by proxies and political tools of David's opponent Chris Collins that WLF is a scam designed to line David's pockets and defraud donors. He raises money from those sympathetic to veterans to pay himself for the privilege to run for office and this year it’s the 27th District. David's answer is here. I was not surprised to read an attack on me in a letter written by an active member of the Clarence Town Republican Committee. Clarence is my opponent Chris Collins’ hometown; the Committee is his home political organization. However, I am deeply disappointed to see that the Collins machine’s negative assault on me has already begun. It is disgusting that my hard work on behalf of my brothers and sisters in arms, the military veterans of this country, would be the target of a cheap political attack to further Chris Collins’ candidacy. I find it deplorable and unworthy of any further response. My answer is right here. These allegations are complete, unmitigated BS and the WLF never paid David Bellavia a dime in salary or for his personal expenses. As a matter of fact the has traveled extensively and volunteered huge amounts of his time for the organization and the veterans we help. WLF has a grand total of zero paid staffers and all the money goes to help wounded veterans w/ a tiny amount of unavoidable overhead. There will be an official response from WLF saying the same forthcoming. For the record, this is the kind of stuff WLF supports. So now right before Memorial Day, when we honor those who have given their lives, we get sleazy, false, unfounded slime thrown at a group of veterans who are helping other vets. The question becomes what type of person is doing the sliming? David's opponent Chris Collins was born in 1950 making him 18 years old in 1968. I know where my Dad was in 1968, he was with the 11th Armored Cav in Vietnam serving his second combat tour. Where was Chris Collins? Avoiding service with student deferments? Hanging out at the frat house? Not inhaling w/ Bill Clinton? Inquiring minds want to know sir. Where he was not is in uniform serving his country. But that certainly didn't stop him from cutting in front of a group of veterans in a 4th of July parade last year. There is no requirement for anyone to serve now and plenty of folks took deferments during Vietnam. But if you are going to attack those who raised their right hands and put their lives on the line you ought have some better answers, and to be perfectly frank some respect. I wholeheartedly and proudly endorse David Bellavia for Congress and look forward to seeing him kicking ass and taking names in DC next January View the full article

One of the core reasons more people have not joined the LCS bandwagon has been the ongoing contradictions and contrary sales points by its strongest advocates.Earlier this week we bounced the CNO's "not in harms way" off The Under's "LCS will be like Taffy 3" strange rally cry.Well - there is more to chew on that will help explain why LCS just cannot get traction. "If we needed a frigate, we would build a frigate." --- Undersecretary of the Navy Bob Work at the CATO forum: The Future of the U.S. Navy Surface Fleet. P 50 Section 2 of U.S. Navy Program Guide 2012 "Decommissioning of the remaining 26 FFGs is scheduled to occur prior to FY 2019. The LCS will replace the capacity and capability of the FFG 7-class." Sure, a lot accept that LCS will be in the Fleet - but don't confuse acceptance with approval - and don't complain people "don't get it" when you can't even "explain it." Hat tip DKB in comments. View the full article

The opposition we have voiced here towards the sectarianian agenda of the Navy's Diversity Bullies is just our part of a much larger socio-political scam.The nastier side effects of the Diversity Industry we have all seen, but for better or worse, it is good to see that it isn't just the Navy's issue - but one of our larger society. Running parallel to our arguments here over the years, Victor Davis Hanson wraps it up well. Read it all. For anyone familiar with the American university and its gospel of multicultural diversity, the revelation that Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren exploited her 1/32 Cherokee ancestry to pass as a minority is a dog-bites-man story. For decades now universities have depended on the superficially non-white “other†to fulfill and tout their “commitment to diversity†and their doctrine of “multiculturalism.†Meanwhile, the only diversity that counts, the diversity of minds and points of view, is ignored. Instead, the rigid leftist ideology of American historical wickedness and oppression is imposed on the presumed bastions of truth and free minds. The phoniness of such “diversity†is evident on multiple levels. Warren’s ploy is not that much more egregious than the thousands of Caucasians with Hispanic surnames who pass as minorities in American universities. White Chileans, Argentines, and Mexicans come to American colleges and are transformed into “Chicanos,†a category that has little reality outside a college campus. Hiring Basques or Spaniards counts as increasing “diversity,†even though they have nothing culturally in common with the mestizo or Indian children of farm-workers. So too African or Caribbean blacks are hired not because they bring the unique perspective of their homelands to their intellectual work or teaching, but because they count as “black,†and thus are assumed to have some mystical connection with American black students and their cultural identity, which owes much more to American culture and history than to African. Of course, socio-economic differences among American minorities are also ignored in the rush to promote diversity. A Mexican-American dentist’s or schoolteacher’s daughter who never cut a grape or washed a dish supposedly has some special insight into poor or working-class Mexicans. A light-skinned black son of college-educated parents who grew up in the suburbs gets to campus and suddenly has a rapport with the “brothers†and their experiences. An upper class Chinese is thought to be better able to relate to anyone designated by the meaningless category “Asian-American,†which obscures the fundamental differences and histories of Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Thais, Laos, Vietnamese, Cambodians, and Hmong. The social capital that comes from education and wealth and that is used to define “white-skin privilege†suddenly has no value when it comes to the equally privileged ethnic “other.†.... This melodramatic history is the antithesis of the only diversity that counts, intellectual diversity, for it reduces a complex, variegated, universally flawed humanity into cardboard villains and victims. But the point of multiculturalism has never been “diversity.†If true diversity were the aim, then the university would promote the diversity of religion, region, socio-economic background, and most important intellect and philosophy. And that’s what “diversity†of the sort that allowed a blue-eyed, blonde Elizabeth Warren to pass as evidence of Harvard’s “commitment to diversity†is really about: imposing a leftist ideological conformity predicated on America’s historical crimes and sins. As a side note, if you missed the Midrats interview with VDH - you can get it here. View the full article

From here. STRAIT OF HORMUZ (May 19, 2012) The guided-missile destroyer USS Nitze (DDG 94) transits the Strait of Hormuz with Military Sealift Command missile range instrumentation ship USNS Invincible (T-AGM 24) and British Royal Navy ships HMS Ramsey (M110), HMS Pembroke (M107) and RFA Lyme Bay (L3007). Nitze is deployed as part of the Enterprise Carrier Strike Group to the U.S. 5th Fleet area of responsibility conducting maritime security operations, theater security cooperation efforts and support missions as part of Operation Enduring Freedom. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Jeff Atherton/Released) It is very interesting that while the US negotiates the future of the Iranian nuclear program in Baghdad, USNS Invincible (T-AGM-24) enters the Persian Gulf. USS Devastator (MCM 6), USS Sentry (MCM 3), USS Pioneer (MCM 9) and USS Warrior (MCM 10) You can learn more about the Dockwise ship TERN here, and there are more pictures here. These ships should arrive in Bahrain sometime in the 3rd week in June. View the full article

Not by me - I went to see The Avengers at IMAX.Anyway - Burke over at StrategyPage does a fine job. For some reason, I like this. At this point, we should remember Mark Twain’s remark that Wagner’s music is better than it sounds. Battleship is actually more fun than a description of it sounds. Once the action starts it’s nonstop. The movie looks great, and you can sit there and ogle your choice of the special effects, the extensive Navy hardware, or Brooklyn Decker. It’s a summer movie, big, loud, mindless, and fun if you don’t think about it too much. It’s an unusual blend of patriotism and PC. The movie’s heart, at least, is in the right place. The idea of taking an old World War II battleship out to take on alien invaders actually does have a certain inherent coolness to it. (Besides, who would want to see a movie called Littoral Combat Ship?) Hat tip DC. View the full article

Oh, he's only a 20-yr BM1. Didn't even graduate from High School. Snuck in to the Navy at 16 even.Really? Define "only."What more can I say but what is in his Medal of Honor citation? JAMES E. WILLIAMS BOATSWAIN'S MATE FIRST CLASS UNITED STATES NAVY U.S. Navy, River Section 531, My Tho, RVN Mekong River, Republic of Vietnam 31 October 1966 for service as set forth in the following Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty. BM1 Williams was serving as Boat Captain and Patrol Officer aboard River Patrol Boat (PBR) 105 accompanied by another patrol boat when the patrol was suddenly taken under fire by 2 enemy sampans. BM1 Williams immediately ordered the fire returned, killing the crew of 1 enemy boat and causing the other sampan to take refuge in a nearby river inlet. Pursuing the fleeing sampan, the U.S. patrol encountered a heavy volume of small-arms fire from enemy forces, at close range, occupying well-concealed positions along the river bank. Maneuvering through this fire, the patrol confronted a numerically superior enemy force aboard 2 enemy junks and 8 sampans augmented by heavy automatic weapons fire from ashore. In the savage battle that ensued, BM1 Williams, with utter disregard for his safety exposed himself to the withering hail of enemy fire to direct counter-fire and inspire the actions of his patrol. Recognizing the over whelming strength of the enemy force, BM1 Williams deployed his patrol to await the arrival of armed helicopters. In the course of his movement he discovered an even larger concentration of enemy boats. Not waiting for the arrival of the armed helicopters, he displayed great initiative and boldly led the patrol through the intense enemy fire and damaged or destroyed 50 enemy sampans and 7 junks. This phase of the action completed, and with the arrival of the armed helicopters, BM1 Williams directed the attack on the remaining enemy force. Now virtually dark, and although BM1 Williams was aware that his boats would become even better targets, he ordered the patrol boats' search lights turned on to better illuminate the area and moved the patrol perilously close to shore to press the attack. Despite a waning supply of ammunition the patrol successfully engaged the enemy ashore and completed the rout of the enemy force. Under the leadership of BM1 Williams, who demonstrated unusual professional skill and indomitable courage throughout the 3 hour battle, the patrol accounted for the destruction or loss of 65 enemy boats and inflicted numerous casualties on the enemy personnel. His extraordinary heroism and exemplary fighting spirit in the face of grave risks inspired the efforts of his men to defeat a larger enemy force, and are in keeping with the finest traditions of the U.S. Naval Service. Only a BM1. Only the most highly decorated Enlisted Sailor in our history - worth a good name.'Nuff said. Hat tip P. View the full article

... in the Navy, we have something kind-of like that when LT Murphy has the conn.Looks like all that CYA hiding of INSURV reports, "optimal manning" and "transformational" concepts about the skills ships company need to have vice workers ashore is working like gangbusters. Maybe that had something to do with it ... maybe not. Either way - just a good thing no Sailors were hurt. Crews assessed damage on a U.S. Navy assault ship and a refueling tanker that collided in the Pacific Ocean off California, after the steering apparently went out on one of the vessels, the military said. The Wednesday morning accident between the amphibious assault vessel USS Essex and the oiler USNS Yukon occurred about 120 miles off the coast of Southern California as the Essex was approaching the Yukon to be refueled, said Cmdr. Charlie Brown, a spokesman for the 3rd Fleet. ... Brown said the steering apparently stopped working on the 844-foot-long Essex, which was carrying 982 crew members on its way to San Diego for scheduled maintenance. It had spent the past 12 years based in Sasebo, Japan, as command ship for the Navy's Expeditionary Strike Group 7. The Essex was traveling with a new crew that came aboard for the trip to California. The ship recently underwent a crew swap with another amphibious assault ship, the Bonhomme Richard, as part of a standard procedure in the Navy to keep its ships operating. ... the 844-foot-long Essex, which was carrying 982 crew members on its way to San Diego for scheduled maintenance. It had spent the past 12 years based in Sasebo, Japan, as command ship for the Navy’s Expeditionary Strike Group 7. ... "They were probably so close there was no time to respond when the steering went out," said Allen, who served 30 years in the Coast Guard. Steering going out in the middle of UNREP?Neptune is not happy with someone. View the full article