The Russian frigate Admiral Essen tracked down an American Ohio class submarine back in April. That claims a Russian newspaper which puts great pride in the accomplishment. But isn’t it a weird thing to brag about? After all, it does reveal that most of the time you have no clue where the American submarines are.
USA
Article recommendation: The Status Quo Killed 17 US Sailors. The Navy Must Change.
Jon Paris makes a compelling case that the U.S. Navy needs to change its education system and introduce specialized career paths for engineering and operations. This step is well overdue. The idea that one can have the responsibility of either engineering or navigation of a large warship with a one-size-fits-all educational background is just mind boggling.
Lessons for Western armies from the war in Ukraine
Article recommendation: Liam Collins identifies a good list of lessons to be learned from the war in Ukraine about war with a near-pear adversary. Some of the items are old skills that counter-insurgency focused thinking has caused Western armies to forget. Others are truly new.
Leadership culture and a reckless instructor led to U.S. Navy plane crash
A T-45 training aircraft stalled and crashed when the pilot instructor directed the student to perform dangerous maneuvers at low altitude. Leadership culture in the squadron and poor instructor qualifications are among the explanations.
Fear of missile defense traces back to World War II for Russia
Article recommendation about the history of Russian concerns with Western missile defense technology. This is not a new thing, and there is little hope for arms control treaties that do not include missile defense.
On the scholarship-policy gap in foreign politics
John Glaser has written an interesting commentary on War on the Rocks under the title “Truth, Power, and the Academy: A response to Hal Brands”. It is about the relationship between academic expertise and the political establishment in the United States. Last fall, Hal Brands wrote an article in The American Interest in which he […]
Podcast recommendation: WOTR – A big debate about a little nuke
There is a great discussion about Russia and nuclear weapons in this episode of the War on the Rocks podcast. The panel is terrific. Olga Oliker is brilliant, Frank Miller is wrong about most things concerning Russia but argues his case very well, and Vipin Narang has deep technical insights. Ryan and Usha do a […]
Predator retired
Joe Chapa in War on the Rocks: Today, the U.S. Air Force “sunsets” the Predator, permanently retiring it from service. Though individual squadrons have been transitioning from the Predator to the Reaper for some time, that transition is now complete. This provides a good opportunity to look back at the Predator to learn what we […]
Comparison between U.S. and U.K. naval officer training
There is an interesting comparison of U.S. Navy and Royal Navy Officer Training in the March edition of Proceedings. Dr. Anthony Wells has experience from both navies and insights into their training programs. In short, Wells is not impressed by the U.S. seamanship education. He suggests the U.S. Navy can learn a lot from their […]
U.S. Nuclear Posture Review misses the point on Russia
The Pentagon published its Nuclear Posture Review for 2018 (NPR) earlier in February. It dramatically changes some assumptions about nuclear weapons that were laid out in the previous NPR from 2010. The new NPR concludes that there has been a deterioration in international relations with a return to great power competition and a more complex […]
