Interview with Ian Bowers about whether coast guards are becoming more militarized, and if the boundaries between navies and coast guards are getting blurred.
USA
Cargo spaceships and pipe dreams
CDR Salamander has a scathing critique of general Hyten’s ideas for logistical spaceships and a centralized virtual combat cloud.
Naval diplomacy with Timothy Choi
In this video Tim Choi explains the basics of naval diplomacy. He also gives his view on the applicability of unmanned ships for FONOPs and a range of other related topics.
Forward basing of US ground troops in Western Pacific is unrealistic
It makes little sense to talk about forward basing of American ground forces in East Asia before addressing the problem that no country wants to host them.
A few questions about the U.S. submarine aggressor squadron
The U.S. Aggressor Squadron (AGGRON) is dedicated to playing the enemy in exercises, but there must be caveats as to how accurately that can be done.
How Donald Rumsfeld deserves to be remembered
Not in a positive light.
Russia and the West moving into state of more “professional antagonism”
The Russian Prosecutor General has declared Bard College an “undesirable organization”. This means that any Russian citizen who maintains a relationship with the American liberal arts school faces up to six years in prison, while all foreign professors and students are banned from Russia. Bard runs a mini-campus in Saint Petersburg, so the number of […]
Do tripwire forces work?
Not according to Paul Poast and Dan Reiter. In this article in War on the Rocks titled Death without deterrence, or why tripwire forces are not enough they argue that nobody is deterred by a militarily insignificant body of soldiers whose only job it is to die. Though tripwire forces offer little deterrence power, larger […]
Russian submarines are dangerous, says U.S. general
Joseph Trevithich writing for The Drive: A senior U.S. military officer has again sounded the alarm about the threat that advanced, very-quiet, cruise-missile-armed Russian submarines, as well as Chinese ones, increasingly present to the United States. At a hearing on Capitol Hill yesterday, U.S. Air Force General Glen VanHerck, who is head of U.S. Northern Command […]
Silo-based nuclear missiles are better than their reputation, and Stanislav Petrov did not save the world
Pavel Podvig has some interesting points on his blog about the Soviet Union’s nuclear strategy and the value of silo-based missiles. Pavel’s point is that silo-based ICBMs are much more useful than they are typically made out to be: Silo-based multiple-warhead ICBMs have a consistently bad reputation with the arms control crowd and nuclear hawks […]