…but the same vision.  First off best wishes for a safe, happy and prosperous new year for all.

Now then – some of you may have noticed a few changes about the premises.  We’ve been experimenting with a variety of themes these past few months in an attempt to provide something that loads a little faster, is a little crisper and brighter yet doesn’t lean too far into the generic black & white world.  In the end we’ve decided to go with the new version of Cutline – Cutline 2.0 which was designed for WordPress v2.3 and above.  Along with that we’re moving to a two-column theme – hoping that in the process more space will be freed up for articles requiring less use of the WordPress "more" function.

Focus and Direction

Elections ’08.  We’ll address the 800lb gorilla sitting in the room (or elephant/donkey as the case may be). No, we are not going to endorse a candidate. If you like, drop me a note offline and we can discuss it there (you may be surprised if you’ve developed some preconceived notions – be forewarned).  The climate has become too toxic to carry out the kind of civilized discussion we are inclined towards and prefer – and that is a loss.  We witnessed this first hand recently during an email war on a mailing list where sides where demanded to be chosen and motives and character questioned and scrtutinized through a mirror darkly.  We’ll address policies and platforms as they present their relevancy to the discussions at hand, but you will not find a button, link or "I Support…." here for one of the candidates.  As we said – drop us a note off line and we’ll be more than glad to talk about it there.

Focus for ’08. So if not the election, what, pray tell ‘Scribe, will you be focusing on for ’08?  Our focus will be on the following:

• Implementing the Maritime Strategy: Introduced in late 2007, our intent is to both keep the MS front and center as well as hold leadership’s feet to the fire.  We can not, we must not allow it to sit on a shelf and collect dust.  In this effort we hope to be joined by others in the Navy blogsphere and offer space here to those, like Strategy1, who lack similar venues but need to find a way to communicate with the blogsphere;
  
• Developing a New Nuclear Strategy: This is one of those "Under Construction" ideas and was spurred along while reading a post the other day at Dr. Lewis’ site.  We’re almost two decades past the fall of the Soviet Union and we don’t think we as a nation have clearly articulated the need or the requirment for the current nuclear arsenal.  This is another one of those areas that we look forward to a more participatory role from our readership in the coming year (do we sense a theme emerging?) that grows beyond the comments box;
  
• Missile Defense 101: Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.  As we reviewed our intentions in last years’ post, this was one of the highlights we had planned and, sadly, got sidetracked.  Not so this year.  2007 was a banner year for missile defense – and it was also one for ballistic missile development. Lots to write about so we will have a fair amount of material to work with;
  
• Keeping Watch on Key Geopolitical Developments: As stated last year, there are plenty of blogs, good blogs, focused on Iraq and Afghanistan.  Adding this one would be pitching pebbles in the ocean.  Insdtead we will continue our focus on developments primarily in Russia, China, Iran, and the Indian subcontinent.  2008 will see many issues coming to a head, be it the Russian elections, the post-Olympic buzz on China, or the MRCA decision in India;
  
• Remembering our Naval and Naval Aviation heritage: We will continue to honor those traditions and heritage through such postings as Flightdeck Fridays and special series like the Midway 65th anniversary postings from 2007;
  
• Honoring those who have served and sacrificed: And of course, we will continue to participate in the VALOUR-IT challenge as well as continue the MIA post series and our Sept 11th remembrance.

One final note and long-term project for the coming year is the build-up of a virtual library.  One of the great things about living in this age is the wealth of material, original source material, that is available online for research.  The flipside of that coin is the wild-goose aspect of the search for that material with disappearing links, blind alleys and such.  To this end we have thought about putting up a virtual library focused on the topics listed above (to wit, the Maritime Strategy and Nuclear Strategy to begin with) using a variety of online tools to host these documents of public record.  As the saying goes – watch this space for further developments.

All in all, an ambitious year and one that come next December we can all hopefully look back on and say was one gainfully employed and fulfilled.