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USNI Update: Taking Back Our Institution — The Board of Directors Responds (15 Mar Update)

UPDATE (15 Mar) – When does “unanimous” not mean everyone?  When there is a minority dissent. Credibility: 1. capable of being believed; believable: a credible statement. 2. worthy of belief or confidence; trustworthy: a credible witness. e.g., “The degree of credibility of the Board of Directors is diminishing by the day.” Apparently the “run silent/run…

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USNI Update: Taking Back Our Institution — the USNI Editorial Board Weighs In

The Editorial Board of the USNI enters the fight in a major way: The independence of the Institute is paramount; without that openness, the Institute risks simply becoming an organ of whatever entity, whatever program, is deemed permissible by only a few, whomever those may be. It would be difficult to find a member or…

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USNI: Taking Back Our Institution – 7 Mar Update

If you haven’t yet — vote In the mail this past week, one of our readers wrote of something he noticed at the bottom of the email newsletter he’d recently received: The U.S. Naval Institute is an independent forum founded in 1873 to advance the knowledge of sea power, to exchange ideas on national security…

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USNI: Getting It Right

The ongoing furor over the Board of Director’s attempt at a mid-watch hijacking of the Institute’s mission can, unfortunately, overshadow the very good work being done down in the trenches by the editorial board and legion of ink-stained wretches (and I use that term affectionately) in the trenches. Before re-directing to the BoD’s hi-jinks, I’d…

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USNI Ballot: Incompetence is One Thing — Deceit is Another

From comments posted to an article in Foreign Policy (online) yesterday against changing the USNI’s mission statement: As you are aware, since last summer I have had many misgivings about the direction of our board actions. I was skeptical about the ‘advocacy’ word going into the mission statement from the first. With the way this…

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Russia to Proceed with Supersonic Cruise Missile Sale to Syria

Russia has evidently opted to proceed with sales of the SS-NX-26/Yakhont ASCM to the Syrians. The intent was voiced by Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov over the weekend. “The contract,” he told journalists in Vladivostok, “is in progress.” The minister added his country was also bent on carrying through on promises to deliver several Bastion…

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When Does Advocacy Become Lobbying…

…and dissent become heterodoxy? As noted previously, the USNI Board of Directors is asking the membership to approve a new mission statement that changes “the Mission of the Naval Institute to ‘advocating the necessity of global seapower.’” because “The Board believes that the United States must support and maintain a strong, global naval capability and…

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Flightdeck Friday: STS-133 & Last Flight for Shuttle Discovery

The oldest and perhaps most storied of the shuttle fleet, Discovery launched on her final mission today to deliver a final module to the U.S. segment of the International Space Station, the Leonardo Permanent Multipurpose Module, as well as the first humanoid robot to fly in space, Robonaut2. Named for the ships used by Henry…

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USNI: A Change In Mission Statement?

The Board of Directors at the US Naval Institue (of which, full disclosure, I am a Life member) has evidently determined that the “mission statement” that has served the organization for 138 years is in need of an overhaul. Norman Polmar disagrees: I am writing to you–fellow members of the U.S. Naval Institute–to urge that…

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Naval Aviation Centennial: One Astronaut, A Future Astronaut and Reaching for New Heights

Forty-nine years ago – within one day of each other, one astronaut headed for orbit as America’s first to circle the Earth and a future astronaut opened a series of record attempts in the McDonell F4H Phantom: Images Courtesy Rex Features & NASA 20 Feb 1962: Lieutenant Colonel John H. Glenn. USMC, in Mercury spacecraft…