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PLA Navy, Recruiting and Strategic Communications

Recently – earlier this week in fact, the People’s Liberation Army (Navy), or PLAN, released a new recruiting video as part of a larger push begun in early August by the PLA for more recruits – and especially those with degrees.  Pushed to YouTube and other social media, it is at once slick and highlights…

A Guest Post: The 2014 Current Strategy Forum – ‘Where’s The Beef?’

We have a problem, it seems, developing a naval Strategy for the new century.  Long after the Cold War had supposedly ended (well, we thought it was over – events in Russia’s ‘Near Beyond’ may argue a different outcome) we were still using a variation of Forward…From the Sea and thinking from the E-ring Navy…

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“Air Raid Pearl Harbor. This is Not A Drill.” *

* Telegraph from Patrol Wing Two Headquarters warning of the attack on Pearl Harbor Mr. Vice President, Mr. Speaker, Members of the Senate, and of the House of Representatives: Yesterday, December 7th, 1941 — a date which will live in infamy — the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and…

Strategic Communications and the Senkaku Islands
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Strategic Communications and the Senkaku Islands

So – a very good discussion on Midrats yesterday that included a look at China’s maritime claims in the ECS/SCS and regional responses – which of late have seen a ratcheting up of forces in the area.  In the wake of that discussion, I came across the illustration below:      of a cover for a…

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The Doolittle Raid – 70 Years Later: Naval Officers and Planning

Here and elsewhere much has been written of the Doolittle raid, from the bookstand to Hollywood and the curriculum of War Colleges the world over.   Coming fast on the heels of the stunning blows barely four months prior a malevolent arc of destruction and defeat stretching from Pearl Harbor back across the Pacific to…

In The Mail Today: “The Admirals” by Walter R. Borneman
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In The Mail Today: “The Admirals” by Walter R. Borneman

So – just as I was making a serious dent in the pile of shame, in the mail today comes an advance copy of “The Admirals” courtesy the publisher, Little Brown, scheduled for release next month.  The noted author Walter R. Borneman (Polk, 1812, and The French and Indian War among several) takes on the…

Channeling “Streetfighter”? The PLAN’s Houbei FAC
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Channeling “Streetfighter”? The PLAN’s Houbei FAC

“In the information age we substitute mass for speed, a high degree of simultaneity for sequential action,” he said. “And access is highly valued: access to information, access to ideas, access to the domains of conflict. The Streetfighter concepts are meant to secure access and achieve high speed. That is, to be able to alter…

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“Good Fences Make Good Neighbors”

“Washington should show its political will and stop playing with guns on China’s doorsteps. ‘Good fences make good neighbors’ the words of the American poet Robert Frost also hold true for this relationship.” – China Daily (27 July 2011) Last week the Taiwanese press revealed an incident that occurred on the 29th of June wherein…

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Sea-Based BMD — Another Successful Test

  Another test of the SM-3 Blk 1A was successfully completed last night with the intercept of an IRBM-class target: The Missile Defense Agency (MDA), U.S. Navy sailors aboard the Aegis destroyer USS O’KANE (DDG 77), and Soldiers from the 94th Army Air and Missile Defense Command operating from the 613th Air and Space Operations…