Roles and Missions Debate

And so it begins…  “This report seeks to provoke thoughtful public discussion about a vitally important question: how do we keep America strong and safe in a complex 21st-century national security environment?” – Rep. Jim Cooper “Unlike many Congressional reports, we have raised contentious issues and resisted the temptation to find easy, lowest-common-denominator solutions. My…

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The Next Nuclear Strategy for a New Administration – and Three Questions

   The accelerating spread of nuclear weapons, nuclear know-how and nuclear material has brought us to a nuclear tipping point. We face a very real possibility that the deadliest weapons ever invented could fall into dangerous hands.  The steps we are taking now to address these threats are not adequate to the danger. With nuclear…

The New Maritime Strategy: SECNAV’s Speech

SECNAV introduced the new MS before the International Seapower Symposium at Newport last week – and the speech is well worth reviewing if you haven’t heard or seen it yet (available here or with highlights here).   It is revealing in both the expected expository points re. the new MS as well as emphasis he placed in…

The New Maritime Strategy: Responses to Today’s Reactions (23 Oct)

SJS Readers, Another great day on the Maritime Strategy front, including a great back and forth via email with one of the guys I respect most in this town who has some serious problems with the strategy, and some work putting together a series of briefings for flags to take on the road. I continue…

The New Maritime Strategy: Responses to Today’s Reactions

            Good evening, SJS readers.  I’ve spent a good bit of the day scouring the internet for reaction to the Maritime Strategy, and I thought I’d take some time to give some thoughts on issues raised on this blog and others.  Climate change.  There has been some positive reaction to our discussion of climate change,…

The New Maritime Strategy: Precedence of Strategic Concept and Resource Allocation

Quite a bit of back-and-forth over the new MS and lack of discussion over force structure/resource allocation.  Not the first time this has been confronted though and the following paragraph, drawn from a 1954 article in Proceedings by Samuel P. Huntington may be particularly germane to the current discussion: "A second element of a military…