Of the many topics discussed by General Cartwright on Day 1 at USNI/AFCEA Joint Warfighter Conference 2012, it was his discussion of the nexus between electronic warfare and cyberwarfare where the General grabbed my attention. This Sydney Freedberg article at AOL Defense captured the discussion briefly in the last paragraph.

“There is a nexus coming between electronic warfare and cyber,” between traditional electronic jamming and countermeasures and new-fangled hacking, Cartwright concluded. “One knocks the door down and the other goes in and does the dirty work.” The current turf wars between the electronic warfare and cybersecurity communities miss the vital point, he said. In the cyber realm, “we’ve been thinking 90 percent defense, 10 percent offense. That’s bass-ackwards for us,” he said: We need to stand ready to seize the electromagnetic offensive.

There are several questions I have been asking myself since General Cartwright spoke yesterday afternoon, chief among them being what exactly does 90% offensive cyber and 10% defensive cyber look like? Does this mean firewalls need to be reconfigured as smart honeypots, ready to go offensive as soon as an intrusion attempt is made from an unknown or unidentified system? How does this work, and is the existing security model for networked systems fundamentally wrong? General Cartwright actually used the example of protecting a computer with anti-virus software as an example of the defense first mentality in cyber, but I am not convinced that’s a good model for his ideas.

First, let me highlight that I truly appreciate General Cartwright challenging assumptions and projecting alternative futures for how cyber will impact the technologically driven military of the United States; indeed in many ways it’s refreshing to hear. With that said I am not certain that everything is as cut and dry as General Cartwright suggests, and one mans defense may be another mans offense when it comes to the cyber domain.

For example, using the same anti-virus software example, is it accurate to say anti-virus is a purely defensive model of cyber activity, or would it be more accurately to highlight the offensive capabilities triggered in response to threats. As a virus exploits a networked system, anti-virus systems are often configured to counterattack the virus immediately, preventing the execution of rogue code and isolating the rogue code towards preventing further damage to a system. The physical world analogy is to run down the bad guy and throw them in jail – which is difficult to describe as a defensive action. This raises the question, why exactly is 90% defensive and 10% offensive the wrong approach? Use of offensive military power is subject to a variety of factors regardless of domain, and given the way the US spends money on nuclear deterrence, self-defense technologies for people and platforms, and other defense capabilities applied in multiple domains (which can be anything from the investments in stealth in a submarine to jamming technologies of various kinds) – it isn’t as if the posture of US military forces is somehow divided by formulas for offensive and defensive capabilities. With that said, there is no question several nations have taken a 90% offensive and 10% defensive posture against the United States (China being one such nation), and perhaps if we were more offensive in cyber ourselves we would likely influence that balance of action for those attacking us.

Where Cartwright starts really making sense on the issue is specific to aperture exposures that will almost certainly be exploited in some way in the future. Again, from AOL Defense:

“We built the F-35 with absolutely no protection for it from a cyber standpoint,” he said. Just as historical aircraft used to have an “EMCON switch” — short for “emissions control” — that could turn off all electronic transmissions from the aircraft when it needed to avoid detection, Cartwright said, today’s aircraft need a switch that shuts off all the electronic apertures through which they can potentially receive transmissions, lest electronically savvy enemies hack into them. “As a guy who spends his life on the offensive side of cyber, every aperture out there is a target,” Cartwright said.

OK, the General is discussing deep cyber theory to a general audience, so this means something different depending upon how much your understanding is on the details. Basically what Cartwright is suggesting is that any radar is an aperture because similar to the way false signals can be fed into radar signals. The theory is an encoded signal can be sent through the data stream to a radar to exploit the integrated system. The problem is the processing isn’t there to do that yet, so there really isn’t any way to defend against it because the capability doesn’t actually exist. The General is rightly applying Moore’s Law here, but is also combining a conclusion that eventually the ability to exploit every aperture will be possible and that is what allows his theory to be promoted – and on Cyber issues the General is certainly credible enough on the issue to be taken seriously.

Indeed this is probably some legitimate fortune telling regarding challenges in 2025 and beyond, and as delays occur with JSF perhaps that is the right platform to highlight as vulnerable. But it’s also futurist and while the discussion is important (particularly in conferences like Joint Warfighter) – it’s theory and difficult to reconcile as a vulnerability that can be planned for at this time. Another real issue with Joint Strike Fighter is that all of that code will make it difficult – thus very expensive – to adapt a defensive posture against such threats in the future. Again, in a military of advanced systems with lots of code in advanced software – this is going to continuously be a challenge until the development cycle of complicated systems can be shortened significantly.

Cartwright is exactly right to forewarn on these issues, because in a sense he is exactly right – apertures are of every kind are issues that must be dealt with in the evolving cyber challenge – and the ability to turn off apertures as receivers is a defensive tripwire that may need to be integrated into future systems. When the US is heading down a networked way of war, turning off apertures is going to make that whole ‘network’ aspect of future war very difficult. A lot to think about, hopefully the video is online soon for others to watch and discuss.

In listening to the General speak, I was made to wonder why we cannot get such sentiments from active duty flags.  Surely I appreciate the sensitive positions such men hold, and the fact that they occupy positions where their words reflect on those personnel and programs in their charge.  But, there must be something we communication professionals are not doing for them that prevents remarks like this being often more regularly, or at all while in uniform.

It is not about ‘tough talk’ as much as it is the presence GEN Cartwright had on stage.  It borders on being zen-like how he effortlessly moved from topic-to-topic with out the use of  a prompter, notes or PowerPoint.  Seeing such mastery of diverse and indepth is in every respect refreshing.  It reassures me that those who make the decision to send me into harms way are that good.

GEN Cartwright’s full speech

European Union forces on Tuesday attacked a Somali pirate base for the first time, using a combat helicopter to strafe several of the signature fiberglass skiffs that the pirates use to hijack ships.
***
Lt. Cmdr. Jacqueline Sherriff, a spokeswoman for the European Unions anti-piracy force, said that the European forces destroyed at least five skiffs that were still on land with small arms fire and that the attack lasted a couple of minutes. This is a fantastic opportunity,’’ she said. “What we want to do is make life more difficult for these guys.’’

No “boots on the ground” – but a necessary move to slow down the pirates.

Now, pirate whining as reported by the AP at Somali pirate: EU airstrike destroyed equipment:

A burning pirate skiff from a previous counter-piracy event

A Somali pirate says an airstrike by the European Union naval force patrolling the Indian Ocean has destroyed speed boats, fuel deports and an arms store.

Bile Hussein, a pirate commander, said Tuesday the attack on Handulle village in the Mudug region will cause a setback to pirate operations. The village lies about 18 kilometers (11 miles) north of Haradheere town, a key pirate lair. There were no reports of deaths in the attack, Hussein said.

Oh, no! Not a “setback!”

Meanwhile, out at sea, Turkish forces took on an apparent pirate “mother ship” – as reported here:

Turkish commandos have arrested 14 pirates thought to be from Somalia off the coast of Oman and freed seven Yemeni sailors they were holding hostage, the army said on May 13. A helicopter of the frigate Giresun, which operates with NATO forces in the region, spotted the boat on May 11 around 190 nautical miles from the Omani coast, the army said in a statement on its website. Commandos stormed the boat and seized nine assault weapons, a rocket launcher and other materials, said the statement, which was accompanied by photographs showing the suspects with their arms in the air as the raid began.

More from Saturn5 over at his blog, Bosphorus Naval News (more photos at his site and here):

The S-70B Seahawk helicopter attached to TCG Giresun spotted the dhow at 14:50, 190 nautical miles off the coast of Yemen. The dhow acting as a mother ship was stopped by the helicopter and TCG Giresunarrived at the dhow and the naval special forces team boarded the dhow at 17:00. 14 Somali pirates were arrested and 7 Yemeni fisherman, the original crew of the dhow were freed by naval commandos.

Taking the fight to the pirates!

Well done to all involved!

(cross-post from EagleSpeak)

In the last couple of decades, China’s “Diplomatic” and “Military” areas are a solid green with up-arrows. Though I would give “Information” a yellow with an up arrow, I will give a nod to those who would give the Communists a green.

Economic? That is a lot trickier than people think. I lean towards the demographic-wonk mantra, “China will get old before they get rich,” – but if you want a good look at another view on China’s “Economic” that you won’t get from Thomas Friedman, a nice primmer would be Reihan Salam’s latest at NR.

Without a sound economy … the dragon may not be as large or as scary, as some think – but it may be more dangerous for other reasons.

… across a wide range of economic, technological, and military indicators, the United States is actually, in the words of political scientist Michael Beckley, “wealthier, more innovative, and more militarily powerful compared to China than it was in 1991.” As Beckley explains in a recent article in International Security, China’s growth in per capita income, value added in high technology, and military spending is impressive primarily because China is starting from such a low base. That the United States has continued to grow across all of these dimensions is making it exceedingly difficult for China to catch up. Beckley thus concludes that China is “rising in place.” That is, while China is improving its economic and military position in absolute terms, it is stagnating relative to America, even in an era of sluggish U.S. growth.
…
While we can expect China at some point to have an economy somewhat larger than that of the United States — after all, China has four times our population — the country is plagued by pervasive corruption and bad debts that are already undermining its growth prospects.
…
China’s population is aging rapidly, and soon the country will have to carry the weight of tens and eventually hundreds of millions of retirees. … China’s growth is already slowing as a result. Since 2001, China has grown at an annual rate of 10.1 percent. This year, however, Chinese GDP is expected to grow at 7.5 percent. Further, the official statistics almost certainly conceal the extent of the decline.
…
The real threat from China is not that it will grow so economically strong that it will bestride the world like a colossus. Rather, it is that it will become so weak and vulnerable as to collapse, or to lash out at its neighbors.

When you build the next military – do you ponder how to deal with a near competitor in 25-years, or how to handle the violent collapse of a nation 4-times your size in 25-years? How would they look different, and how do you hedge one outcome vs the other?

Letter from Congressman Randy Forbes and Congressman Todd Akin to Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus dated May 1, 2012.

Dear Secretary Mabus:

In 1981, then-Secretary of the Navy, John Lehman, issued a Memorandum on “Ship Counting Methodology” for counting Battle Force ships. Noting the political nature associated with how ships are counted, Lehman believed the Carter Administration “overstated the overall size of the Navy” and that a methodology for ship counting was therefore required to count “those ships which actually contribute to the Navy’s wartime mission of combat and support.”

We revisit this history because we are concerned the Department of the Navy may again choose to alter the rules by which it has abided for the last three decades when counting the total Battle Force size in an effort to exhibit to the public a larger fleet than actually exists. In your February 2012 testimony before the House Armed Services Committee you stated that:

The new FSA (Force Structure Analysis) will consider the types of ships included in the final ship-count based on changes in mission, requirements, deployment status, and capabilities. For example, classes of ships previously not part of the Battle Force such as AFSBs developed to support SOF/non-traditional missions, Patrol Combatant craft forward deployed to areas requiring that capability, and COMFORT Class Hospital Ships deployed to provide humanitarian assistance, an expanded core Navy mission, may be counted as primary mission platforms. Any changes in ship counting Rules will be reported and publicized.

To our knowledge, the Congress has not received notification of a change in the rules. And on April 18, 2012, Undersecretary of the Navy, Robert O. Work, reaffirmed this fact when he said “The 300 ships that we [will] have in 2019 are ships that we count right now.” However, in an interview with Defense News from April 30, 2012, Undersecretary Work also stated that the Navy is “looking at updating (its) counting rules.”

Considering your testimony from February and Undersecretary Work’s statements, we write today to inquire if your office has plans to revisit the methodology it has used for counting the Battle Force since the release of the Febtuary 2006 Navy plan for 313-ships? More specifically, is the Navy still considering counting Patrol Coastal Ships (PC) or Hospital Ships (T-AH) as part of the Battle Force? Given that the Congress is tasked by the Constitution to “provide and maintain a Navy,” we trust that any changes to how the Battle Force is counted will be executed in full consultation with the Legislative Branch so that a mutually agreeable outcome can be achieved.

As always, thank you for your service to the Department of Defense, the Department of the Navy, and the Nation.

This letter is posted online in PDF format as part of this AOL Defense article. The May 29, 1981 memo by Secretary Lehman was previously classified, but has since been declassified and is available at this link. If you haven’t seen the memo I encourage you to take a look, because Lehman was specific that the wartime mission of the Navy drove decisions for counting. It is noteworthy that the memo didn’t need much explanation either – in other words the guiding methodology for what was and was not a battle force ship was short, simple, and to the point.

The potential classification of Patrol Coastal Ships (PC) or Hospital Ships (T-AH) as battle force ships is largely seen as a political issue at a time when the Navy is currently having trouble reaching a goal of 300 ships.

For example, what exactly is the point of counting the current Patrol Coastal Ships (PC) as battle force ships? The Navy has never given much thought about the PCs, indeed has never demonstrated until very recently they actually wanted the ships – which is why the US Coast Guard operated several of them for years, and now once the PCs approach end of life the Navy suddenly not only upgrades their weapon capabilities but wants to count PCs as battle force ships? All of the PCs are already between 12-19 years old and their life is only considered to be about 25 years at best – meaning all current PCs are likely to be retired between 2020-2025 anyway. The shipbuilding plan doesn’t include a PC replacement, so other than being able to count ships as part of the battle force for the short term, what exactly is to be gained? Is this only a political issue?

Here is another question… what if the Navy decides to put in a PC replacement? Does counting PCs as battle force ships benefit in any way should a potential PC replacement program pop up?

The Hospital Ships (T-AH) are a different issue entirely. At first my thought was, why not… after all the hospital ships today can serve in a support role for wartime operations, and are used for soft power operations today which are missions that have also been conducted by amphibious ships counted by the rules.

However, the reason I think the Hospital Ships (T-AH) are more problematic is that the hospital ships are specifically used as part of a diplomatic role for the United States, and their missions are executed under concepts rooted in Strategic Communications. Does it undermine the strategic communications aspect of medical diplomacy if the Navy starts counting the hospital ships as part of the “battle force?” All it takes is for one US hating foreign reporter to write a front page article how the Hospital Ships are “battle force ships” according to the US Navy and the STRATCOM of Medical Diplomacy with hospital ships becomes an uphill political climb. If the missions the hospital ships are deployed on have any function in strategic communications on behalf of the United States, it does appear claiming those ships as “battle force ships” would in fact be counter to the purpose of the ships missions in the 21st century, and be counterproductive without any obvious benefit.

I am not sure if the Navy gains by listing the hospital ships as part of the battle force.  My sense is there is some loss in strategic communications, but how big or small that loss is depends a lot on how important the Navy considers the strategic communications of the hospital ship missions to be on these medical diplomacy deployments. It may not be  a big deal though?

Last week an interview by Chris Cavas of Undersecretary Bob Work that discussed this topic was posted to Navy Times here. It covers the PCs and Hospital Ships, as well as JHSVs and other ships including special mission ships under consideration related to counting rules. Is this simply politics, or is there more to it than politics?

Time will tell.

…is still very likely my enemy.  The Associated Press, via WAPO, tells us that US intelligence sources think it likely that Al Qaeda is now in Syria, taking advantage of the strife.   This little surmise should surprise nobody, and serve as yet another data point for the assertion that Al Qaeda is subsuming the “Arab Spring” and bringing rise to Islamists and Islamist-dominated governments across the Middle East and northern Africa.

A curious comment from SECDEF Leon Panetta:

“Frankly we need to continue to do everything we can to determine what kind of influence they’re trying to exert there,” Panetta said.

We do?  After eleven years of war, and AQ migration to Egypt, Libya, Yemen, and Somalia, we need to determine what kind of influence they’re trying to assert?   Seems we have a pretty good idea already.   (Before the shrieks that MB is not AQ, those two organizations are tightly linked both philosophically and physically.  The success of one is the success of the other.)

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney informs:

“We do not believe this kind of attack that you saw in Damascus is representative of the opposition,” Carney said. “There are clearly extremist elements in Syria, as we have said all along, who are trying to take advantage of the chaos in that country — chaos brought about by Assad’s brutal assault on his own people.”

CJCS General Dempsey echoes Carney, in a Fox News piece:

“We do know that there have been extremist elements that are trying to make inroads in Syria,” he said. “That is to be distinct from the opposition. I’m not tying those together.”

But, as the Fox article asserts, sometimes the line between them is unclear.  It will get increasingly blurred.  The Al Nusrah Front is an Al Qaeda affiliate, merging with AQ similarly to how Al Shabaab in Somalia has done.

Perhaps at this juncture such attacks as the bombings in Damascus are not representative, but soon they will be.  Al Qaeda will increase its influence and quickly push genuine opposition to Assad’s regime aside, and pave the way yet again for hard-line Islamists to firmly grip the levers of power.   As they have done successfully in Egypt, and in Libya, and Tunisia, and are attempting in Yemen and Morocco.

Kudos to the Obama Administration for not rushing willy-nilly to provide weapons and support for the Syrian opposition.  Even if they had started out as a viable counter to a repressive anti-Western dictatorship, the interjection (welcome or not, see: Al Shabaab) of Al Qaeda and the Islamic extremists into the vacuum of instability would quickly make such support an exceedingly ill-advised policy.   +1

However, the President’s recent declaration of the demise of Al Qaeda and the end of the War on Terror (whatever one thinks of the name) is equally ill-advised, and does not reflect a realistic understanding of our enemies and their continued relevance in the Muslim world.   At the very least, someone should have included a resilient, networked, and elusive enemy on the distribution list of the memo ending the GWOT.  -1

In addition, there is the Administration’s abject refusal to name our enemies for what they are, Islamic Extremists, bent on the destruction of Israel and subjugation of the West.  Recent publicity surrounding what was reported to be an anti-Islamic course of study by the Joint Forces Staff College will cause further reluctance to publicly identify our enemies, adding to the loss of focus and dissipation of the efforts to defeat an enemy that has vowed a multi-generational struggle against us.  -2

As a result, the comments and my responses were all over the page.  Many readers brought up legitimate points that deserve attention.  It’s a disservice to brush over these, and I have barely even started scratching the surface.  So I’m going to simplify things.  This will (hopefully) be a long-running blog, so I’ll try to stick to addressing one issue per post, posting only every week or so, as time allows.

First issue: is this just about my choices, or is it bigger than that?

For the first few years after my oldest was born, I was on AD, and the scarcity of other female pilots (and absolute lack of pilots who were also single mothers) meant all of my decisions were made in a vacuum with little outside guidance/support.  When faced with the reality of what I was trying and failing to do, I looked at my options and chose the only one that made sense given what was available.  I got out.  Switched over to the Reserves.

I assumed I was alone or one of only a handful in my situation.  Accepted in, didn’t like it, but figured that was it and I would find other ways to contribute.  But as a Reservist, I kept running into other Reservists, male and female (all male at first because of my MOS), with similar stories. So about two years ago, I started looking into what the policies were across the services, and what many seniors and peers—again, of both genders—had decided and done.  Kept coming back to the same stories, the same decision points.

So I thought, maybe we should start talking about it.  Many of y’all have asked if this is a selfish thing on my part, and perhaps I should just accept the options available and get over it, or if it’s really for the good of the services.  It’s a valid question, for sure.

My experience has shown me that it’s not just me, not by far.  As more women enter the service, dual military marriages increase, and men take on greater responsibilities at home because of shifting gender roles, increasing loss of mid-grade enlisted and officer members absolutely will affect readiness and numbers.   Many of the responses back this up.

The Reserves are one choice, made by many.  But the inefficiencies of the Reserves bother me, the severe limitations of the Reserve contributions.  Within my own job I’ve tried to manage that and somewhat improve it, but why stop there?  Innovation is not the enemy.  There are certainly holes in some of the ideas I will propose in future blogs.  But that’s where informed, open-minded readers come in.

There are shortages in the force, even with manpower drawdowns.  There are members—of both genders, again—that want to stay but cannot with existing policies.  Is it possible to be on the tip of a spear, or to make flag rank, pursuing alternate career paths like those I’ve suggested and will suggest?  Likely not.  But most of us would happy to retire at 20 or 30 at any rank as long as we feel we were able to make a difference and continue to serve.

And again, these are ideas that do—and should—affect both genders.

So I’m trying to think outside of the proverbial box.  Which is not a bad thing.  Looking forward to future input…just don’t expect my posts to be as frequent or as long.  Thanks for reading.

Counting the four years at USNA, I’ve been in the Navy/Marine Corps for about 18 years now.  Most of my fleet experiences were as the lone female pilot in a squadron, and eventually one of two.  While I haven’t been in the military since the Stone Age, I’m no spring chicken, either.  My professional record can speak for itself.

Many of these arguments and questions posted in earlier comments and mentioned when topics like these are broached are practical, common sense questions with valid points to them, ones worth debating.  And others are not.  I hope to address the former and briefly touch on the latter.

I’m basing this blog on what I learned early on in the fleet when I ran into friction from others because of my gender.  People say and think some dumb stuff based on biases, preconceived ideas, and rumors, and I saw a fair amount of this over the years.  The best way to answer that was to just do my job as best I could and eventually everyone forgot about the whole “girl” thing and I was just another pilot plugging away.  This only failed me once, which means only one dude out of about, I don’t know, 5,000, couldn’t get past my gender.

Same for this blog.  If I write about my experiences, which are like those many men and women face midway through their careers, maybe we can explore some other options.  And maybe when my kids grow up they won’t have to choose either-or for family and ambition.  Because I’m a woman, and because of my particular experiences, this means we’ll go through the women-in-the-military questions as well.  Which is fine.

Please read the entire post before haranguing me for a sentence or paragraph here or there.  And it may take a few minutes, because—as I’ve said before—I am prolific.

So here goes.

A couple basic points:

–I mentioned sabbaticals and greater-than-reserve contributions as some options in my last comment.  But I do not want to limit this discussion to those alone.  Let’s assume that there is nothing in existing policy that prohibits or discourages dual active-duty families.  If this is the case, I contend that we are not doing a good enough job holistically looking at all avenues to facilitate the success of these servicemembers. This is not specifically about my responsibilities, it’s about the responsibilities of a family and a service.  If my husband and I have a child while both are on active duty, we are both impacted.  Active duty families are more commonplace, and will continue to be so.

–I do not feel that the military “owes” anything.  I do, however, believe that the military will face a growing problem with retention of educated, loyal members OF BOTH GENDERS if it does not seek out some alternatives to the all-or-nothing ones currently in place (see above paragraph).  This is the backbone of my argument.

–While women tend to bear the brunt of the family work (we can have a deeper discussion about this later), both men and women are affected when starting a family.  Everything I am suggesting should be applicable to both genders.  Both civilian and military members have increasingly begun to ask why things aren’t different, and why we haven’t worked out some more options.  This will not abate anytime soon.  And I think that is a good thing.

–Women, unlike men, can’t have children later in life.  So is it right that my choice, since I was born female, should be to have or forgo children right at the time in my military career that it matters most?  It’s not like I can put it off till I’m 42, despite what women in Hollywood do.  Women, too, have ambitions and want to serve their country in unique and challenging ways.  Yes, some families make it work, with the help of other family members or special circumstances.  The majority do not, despite plenty of trying.

–As a few readers pointed out, the civilian workforce is trending toward more family-friendly policies and options.  Telework, flex days, sabbaticals, while not possible in all jobs, are more commonplace now than 10 years ago.  The military is not a normal civilian entity (let me say that before someone else does), but that doesn’t mean it can’t take lessons from the civilian workforce.

–Concern over the impact sabbaticals or part-time work would have on the force: I can’t remember off the top of my head which posters asked about this, but the gist of the comments were that we can’t waste billets/boat spaces on part-time people and have an effective force.  One word for you here, though: RESERVES.  We already do it.  People drill 2 days a month and 2 weeks in the summer, and then they go deploy and are actually effective.  But as a current, drilling Reservist, I can attest to the inefficiency of some of the ways Reservists are used.  We can and should use taxpayer dollars and Reservists’ experience more efficiently.  If someone can drill 38 days a year and then go competently into a deployment, why would it be worse if they drilled 76 days a year?  Or 114?  The point is, we already exercise a similar type of program, and have for years.  But that program fails to take advantage of some of the best qualities of its members, and does not attract enough outgoing active duty folks.  We can improve on it.

–I’m not advocating a constant sabbatical, nor am I asserting that I can stay in part-time and still be on the cutting edge or tip of the spear constantly.  But all-or-nothing is no solution, either.  The military loses a wealth of experience in the loss of mid-grade enlisted and officer members (again: of both genders), and will continue to do so, at an increasing rate.  Do we “have” to do any of the things I suggest, or think about them at all?  Of course not, but we’d be shooting ourselves in the foot.  We have an opportunity to make it better, why not use it?

I’m going to use a few quotes from the comments section on my first post and directly respond here.

“I don’t want to get into the discussion on here, but do you really want your kids in child care long enough for you to be a full-time Marine and a mom?”  Of course not, but neither do any parents, mothers OR fathers.  The idea that my priorities should be different because of my gender is not valid.   My whole point is that it makes sense to have better options available to servicemembers both with—and without—families.  Those without often realize 5-10 years in that a family might be a good idea, but for females in this position, waiting until retirement is not an option.  Neither is it for many men.

“You are basically saying that since they opened the door to you and allowed this disruption to occur, we should make more allowances and disruptions in service to further make life easier for women to be in the military and have families.”  I’m going to address the first half of this statement further below, so moving on to the second half: anyone who has been in the fleet knows that men cause their share of problems.  I served with both male and female enlisted Marines, and proportionally the men caused more problems than women did.  Are DUIs not disruptive, especially when they come on the eve of a deployment?  What about domestic abuse, alcoholism, and the 22-year-old who got arrested making donuts on somebody’s front lawn in Oceanside while drinking beer?  The month before a deployment?

Pregnancy, which, by the way, is an amazing thing, not something to be cursed at or wished away, is way down there on the list of things that can disrupt a unit about to deploy.  What about the SSgt who pops positive two months before a deployment? Or the Marine who steals a car in Okinawa and gets arrested by the Japanese police?  The senior officer and department head who gets a DUI?  The Marine whose mother gets terminally ill?  The conscientious objector that appears right before a deployment?  Of all of the incidents and disruptions a unit faces prior to and during a deployment, pregnancy can certainly be considered one, but it’s by no means even among the worst or hardest to get past.

So let’s get past pregnancy as an awful thing that should somehow ban women from the armed forces, or as something that women should avoid at all costs or be ashamed of, heaven forbid.

Yes, there will always be those who abuse the system, just as with any system.  But we don’t ban single 21-year-old men from the military, even though they tend to get in trouble easily.  The abusers, while legendary in many people’s minds, are actually fewer and further between than one might expect from the discussion.

“So, now the military has already given up spots to women to be trained in most aspects of military life.”  This line of thinking has been around for awhile.  Given up spots to women?  I was ranked first in my winging class, which was how I earned my chance to fly Cobras in the Marine Corps.  And I am not unique.  Just like men do, women work incredibly hard to get where they want to go.  My spot belonged to me because I busted my butt for it.

I jumped around a bit in this post, but the gist of it is that women are not going away, and the changes I’m proposing and problems I mention are not really unique to women, either.  Since I’m on page 3 here, I’m going to quit for now.  Here’s this last bit in closing:

The vast majority of the comments have been professional, and that is appreciated…and also expected.  In reading the comments, I ran across a link to a blog written by Sol, one of the commenters.  If you want to read it yourself, click on his name on the comments section and it’ll take you right there.  You’ll read some pretty derogatory comments, a personal attack on my sex life and choices.  You may need to skip to page 3 or 4 by now, because he made these comments back on the day I made my first post.  Here’s one of his thoughts:

“She was pregnant at the time. PATHETIC! Personal opinion but few things disgust me more than to see women walking around pregnant in Cammies.”

This is not conducive to any kind of educated, informed discussion.  Rather, it’s a hostile personal attack.  But why?   Hostility usually hides ignorance, fear, and/or general intimidation.  If the above statement reflects the average opinion of single, 21-year-old male Marines (pretty sure it doesn’t), give me one married Marine (of either gender) over 10 of ones who think like that.  Maturity, responsibility, and patience tend to increase with parenthood.   Let’s not shoot ourselves in the foot.  It’s not political correctness, it’s common sense.

No guests on this week’s show – just open phone and open topic. Join Sal from the blog “CDR Salamander” and EagleOne from “Eagle Speak” for the full hour as they discuss the full range of maritime and national security issues. Shipbuilding, procurement programs, maritime strategy, piracy, and larger national security trends – we’ll cover it all. This is also the listener’s chance to ask Sal and EagleOne about the topics and issues they would like addressed, or to amplify topics from other shows. Here’s your chance …..

Go here to join in (or to download the show later) or, if you can’t play today, listen to the show at iTunes and find out who asked what . . .

The reason for doing this was to demonstrate the ability to crowsource funding for initiatives that are championed by ideologies that are on the hard-power end of foreign policy.

As the last blog I posted demonstrates, the ability for motivated individuals to become active in a conflict exists and is very real.  What amounts to DIY intervention can have an impact upon the course of World events (similar to the warning given to us service members from the SECDEF).  To me, what this says is that citizens no longer only vote for a foreign policy with their ballots, but they can also–directly–do so with their wallets, time and skill-sets.

The conditions are right, and the historical precedent is now set for the ‘memetic stew’ to bring forth a Non-Governmental Organization as a third option that takes elements from Kony2012, private security firms, and Kiva for those who wish to see some sort of change in the World.

What strikes me as ironic, is that the words typically espoused towards supporting World peace, are now the intellectual foundation under which we may see a new method for hard power applied in the World.  This is not to say that the end goals of those who see the utility of hard power is all that different from those who see greater utility in soft power.

Rather, in the long term, I am interested to see if the potential I’ve outlined here coalesces to incorporate both hard and soft power elements.  Such a coalescing would amount to a private sector analog to a nation’s foreign policy.  Which would, arguably, be the tipping point for the replacement of the Westphalian era, where an organizational paradigm like a government is no longer required to bring together the ends, ways and means to execute foreign policy.

Nick Velez is a former Marine.  He is opening a sports pub in the LA suburb of Downey, CA.  It seems some don’t like the name he chose, nor do they understand why he chose it.   The Marine Corps Times has a great article.

Seems Nick was a member of Second Battalion, Fourth Marines.  Every Devil Dog knows their nickname.  “The Magnificent Bastards”.  A nickname bestowed upon them by their Battalion Commander during the fierce fighting around Leatherneck Square in Vietnam in 1966.

At least one City Councilman gets it:

He will be opening it,” said City Councilman Mario Guerra, who supports Bastards.

Guerra, the father of a former Marine, heard that some locals plan to picket Bastards. One woman asked what she should tell her young son the name “Bastards” means.

Guerra said to tell her son the story of 2/4 and the Bastard Marines who have fought, died and served in combat for their country.

Semper Fi, Nick.  And best of luck with the new venture.  I served alongside 2/4 in those hard, bloody days in Ramadi in 2004, when that Battalion paid a heavy price, but put an ass-whipping on the enemy.   Below are the words of then-LtCol Paul Kennedy, CO of 2/4 during those months of sharp combat:

Early in the morning we exchanged gunfire with a group of insurgents without significant loss. As morning progressed, the enemy fed more men into the fight and we responded with stronger force. Unfortunately, this led to injuries as our Marines and sailors started clearing the city block by block. The enemy did not run; they fought us like soldiers. And we destroyed the enemy like only Marines can. By the end of the evening the local hospital was so full of their dead and wounded that they ran out of space to put them. Your husbands were awesome all night they stayed at the job of securing the streets and nobody challenged them as the hours wore on. They did not surrender an inch nor did flinch from the next potential threat. Previous to yesterday the terrorist thought that we were soft enough to challenge. As of tonight the message is loud and clear that the Marines will not be beaten.

Magnificent Bastards, all.    The name on the sign of Nick Velez’s establishment is fine tribute to them.  If you are in Downey, stop in for a frosty mug and some wings.

h/t  Al “Hard Justice”

All three of my kids have flight time in Marine Corps aircraft.  My oldest daughter, almost 7 years old, has 110.9 total hours, all in a Cobra.  36.4 of those are from night vision goggle flights (22.6 of them under low light conditions, thank you very much), and she was along for the ride on my Night Systems Instructor (NSI) check flight, since I was 4 months pregnant when I completed the qualification. She used to kick like crazy in there when we’d shoot the 20mm.  Liked the sound the 2.75-inch rockets made coming off, too.

My second daughter, now 3 years old, has fewer hours.  She only has 25.4 hours in the Cobra, 4.5 of them on NVGs (but all 4.5 under low light conditions), since by then we knew that Cobra pilots definitely were not allowed to fly pregnant (OPNAV was not clear, and as there had never been a pregnant Cobra pilot before, we made our best guess the first time).  I waited until the end of my first trimester to ground myself, since that’s the traditionally “safer” time to tell people that you are pregnant.

My son, now 18 months, didn’t get to fly in a Cobra (poor dude), but he does have 30.7 hours in a King Air (UC-12B).  None on goggles, since they don’t do that stuff.  And he never seemed particularly impressed by the aircraft, since he didn’t do extra kicking or shifting to let me know.

But I digress.  This is my first post as a USNI blogger-person, so maybe I should back up a bit.  Chronologically speaking.  While looking through some of the USNI blog entries a few months ago, I noticed something interesting.  Or rather, I noticed—in an interested way—that something was lacking.  There’s an amazing breadth of experience and knowledge available there, and the subjects addressed are broad and relevant.  But I didn’t see anything out there remotely reminiscent of my experiences in the Marine Corps or at USNA.  And considering it’s been 14 years since I graduated and got commissioned this month (plus the 4 years by the bay), that is…interesting.  I know, in some eyes having only 14 years in makes me a baby.  Which is wonderful, because these days I’m feeling pretty old.  But at the same time, young women and men are signing up for the Navy or Marine Corps today, and they could have similar decisions to make.  My choices and my story could help them.  And with greater numbers of women joining the military, experiences like mine will become more common.  Which makes this stuff…relevant.

In case the bio didn’t show up, here’s my story:

I’m a USNA grad, class of 1998.  Graduated, got a commission in the Marine Corps, and set off for TBS and flight school.  Winged in February 2001, selecting West Coast Cobras, since East Coast (New River) skid squadrons weren’t accepting women yet (I was quite happy to go to Camp Pendleton anyway, but found the restriction interesting.  As in, “Really?  You’re going to force me to go to Southern California, and keep me out of Jacksonville, NC?  OK, twist my arm…”).  Went through SERE school and the Cobra FRS, and—after my checkride from the FRS got delayed, since it was originally scheduled for September 11, 2001—checked into HMLA-369.

I was the third female Marine to fly the Cobra (I think) and the first in my squadron (the only one for most of my time there).  This led to some great stories—mostly funny ones, a few disgusting ones, and one or two downright wrong ones.  It was a familiar role after USNA and TBS.  And to be honest, men are just as catty as women, only they are less honest about their cattiness.  I went to an all-girls Catholic high school for all four years, and the only real difference between my four years there and my four years at USNA was the smell in the hallways.

At 369, I deployed three times (SE Asia/31^st MEU, then Iraq, and another Thirty-worst MEU again), went on a bunch of dets, made some lifelong, amazing friends, served under two fascinating and inspiring commanding officers, and worked in Operations for the majority of my time there.  Loved it, loved it, loved it.  I miss it terribly (especially these days as I fly a desk in the Pentagon part-time and run around with three little kids the rest of the time).

Pre-flight school, back in 1999, I married my husband, a USMC infantry officer.  We did NOT want kids.  Of the first 9 years of our marriage, we lived in the same state for about 3 of them.  In my mind, kids = wasted career.  We were happy being childless and laughed at the idea of having kids, and how it would “ruin” things.  Why would we ever want to have kids, right?   Anyone with kids is laughing at us and the stupidity of that comment.

But…as it turned out, we had three kids, who are now aged almost 7, 3, and 18 months.  And instead of still flying, still deploying, and staying on active duty for 20 or more years, I find myself a Reservist with three little kids, not flying at all, and driving myself crazy.  This was NOT the original plan.  It took me three years to accept the fact that life had changed (in what was a wonderful way, of course, but I didn’t see it like that at first).  And I don’t know that I’ve really accepted it yet.

I don’t regret the choice to leave active duty for the Reserves (when my oldest was 2 ½ years old), but it shouldn’t have been the only viable option.  I had nearly ten years in at the time, advanced qualifications in the aircraft, and the desire to keep doing it all.  For a long, long time.  But single-parenting through most of my oldest daughter’s first two years of life showed that I could not do it all, at least not without something coming off of the track.  I went kicking and screaming from active duty, but did not see any other way, since I was failing at parenting and failing at being a Marine Corps officer/pilot.  And that is one big reason that the services lose experienced women and men at a certain point in their lives and careers.  But is it necessary?

This seems like a good forum to encourage dialogue and a sharing of ideas and experiences.  Professionally.  In this vein, I want to tell my story, as a pilot, a mother, a veteran, a Reservist, and also a Marine spouse (which is also growing more and more common these days).  I want to ask a bunch of questions, maybe get a couple good ideas, and try to focus some attention on what will be a growing issue in the military.

Comments are encouraged.  I can only tell my story, and hopefully that will encourage greater dialogue on the topic(s).  But with women being allowed into more fields, the ongoing debate about women in combat (which I have some strong feelings and thoughts about), and about a million other things going on that are downright fascinating, these topics are relevant.

Plus, I can tell some good stories.

As the alleged plotters batted around assorted attack ideas–like bombing a “Nazi/Klan headquarters” or blowing up a Federal Reserve bank–Wright joked that he would wear a suicide vest and blow himself up, “but advised he would have to be very drunk.”

If this next Course of Action were proposed in an OPT in the E-Ring, the author might be praised for “thinking outside the box” and earn him/herself a Legion of Merit.   However, “outside the box” is a big place, and this idea is probably there for a reason:

Baxter also “suggested (acquiring thumb) tacks that they could throw out of the back of the car if they get in a chase.” This getaway tactic was last successfully used in a Batman episode from 1967.

There is no independent confirmation that the below image shows Robin calling Triple A from the side of the road because the Batmobile has two flat tires from running over thumbtacks.

Very thankfully, the plot in Cleveland was discovered and a tragedy averted.  And that isn’t a joke.  But, I am betting the FBI case handler has got some stories he will tell well into retirement.

Motivated individuals were able to lend support and comfort to the rebels in Libya during the conflict.  From giving instructions on first aid, to providing bandwidth and archiving services for the rebels messaging and other things, ‘civilians’ from Europe and elsewhere were able to support the rebels.

The phrase I find most interesting in the article is that the conflict was “fought with global brains, NATO brawn, and Libyan blood.” On this side of the pond, a lot of ink has been spilled for how the approach utilized by the Allies is a new model for conflict intervention.  While I see that as certainly being a possibility, the conflict model for Libya writ large (encompassing much more than just NATO’s role in Libya) is much more likely to become the archetype for contemporary conflicts.

There are a lot of implications for civilians being able to personally intervene in conflicts:

• Are such motivated (could we term them super-empowered?) individuals still considered non-combatants in a conflict if they give support or aid to a side in a conflict?
• Does a civilian’s actions towards supporting a side in a conflict make them a legitimate military target by the opposing side?
• What is the threshold to where a nation is no longer neutral in a conflict because their citizens are directly supporting a side in a conflict?

Lastly, there is an increasing sense that the Westphalian notion of nation-states is being challenged by the ability for individuals to act globally.  Generally, this has been characterized in economic terms.  However, it now seems that nations are additionally losing their exclusivity on conflict intervention.  New organizational paradigms seem to be emerging, where definition by citizenship is at best the penultimate criteria used by an individual for self identification.

As many are looking back at the last decade+ of war, many want to forget. Indeed, as reported by Michael Hirsh in National Journal, “The war on terror is over,” one senior State Department official who works on Mideast issues told me. “Now that we have killed most of al Qaida, now that people have come to see legitimate means of expression, people who once might have gone into al Qaida see an opportunity for a legitimate Islamism.”

Perhaps it is time to look back even further, before 911, to see how we got here.

Our guest this Sunday for the full hour will be Kirk Lippold, CDR USN (Ret), Commanding Officer of the USS COLE (DDG-67) at the time of her attack 12 OCT 2000 in the port of Aden, Yemen – and author of the new book, a first hand account of the attack from the Commander’s perspective, Front Burner: Al Qaeda’s Attack on the USS Cole.

Join us by going Episode 121: “Front Burner The Attack on the USS COLE” on Midrats at Blog Talk Radio or by listening or downloading the show from Midrats at Blog Talk Radio or from iTunes.

As greater fiscal austerity looms, talk of the importance of allies and being able to partner and leverage their capabilities has grown ever more intense. Yet are we thinking big enough and about the right problems? Are we getting the biggest bang for our buck and helping them take a bigger step onto the main stage?

Case in point: Australia.

Yesterday was ANZAC Day, commemorating the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps participation in the disaster that was Gallipoli. Today they fight alongside NATO in Afghanistan — and are one of the allies that actually gets into the fight. Australia is also set to host 2,500 Marines, provide port facilities for the Navy and perhaps even airfields.

It is hard to think of a stronger or more compatible ally for America in the Pacific than the Australians. And they’re a scrappy people for good measure. Yet here is an ally that has found itself in a particularly difficult place with the fiasco in developing and fielding the Collins class SSKs, and which does not have a clear roadmap for building to a fleet of twelve large, capable submarines — though it has made the commitment to spend some US$30 billion over ten years to get it.

Australia’s problem is as simple as it is substantial (it is the same as Israel’s) — it’s military requirements far outstrip its economic and demographic base. This is particularly the case for Australia as it finds the region becoming far more sophisticated and contested, particularly with China’s growing anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) capabilities that even the United States military is struggling to confront. And they mean that Australia, too, will need to be able to do much more from beneath the waves.

The idea of leasing new-build (and American-built) Virginia SSNs to the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) has been bouncing around Australia for a little while now. There is no shortage of problems: one of the RAN’s problems is manpower, so more than doubling the crew requirements from the Collin’s class is hardly a small thing; the training and infrastructure (and some legal issues probably) associated with nuclear engineering is enormous and comes at a cost above and beyond the cost of an individual submarine and money is tight everywhere. (A more robust analysis can be found on page 15 of this report by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.)

Obviously, given the magnitude of the American Navy’s own problems, there is not much additional room to help from the Defense budget. But if we can share Trident with the Brits and we can give Israel more than enough money to buy a Virginia SSN each year, is there more we could do to help Australia help us buy throwing an enormous amount of money at Newport News and GD Electronic Boat while at the same time and putting more Virginia SSNs on station in the western Pacific? And are there other ways we can think bigger about our allies and their capabilities in ways that look expensive at first glance but have enormous benefits longer-term?

Midshipman 2/c Hobart Kistler, a native of Central, PA, has led tours of that most Hallowed Ground for the past eight years, and, needless to say, knows the place inside-out. Under Kistler’s supervision, 40 midshipmen (I among them) from the Academy’s distinguished 13^th Company made the trip two weekends ago, departing Annapolis at 0530- early even by a midshipman’s standard for a Saturday.

Having visited numerous Civil War battlefields growing up in Virginia, I assumed Kistler would give the standard tour with our bus driving us between points of interest. I was quite surprised to hear that we would march, run, and charge over the entire field, just as Confederate and Union soldiers did 149 years ago!

Heavy dew still covered the grass as we stepped off the bus at just after 0700 on that chilly morning. Apart from the specter of a few silent cannons visible in the early morning haze, the terrain looked much like any other section of the Pennsylvania Dutch Country. Kistler began our tour at the site of the first day’s fighting- July 1^st, 1863. Marching in columns of four, we entered Herbst’s Woods, where a rebel sniper shot Major General John Reynolds as he desperately deployed his men to stem the Confederate attacks. Next came a sharp rush into the Railroad Cut, where hundreds of North Carolinians squared off with the Union’s elite Iron Brigade. We wrapped things up with a mile-long run up to the Eternal Peace Memorial, dedicated by FDR on the battle’s 75^th anniversary, in 1938. There, Kistler told us the story of John Burns, an elderly Gettysburg resident and War of 1812 veteran who donned his faded uniform and flintlock and was wounded five times that day while fighting to keep the Secessionists from overrunning the homestead he had risked his life to defend almost a half-century earlier.

A short time later, we reassembled on Cemetery Ridge, where the Pennsylvania Monument lists the names of all members of the Keystone State to have defended their Commonwealth at Gettysburg. The Peach Orchard, Wheatfield, and Slaughter Pen followed in quick succession as we followed the course of Lieutenant General James Longstreeet’s attack on the Union left on Day Two, struggling to keep an orderly formation through dense, stony woods. The highlight of the morning for many was our charge up Little Round Top, the hill famously defended by Colonel Joshua Chamberlain’s 20^th Maine against repeated Confederate assaults. The 13^th Company guide-on was borne during the charge by Midshipman 4/c Brian Wasdin, a descendant of a Confederate soldier from Georgia. The spectacular view from the summit helped many to understand the hill’s strategic importance; indeed, the entire battlefield spreads out to the north and west, as a board game seen from above. When we reached the top, we realized that a group of West Point cadets had been at the top the entire time watching us ascend (I can’t help noting the irony). Descending the rear of the hill, via the route taken by Chamberlain’s men as they made their gallant bayonet charge, we finished our review of Day Two at Devil’s Den, where we explored the numerous sniping positions used by the Confederates to shot at the Union troops atop Little Round Top.

Midshipmen atop Little Round Top

The fighting on July 3^rdcentered on Pickett’s Charge, the most infamous assault in American military history. In an effort to recreate the reality of the High Tide of the Confederacy, Kistler instructed all midshipmen to

Midshipmen struggle to maintain alignment while scaling a fence during Pickett’s Charge

remove their boots- by 1863, most Confederate soldiers were barefoot. Forming up rank and file in the same woods where Pickett’s men slept, we proceeded into the mile-wide field separating the woods from the famous Copse of Trees for which the soldiers aimed. Marching at first, and then double-timing, we arrived at the Emmittsburg Road, where Union canister began decimating Pickett’s men. By then the warm noonday sun had us sweating, but we scaled the double fences and broke into a full sprint. All 40 midshipmen let out the Rebel Yell as we charged for the stone wall that marked the Union lines. Arriving breathless, Kistler reminded us that at this point, Confederate soldiers would have just begun the hand-to-hand fighting that in 20 minutes left 10,000 men (twice our killed in Iraq and Afghanistan) on the field.

I’m glad the Naval Academy provides us with opportunities to tour local battlefields. 13^th Company’s visit to Gettysburg, while brief, was an excellent reminder to all participants of the hardships endured by our antecedents in service. As we midshipmen prepare to enter the Fleet as ensigns and 2^nd lieutenants, we will undoubtedly face challenges of our own; yet recognizing the not-so-remote heritage of valor, suffering, and triumph made evident through our tour of Gettysburg will provide reinforcement in moments of trial.

Many thanks to Midn Hobart Kistler for helping with this article.

Lots of traffic over at Salamander’s Place, and at POGO, regarding continued problems with the Littoral Combat Ship program.    I have commented on this struggling and costly program several times, and will refrain from doing so here, with the exception of a paraphrase of a comment that Sid made at Sal’s:

The Littoral Combat Ship is not built to survive combat in the littorals.

LCS was constructed to house weapons “modules” that do not exist, and in fact, consist largely of the theoretical.

Speed was going to be the capability which allowed LCS to avoid trouble.   And now that single capability is negated by the fragility of the design that was required to reach those speeds.

Summed up thus:

IT (IS A)  COMBAT SEAFRAME THAT CANNOT PERFORM ITS MISSION IN COMBAT THAT IT CANNOT BE EMPLOYED IN while RELYING ON SPEED THAT IT CANNOT MAKE, (THAT) WILL COMPRISE THE MAJORITY OF THE SURFACE COMBATANT FLEET OF THE US NAVY… 

Someone, ANYONE, with a wide stripe on a sleeve tell us that he is wrong.  And WHY he is wrong.

Throughout out nation’s history in the Pacific and more recently, the Indian Ocean, there have been a few cornerstone challenges that remain regardless of technology, strategy, or geopolitics; the tyranny of distance and the reality of square miles. The large open ocean, and the challenge of bases and resupply.

Both theaters are defined by their ocean, and no power can impact events these areas without a strong naval presence. In an environment of shrinking budgets, a fleet with a paucity of auxiliaries, and a future fleet that will have as a major portion of units a shallow water, limited mission, short range, LCS with a high reliance on base support – are we building a navy to meet strategic requirements, or are we trying to find a strategy to meet the fleet we are building?

Our guest for the full hour will be Robert Haddick, Managing Editor of Small Wars Journal. He writes the “This Week at War” column for Foreign Policy Magazine that covers current military developments, defense strategy, emerging threats, Pentagon planning, service doctrine, and related topics. We will use his article, “The Navy’s Pacific Problem”, as a reference point for the show’s discussion.

Haddick was a U.S. Marine Corps officer, served in the 3rd and 23rd Marine Regiments, and deployed to Asia and Africa. He has advised the State Department and the National Intelligence Council on strategy and irregular warfare issues.

In testimony before the House Armed Services Committee yesterday, US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta left little doubt as to whether the People’s Republic of China was assisting North Korea with their ballistic missile program.  From the Reuters article:

“I’m sure there’s been some help coming from China. I don’t know, you know, the exact extent of that,” Panetta told members of the House Armed Services Committee when asked whether China had been supporting North Korea’s missile program through “trade and technology exchanges.”

While understandably unable to delve into details due to “sensitivity”, Secretary Panetta gave voice to the deep suspicions many have had since the beginning of China’s rise twenty years ago.   It should be clear for all to see that China gains advantage by having a belligerent and nuclear-capable North Korea as a major thorn in the side of the United States in precisely the region that is the future focus of US Defense strategy, the Western Pacific.

The People’s Republic of China has consistently thwarted the efforts of the US and her allies to bring the DPRK under control  China refused to condemn North Korea for the sinking of the ROK frigate Cheonan, which killed 46 ROK sailors.  Nor did China offer any meaningful criticism for the shelling of Yeongpyong Island, which resulted in the deaths of two ROK Marines, other than an admonition not to “escalate”.  When taken with the Chinese watering-down of UNSC sanctions against North Korea, continued military assistance, collaboration with DPRK in cyber attack efforts, ambivalence toward DPRK weapons and technology proliferation into the Middle East, and a blind eye to provocative border and SOF incursions into South Korea, these actions are indicators of China’s tacit approval of North Korea’s actions and posture.

There have been many who have sounded the warning klaxon.   The issue has been addressed here, and the December 2011 Proceedings “Now Hear This” article by Defense analyst Joseph Bosco.

While China’s role in keeping the North Korean regime in power—and in the WMD business—is indisputable, analysts have offered unconvincing explanations of Chinese motives. U.S. experts have assured us that China shares our nuclear concerns but fears instability on the Korean peninsula. They accept China’s argument that even threatening to cut economic aid would collapse Kim Jong Il’s regime and trigger a refugee flow into China. But it has been clear for 60 years that the sole cause of instability between the Koreas has been Pyongyang’s own bizarre and dangerous behavior, despite substantial aid and concessions from accommodating South Korean governments. Yet China stands by its ally.

Indeed.  Despite the consistent platitudes from Chinese diplomats and military officials of their willingness to be of assistance in “managing” North Korea, the reality is that China has very successfully played power politics in developing and maintaining North Korea’s military capabilities and belligerent posture.   Chinese assistance to North Korea in developing a ballistic missile capability to carry a nuclear warhead well beyond the Korean peninsula is not a shocking aberration, but another in a long and consistent series of actions that cannot point reasonably to any other conclusion.  North Korea will try again with the missile launch.  And with Chinese assistance, they will eventually succeed.

The assertions to the contrary grow equally foolish-sounding, and detached from reality.  One, in a rebuttal to the Bosco article, was that “The prospect of a better outcome lies not in blaming China but in working imaginatively with China and others to transform North Korea under new leadership”.    Don’t you believe it.  China has proven for decades they are more than willing to live with their recalcitrant southern neighbors, and the only “transformation” that Chinese leadership is interested in is making North Korea a more potent threat to the United States and its Western Pacific allies.

As has been said before, the time has long since come to recognize at the highest military and civilian levels of leadership in the United States that China is very far from being a benevolent ally, and even farther from sharing any kind of common interests or vision of either Asia and the Pacific Rim, or any other geographic region where they perceive their interests to lie.  And this includes China’s subsidizing of the brutal, aggressive, repressive regime in North Korea.

***********************************************

As if on cue, DPRK ratchets up the rhetoric.    And this telling summation from MSNBC:

In Beijing, North Korea’s biggest ally, China’s top foreign policy official met Sunday with a North Korean delegation and expressed confidence in the country’s new young leader, Kim Jong Un.

**********************************************

Seems the nuclear DPRK is no longer a hypothetical, if US estimates are correct.   Which magnifies every last occurrence of Red China’s assistance to the Hermit Kingdom.

While below some comments express abhorrence of the spectre of a nuclear exchange, it is highly useful to remember that the People’s Republic of China and by proxy, her ally North Korea, do not necessarily share that view.    I would caution the use of the term “well-reasoned” when framing the Korean peninsula in terms of American values and viewpoints.  Which brings the argument back to that of being strong and capable enough with our conventional and nuclear arsenal to deter both countries from precisely the bellicosity that one has repeatedly threatened and the other has excused and minimized.

Reckless.  Fifty-one trips.  A more appropriate name you’ll never find for this wonderful little mare.

h/t  Jay

As a Coastie I can say I take pride in my seagoing duties. No, I’m not a sailor but I work in the coastal zones for a seagoing service (it’s an association thing). However, we have Coast Guard personnel stationed all over the world; though 95% of those are near, if not on, the water there are those who work in the midst of- well- a place I thought was too flat and dry when I went there: Oklahoma City. There is little, well actually no, coastline there. But we have Coasties there and wherever we have Coasties they’re always ready.

19 April 1995 – A rental truck filled with explosives blew up half of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Coast Guardsmen from the Coast Guard Institute and a Coast Guard reservist responded soon after the explosion and helped set up security zones, directed traffic, searched for survivors, and whatever else was needed. They also took over a church kitchen and opened what later became nicknamed “Cafe Coast Guard.” A rotating nine-person team worked around the clock to provide meals for the volunteer workers.

Always Ready.

Cross-posted from [re] ryan erickson

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 the Philippines and the rest of Asia, the raid was, no, is emblematic of the American fighting spirit and ability to improvise on the fly and conduct improbable operations on the field of battle. From John Paul Jones’ raid on the English port of Whitehaven to putting a man on the moon barely a decade after the first tentative attempts to launch a satellite, our history has been replete with no small number of audacious operations. Of all these though, the Doolittle Raid is probably the best known and yet, there are aspects that still remain shadowed. To be successful required meticulous, but rapid planning. In short order an idea, germinated in Washington had to be planned, practiced, logistically provided for and executed in an air of ironclad secrecy. This in an age where “netcentric” and “JOPES” weren’t even a mirage on the horizon. As always, it was having the right people in place to do the heavy lifting behind the scenes that laid the groundwork for success. In the case of the Doolittle raid, there were four naval officers, one you have heard of, but two or three others you just as likely haven’t, who played key roles in the planning of the raid. 

 CAPT Francis S. Lowe: A member of the USNA class of 1915, a 1926 Naval War College graduate, a submariner, then-CAPT Low was assigned as Operations Officer on ADM King’s staff at CINCLANTFLT, and later followed him to Washington when King became CINC, US Fleet and CNO. Among his duties as Operations Officer was overseeing the ASW operations of the fleet, and it was in this capacity that he flew to Norfolk, VA in January 1942 to review the status of the USS Hornet CV-8. Chambers Field (the original, now part of the heliport today) had the outline of an aircraft carrier painted on it for FCLP (Field Carrier Landing Practice) which is used to maintain some of the skills necessary to conduct flight operations off an aircraft carrier – to include launching with a minimum of deck space available. It was during this trip that he observed some B-25s making passes at that outline in a mock attack and realized that twin-engine aircraft would fit on the deck of a carrier and wondered if the B-25s would be able to take off from a carrier. Upon his return to Washington, he mentioned his idea to the Admiral who thought it had merit as did General “Hap” Arnold (USAAF). 

CAPT Donald Duncan: A 1917 graduate of the USNA, and holder of a MS in Radio Engineering from Harvard as well as a Naval Postgraduate school grad, then CAPT Duncan, a naval aviator with extensive carrier experience, was King’s Air Operations Officer and the one to whom it fell to evaluate the possible use of the B-25 from a carrier. In 30 handwritten pages, he outlined all the necessary details and precepts for a successful strike in a feasibility study forwarded to King and Arnold recommending the use of B-25s and oversaw the proof of concept flight that showed the Mitchell bombers could indeed, launch from a carrier deck. Subsequently he also oversaw the necessary logistical and administrative details needed to get the bombers to and onboard the Hornet at Alameda Naval Station. 

 LT Henry L. Miller: A 1934 graduate from the Naval Academy and native of Fairbanks, Alaska, then-LT Miller was a designated Naval Aviator. A multi-engine pilot and graduate of the Bombardier course at Sandia base and the All Weather course at Corpus Christi, he was serving as a flight instructor and Personnel Officer at Ellyson Field, FLA when tasked to train Doolittle’s pilots on takeoff techniques from the limited deck of a carrier. Shifting operations to Pierce Field (one of the outlying fields at Eglin AB – literally out in the sticks) LT Miller not only trained the raiders on take off techniques, but was also principle in teaching the finer points of shipboard life in general and accompanied them as operations shifted to Sacramento, CA and all the way to launch from the Hornet, 700 nm from Tokyo. 

 LT Stephen Jurika: Born in Los Angeles while his parents were visiting there, then LT Jurika grew up in the Philippines where his dad owned a number of plantations. He graduated from the Naval Academy in 1933 and served as a naval attache at the American Embassy in Tokyo before World War II. As the USS Hornet Association’s website notes, the plot thickens from there:

Being fluent in the Japanese language, he was able to collect significant information about the Japanese military and industrial capabilities, even photographing many of their sensitive sites. From August 1941 until October 1941, he reported to the Director of Naval Intelligence, providing a great deal of information about the Japanese threat, including specific information about the new “Zero” high performance fighter. In October 1941, he was involved with the commissioning of USS Hornet (CV-8), initially serving as the Flight Deck and Intelligence Officer. In mid-January 1942, he consulted to Captain Donald Duncan who was then conducting a feasibility study about launching a bombing raid against Tokyo. Lt Jurika provided a great deal of information about the types and locations of high priority industrial and military targets. Two months later, when the Hornet was carrying the Doolittle Raiders to their launch point, Lt Jurika spent many hours briefing them on the locations of the high value targets and optimum flight routes.

He also had a personal contribution to make to the raid:

One bomb was decorated with Japanese medals, donated by Navy Lieutenant Stephen Jurika, who had received them during pre-war naval attaché service and now wished to pointedly return them to a hostile government. (NHHC)

Each officer would go on to serve with distinction in the war and afterwards. CAPT Low took command of the cruiser Wichita and saw action from Africa to the Pacific. Returning to the US he was Chief of Staff for Tenth Fleet, running ASW operations in the Atlantic theater of operations and finished the war as Cruiser Division SIXTEEN supporting the invasion at Okinawa and strikes against the Japanese homeland. After the war he was in charge of the surrender and neutralization of all Japanese Naval installations in Korea and reported in November as Commander Destroyers Pacific Fleet, serving until March 1947, when, upon his advancement to Vice Admiral, he was given command of the Service Force, US Pacific Fleet. In November 1949 he returned to the Navy Department to conduct a special survey of the Navy’s anti-submarine program, and in February 1950 was designated Deputy Chief of Naval Operations (Logistics). He continued duty in that capacity until May 1953, when he became Commander, Western Sea Frontier, and Commander Pacific Reserve Fleet. He served as such until relieved of all active duty pending his retirement, effective 1 July 1956. He was advanced to Admiral on the basis of combat awards.

CAPT Duncan would become the first CO of the lead ship of the Essex class CV and see action in the Marcus Islands and Wake. From here he would serve as CARDIV commander, CINCPACFLT Chief of Staff, DCN(Air) and finally DCNO before retiring in 1957. Following the Doolittle raid, LT Miller commanded an Air Group on board USS Princeton (CVL-23), and during the remainder of the war he had command of Air Group SIX stationed on board USS Hancock (CV-19). Following the war he served in the Navy Department until July 1948, first assigned to writing Air Operations Instructions, later serving as Executive Officer, Air Branch, Office of Naval Research. For two years he served as Public Information Officer on the Staff of Commander in Chief, Atlantic Fleet, and from June 1950 to August 1952 served successively as Executive Officer of Composite Squadron SEVEN, and of USS Leyte (CV-32). Graduating from the Industrial College of the Armed Forces in 1953 and, he reported for duty in the Strategic Plans Division at the Office of the Chief of Naval Operation. Subsequent assignments saw him in command of USS Hancock, commander of CARDIV 15, and later, off Vietnam, CARDIV 3/Task Force 77/7th Fleet Carrier Strike Force. On July 22, 1959 Miller was commissioned a Rear Admiral, and was appointed Chief of Staff and Aide to the Commander Naval Air Force, Pacific. Rear Admiral Henry Louis Miller commanded Carrier Division FIFTEEN, which is the Anti-Submarine Hunter-Killer Task Group from May 1961 to June 1962. Admiral Miller also served as Assistant Chief of Staff for Plans, Joint Staff, Commander in Chief, Pacific, during the time when the turmoil in South East Asia escalated. He then assumed command of Carrier Division THREE, a Heavy Attack Carrier Task Group, and at the same time he took command of Task Force, SEVENTY-SEVEN, and the Carrier Striking Force of the SEVENTH FLEET and in this capacity, took the first nuclear power Task Force into combat with the enemy in Vietnam.

LT Jurika followed the Doolittle raid with an assignment to COMAIRSOLS on Guadalcanal as Air Ops officer, a tour which included a special operation that earned him a Legion of Merit. Returning briefly Stateside as a torpedo instructor, he returned to sea as navigator on the USS Franklin (CV-13) and in this capacity, was awarded the Navy Cross for his actions on the bridge in the wake of the attack and devastating explosions and damage that almost sank Franklin. After the war and a variety of foreign service tours, retired and began a career as a professor at Stanford University and the Naval Postgraduate School.

Note: The oral histories of several of the principals involved with the Doolittle raid and battle of Midway – including that of Stephen Jurika, are available through the Naval Institute via the ‘print-on-demand’ program. I think the advent of the 70th anniversary of the Doolittle Raid and the upcoming Battle of Midway observances would be a great time for the Naval Institue Press, in line with the Strategic Plan released at last week’s Annual Membership meeting, to announce it was making e-book versions available of these histories.  w/r, SJS

Walk the Prank: Secret Story of Mysterious Portrait at Pentagon

Navy Man, Lost at Sea in 1908, Surfaces at Parties; ‘The Project’

This story about ‘Ensign Chuck Hord, Lost at Sea’ should remind us all of the wonderful spirit and traditions (and sense of humor) carried by the brave men and women of our beloved Sea Service.

I would like to take this opportunity to start a campaign to have this portrait displayed proudly on the walls of the prestigious and hallowed halls of the U.S. Naval Institute…

If you agree, please share this story – pass it along, and do not let one of the greatest pranks in the history of our Navy (and an even better portrait of Ensign Hord and his blow-dried hair) go forgotten and uncelebrated.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304750404577319952818130854.html?mod=wsj_share_tweet

The College of the Holy Cross is a small Jesuit four-year Liberal Arts college ensconced on a breathtakingly beautiful campus on Mount St James, in Worcester, Massachusetts.   A top academic institution, Holy Cross was once a national powerhouse in football, basketball, and baseball.  Today it retains its academic standing, while its sports teams boast a more modest level of excellence.

Its small enrollment of 2,500 belies an amazingly rich and significant Naval Service heritage.  Holy Cross was the site of one of the first Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps units, established in 1942, and was one of the very few NROTC to survive the anti-military backlash during and after the Vietnam War.   Among the fifteen graduates of Holy Cross who have worn stars in the Navy and the Marine Corps are Lieutenant General Bernard Trainor, BGen Michael P. Downs, and USNI’s own VADM Peter Daly.  Captain Tom Kelly, USN (Ret.), who wears the Medal of Honor, is another alumnus.   Assistant Marine Commandant General Joe Dunford was the Marine Officer Instructor at Holy Cross in the late 80s.

Yet two of the most distinguished servicemen from Holy Cross never came near the General or Flag Officer ranks.    Their stories are quite remarkable on their own.  How they and their lives are intertwined is truly extraordinary.

John Vincent Power was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1918, a week after the Armistice which ended The Great War.  He was smart and athletically gifted, and graduated from Worcester’s now-defunct Classical High School in 1937.   From there, John attended the College of the Holy Cross, where he played basketball and football, and golf.  John graduated in 1941, in the last of the peacetime classes, as war clouds once again gathered in the east and west.  In July of 1942, John enlisted in the United States Marine Corps, was sent to OCS, and commissioned in October of 1942.    Like so many of his age and time, John died on a far away battlefield, in a place few had heard of.  On 1 February 1944, while leading a platoon of K/24th Marines on Namur, First Lieutenant John V. Power was killed by enemy fire while charging a Japanese emplacement.  He was not yet 26.  But his bravery did not go unnoticed.  Power was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor.   He is buried in St Mary’s Cemetery in Worcester.

While John V. Power was a student at Holy Cross, he took two courses in Mathematics from a bespectacled, gray-flecked professor who was the head of the Mathematics Department.  That professor was Father Joseph Timothy O’Callahan, SJ.  “Father Joe”, left Holy Cross in 1940, to join the Navy as a Chaplain.   While serving as Chaplain (for less than three weeks) of USS Franklin (CV-13) on 19 March 1945, while the carrier was operating near Honshu, Lieutenant Commander O’Callahan ran repeatedly into the smoke-filled, flaming carnage that was the hangar deck to save sailors trapped below.  The famous picture of Chaplain O’Callahan ministering Absolution on a tilting flight deck is one of the iconic images of the Pacific War.  For his heroism, Father O’Callahan was awarded his own Medal of Honor.

Their time together at Holy Cross, student and teacher, and their “conspicuous gallantry” are, incredibly,  not the only connections between these extraordinary men.  Father O’Callahan left the active Navy and returned to the classroom at Holy Cross in 1948.  Near the end of his life, while in St Vincent’s Hospital in Worcester, one of the attending nurses for the ailing Father Joe was was Patricia (Power) Rose, sister of 1stLt John V. Power.   Father O’Callahan died in March of 1964.  He was just 58.  He is buried in the Jesuit Cemetery on the Holy Cross campus.

CDR Salamander and I venture again into the world of live internet radio Sunday, April 15 at 5pm (1700) U.S. Eastern with our Episode 119 Offshore Balancing the Indian Ocean 04/15 by Midrats on Blog Talk Radio:

What is real, and what is a mirage? Can something be a cost effective strategic option, or a fool’s errand?

As outlined by our guests in their lates work in the periodical, Asian Security: An Ocean Too Far: Offshore Balancing in the Indian Ocean; the United States is beset by war weariness after over a decade of war and a half century plus of global committments. We find ourselves with a stagnant economy, and skyrocketing defense procurement costs. It is seductive to think of retiring from continental Eurasia, but if history calls us back – returning in times of systemic conflict would be problematic – even in the relatively accessible rimlands of Western Europe and East Asia.

In a part of the world with the planet’s largest democracy – offshore balancing is close to impossible in the Indian Ocean.

As it turns out, offshore balancing in the Indian Ocean may be no balancing at all.

From “The complex network of global cargo ship movements” by Pablo Kaluza, et al. (oval added)

Our guest for the full hour to discuss their article will be U.S. Naval War College Associate Professors James R. Holmes and Toshi Yoshihara.

Offshore balancing? What the heck is that? Tune in and find out – and, if you can’t make the live show because you are buried in receipts and other paper as you try to reduce your tax burden before April 17 – well, join us in the “not so live” downloads from here or from the Midrats iTune page.

Dreams of stopping the run and pivot to building a better platform reached the equal-time-point an election cycle ago. We will have LCS, and it will inside a little more than a decade form a larger percentage of our Fleet. The question remains – what will we actually be able to do with it given its known limitations, unknown tactical utility, and completely undeveloped mission modules that are the only thing that prevent it from being a +$600 million mobile 57mm gun with a flight deck?

Sydney J. Freedberg Jr. at AOLDefense has a nice review of the CNO’s speech at the National Press Club breakfast 12 APR that touched on LCS. Let’s do a little light fisking this Friday morning, shall we?

“These are not large surface combatants that are going to sail into the South China Sea and challenge the Chinese military; that’s not what they’re made for,” Greenert said of the LCS class.

OK. A warship that is 1.5′ longer than a Fletcher Class DD is not a large warship … but she is not small. South China Sea?

The South China Sea is a marginal sea that is part of the Pacific Ocean, encompassing an area from the Singapore and Malacca Straits to the Strait of Taiwan of around 3,500,000 square kilometres (1,400,000 sq mi). The area’s importance largely results from one-third of the world’s shipping transiting through its waters, and that it is believed to hold huge oil and gas reserves beneath its seabed.
…
The South China Sea contains over 250 small islands, atolls, cays, shoals, reefs, and sandbars, most of which have no indigenous people, many of which are naturally under water at high tide, and some of which are permanently submerged. The features are grouped into three archipelagos (listed by area size), Macclesfield Bank and Scarborough Shoal:

So, we have a warship that has both “Littoral” and “Combat” in its name that we do not intend to challenge a regional navy with in an area full of littoral waters? Do we really mean that – or are we trying to tell the Chinese that even though we are putting Marines in northern Australia and warships in Singapore; we are only there to have quick access to nice liberty ports? Either way – that isn’t impressive.

As Undersecretary of the Navy Bob Work likes to tell us, the United States Navy does not need frigates. Think back to how we have used our frigates since the Vietnam War, and then square this statement;

“Littoral Combat Ships will tend to displace amphibious ships and destroyers in Africa and South America. That will free up surface combatants, more high-end ships … “

That is what your classic multi-mission FF/FFG has been doing for decades – a much more useful ship than a low endurance uni-mission LCS. Just saying.

The next fisk is sad.

I intend to go in harm’s way.
- John Paul Jones

That is what we said once as a Navy. What do we say now?

“I don’t worry per se about its survivability where I would intend to send it,” Greenert said of the LCS. “You won’t send it into an anti-access area.”

Back that up a bit. Littoral is near land. Any land mass is, by its nature, going to be an anti-access area in a non-permissive environment. Are we really going to have a foundation Class of warship in our navy that we will not put in harm’s way?

That is just silly – of course we will. When it is the only ship around and you need things done, either you don’t do it or you ask LCS to. Also – why does it have weapons if you don’t need them against someone who can shoot back? We did build a Fletcher Class sized warship as “Level I” for a nation that is casualty adverse – so I guess that reality is sinking in.

This final bit of reimagining is actually a re-invention.

On that crisis, the CNO tried to strike a delicate balance between confrontation and conciliation. The US and its Asian partners must stand ready to “confront” the Chinese when they trespass on international norms, Greenert said, but the real solution is to prevent a crisis in the first place through quiet confidence-building — including the kind of low-profile partnership and presence missions for which the Littoral Combat Ship is suited.

That describes something the Chinese are very familiar with – the gunboat. I think he is humming CAPT Henry J. Hendrix, Jr’s tune, but others may hear it differently.

The thing is – in the 20th century, we didn’t plan to have such a large portion of our Fleet be gunboats. Most of the low-level missions described above were handled by destroyers and cruisers for most of the century, joined by frigates in the later part … which did a good job in peace, and when it came time for war – were of actual use to the Fleet commander. LCS?

On balance – all the snarky fisking aside – this was a very good admission by the CNO. Though we won’t know for sure until an actual FMC mission module makes an appearance later this decade (we think) – at least we are as an institution starting to talk clearly about the sub-optimal nature of LCS and its limited utility.

Why is that good? It is good because when you send under-armed, under-manned, fragile warships in harm’s way – Sailors die wholesale. It is better to admit that in peace, than to learn it in war.

The Pentagon, South Korea and Japan are all reporting that the North Korean Unha-3 satellite launch vehicle (SLV) failed shortly after launch at 0739 local time Apr. 13. Flight time was reportedly on the order of only one minute with a claim that , but reports are still spotty. The western media invited to North Korea for the launch appears not to have been invited to the actual event, so the prospect of footage is limited.

As SteelJaw has pointed out, this was a new launch facility on the west coast and a southerly launch for a sun-synchronous polar insertion — a shift from previous launches from an east coast facility. And though Kim Jong-Un, Kim Jong-Il’s son and predecessor, continues to work to consolidate his power in Pyongyang, the preparations for this launch likely pre-date his father’s death.

And while there will be much mockery of the failure, it is also worth remembering that despite the crude nature of the Unha SLV, North Korea stunned the world in 1998 by very nearly succeeding with its first-ever launch, demonstrating staging and successful separation of the first two stages without previous full-scale flight tests. The North is admittedly one of the more entertaining and idiosyncratic places in the world, there is a logic behind their behavior, which goes to the heart of the remarkable way in which the long-isolated pariah state of North Korea has kept itself at the center of international diplomacy and has captured and held on to the attention of the world’s major powers.

North Korea is a long way from being able to put a deliverable nuclear warhead atop such a missile, there have also been intentionally-visible preparations for a third nuclear test — preparations that were intended to convey that the international community can respond to the launch by either continuing to follow through with a February agreement with Pyongyang or by breaking with the agreement and accept the consequence of a third test.

Stick around any job long enough and pretty soon you’ll find a pattern of repetition or cycles will emerge. When on active duty, it was inexorably tied to the CVW turnaround training cycle. This year we are now on the threshold of the 3rd North Korean space launch vehicle (SLV) attempt since 2006 and the 4th overall since 1998 and my third participation in one form or another thereof (for the record, they are batting .000 with an Oh-for-3 record since 1998 – kind of like how the Red Sox and Yankees started the year, eh?). At least this time they had the good grace not to screw with a 4-day holiday weekend. Given this Northeast Asian 21st century meme, I thought we might take a moment and breakdown aspects of the launch and the SLV as it will provide a basis for comparison with the next in the series on the Atlas – our first ICBM and workhorse SLV from almost a half-century ago.

So – to review:

• What: Launch of a 100kg “earth resources” imaging satellite (Kwangmyongsong – or “shining star” ) into a sun-synchronus (polar) orbit at 500 km x 500 km
• How: Three stage, liquid-fueled SLV (“Unha-3″)
• From: A new launch site on the west coast of North Korea (Tongchang-ri Space Launch Center/Sohae Satellite Launch Center)
• When: sometime between 12-16 April 2012

And then of course – ‘Why?’ Ah, now there’s the rub — why indeed would a country with a large balance of its population on the brink of starvation, seem to deliberately carryout a course of action that would certainly ensure the cancellation of food-aid from the West (and US in particular) and engender another round of condemnation and possibly sanction from the UN (depending on how the Chinese and Russians vote)? Some say there is an internal, domestic dynamic at work rooted in direction from Kim Jong Il for a launch as part of a celebration of the 100th anniversary of Dear/Founding Leader and Father, Kim il Sung and KJU is in no position to delay or postpone it (and, if reports are correct, plans for yet another nuclear test too) – all this despite the “leap day” agreement as a precursor to resuming talks on the North’s nuclear weapons program. Part of that agreement entailed acceding to “no long range missile launches of any kind” – from which there appears to be a bit of back-and-forth over who said what and a modern day “how many angels can dance on the head of a pin” argument over what constitutes “long-range missile launches” and if “peaceful” space launches fit that category. As one writer has put it – The short version is that there is no important difference from a testing standpoint. A moratorium on missile launches that includes an exception for space launches is like a moratorium on nuclear testing that permits “peaceful nuclear explosions” — pointless. (Note: following today’s Party conference, it appears KJU has solidified his standing, gaining appointment to the new position of First Secretary of the Worker’s Party and succession to chairman of the Central Military Commission along with elevation to the Politburo – all on the eve of the internationally condemned SLV launch)

SLV – ICBM Comparison	Trajectories Comparison
Click on thumbnail to enlarge	Click on thumbnail to enlarge

If we agree with a number of open source reports, including a statement by then Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, that North Korea is indeed in the process of either building or has built and is waiting to test a road-mobile ICBM, and if, in examining the US and former Soviet space program’s extensive use of IRBM/ICBMs as space launch vehicles, then the question may be asked if the reverse is true. Namely, can a space launch be used to test an ICBM? The answer would be a qualified ‘yes’. Using the SLV-ICBM Comparison and trajectories illustrations for reference, we note that there are a couple of distinctive differences between the two, foremost of which is that the terminal phase of flight for each is radically different; the ICBM is made to return its payload to a target on Earth, the SLV’s goal is to ensure delivery of its payload to a secure orbit. With that in mind though, there are a number of parallels in technology and operations between the two that may be tested to validate design and operational concepts.

Propulsion: Both vehicles in this comparison use a “storable” liquid propellant (fuel + oxidizer), though the nitric acid oxidizer combination (AK27: nitric acid 73% with dinitrogen tetroxide 27%) attributed to use in the Unha-3 is highly corrosive and limits the hold on a missile thus fueled to about 24-48 hours of “use it or lose it.” There are a myriad of other issues attendant to liquid propulsion missiles – sloshing, shifting center of gravity that requires the larger of the two tanks (containing the oxidizer) to be stacked above the fuel tank, pogo oscillation and of course, leaks. That said, there are a number of benefits to liquid propulsion that accrue from an ability to throttle the engines, higher energy density and their engines, even with the added weight of turbo-pumps, still provide the highest thrust-to-weight/specific impulse when compared to solids. Additionally, if your development model is to grow from the mother SCUD, as is the case for North Korea (with one or two notable exceptions), it makes sense that the first large SLV/ICBM platform would also be liquid-based propellant; just as the US (Atlas) and Soviet (R-7) programs – though those early missiles used a LOX/Kerosene oxidizer/fuel configuration. It should be noted though, that almost all ICBMs today are solid fuel (with the exception of the SS-18 and SS-19) owing chiefly to the long-term storage capability, level of toxicity (liquids, especially hypergolics like UDMH, and nitric acid can be extremely toxic).

Guidance:Maneuvering a missile, whether it is an ICBM or SLV, requires pretty much the same guidance package and ability to vector thrust to adjust the trajectory, optimizing either CEP or to hit a specific window for satellite placement. The rather crude system that the SCUD employed worked, in a fashion, for the SCUD as it was an SRBM and not considered a precision-strike weapon, even with a nuke. The shorter distances involved did not amplify range error as one finds with ICBM distances (+5,000 KM). The Unha-3 sitting on the pad today most likely has a system derived from the Musudan IRBM – itself a derivative of the former Soviet SS-N-6 Sawfly SLBM. A successful launch of the Unha-3 and placement of the KM3 satellite on orbit would validate the (presumed) navigation and guidance package that in turn, could be transferred to a notional ICBM.

Staging: it seems simple – for so many years now we’ve watched manned and unmanned launches lift from the pad and shed stages on their way to space with little problem. ‘Twasnt always so. One of the major bugbears for the North Korean program has apparently been staging. So many things can go wrong in staging — early ignition of the upper stage, failure to cleanly separate, early shutdown or asymmetric thrust in the booster, among other things, that clearly one of the mechanisms to be tested on an SLV launch, staging, has direct application to a multi-stage ICBM. As with guidance – success here helps to validate the design for an ICBM. A subset of this is final staging and separation of the payload, whether satellite or RV.

Payload: With the exception of the aforementioned final staging/separation of the payload from the missile, there isn’t much more to be gained in weighing an SLV payload vs an ICBM for test results – unless a re-entry body is part of the SLV shot (which, in the case of a return-to-Earth payload of film from the satellite). Clearly, as we found out in our own RV tests early in the development of ICBMs, the dynamics present and forces acting on a body re-entering the atmosphere are much more severe than that experienced by an SRBM as it or its payload re-enters after a relatively short flight. (BTW, Yengst’s monograph is an excellent reference if you want to learn more and I highly recommend it, especially his history on early MaRV development).

We shall see in the next day or two a couple of noteworthy events. First – will the shot be successful (and note that one way or the other it will undoubtedly be claimed as such to the North Korean people). More telling will be what follows in the big celebratory parade – namely, will a successful Unha-3 shot embolden the North Koreans to unveil the road-mobile ICBM that former SECDEF Gates referred to above? Recall that last year we finally saw the Musudan (actually, what may have been training shapes of an extended range variant or Musudan ER) revealed at the parade. Will a nuclear test follow – and if so, to what real (geo-political, vice technical) end? One thing is for sure – the attention this has garnered has offset the chatter over a potential Israeli strike on Iranian nuclear facilities – a discussion which has suddenly, and curiously, gone comms silent on the part of the Israelis these past few weeks…

Interesting times indeed.

(cross-posted at steeljawscribe.com)

Military affairs, and the conduct of war, are a thinking man’s profession.  Brute force, attrition strategies, and the reality of death and destruction is, and will always be, a central part of the military profession.  But to use another Winston Churchill quote, “Battles are won by slaughter and maneuver. The greater the general, the more he contributes in maneuver, the less he demands in slaughter.”  Thinking does and always has mattered in the conduct of war.

This past week Lieutenant Ben Kohlmann, an F/A-18 driver from the West Coast, wrote an article entitled “The Military Needs More Disruptive Thinkers” for Small Wars Journal that has garnered attention.  MAJ Peter Munson and the beloved Superhero-of-Sanity Doctrine Man, and the comment sections in a number of blogs, have added to the debate.  The discussion of “disruptive thinkers” and the apparent embrace of “thinking” by today’s senior leaders appears to be a natural combination.  But that’s not necessarily the case.

There are places and people that have a long tradition of creative thinking, problem solving, and innovation.  A great deal of military innovation throughout history has come from junior and mid-grade officers.  LCDR Claude Berube has documented the Naval Institute’s history of junior officer innovation and the rise of the Institute from a small group of officers on shore duty to a pre-eminent thought center.  There is a movement within USNI that is growing to bring JO’s and mid-grade Officers back to the pages of Proceedings with their innovative thoughts.  This is important, but not enough by itself.

Ben Kohlmann brings up some very interesting points in his essay on “disruptive thinking.”  I wholeheartedly agree with the overarching thesis of his piece: that the military services need to be more open to new ideas and need to figure out how to educate officers in critical thinking and innovation.  However, there are a few areas where I differ with his details.  Personally, I think the U.S. Navy’s focus on providing our officers graduate education in the field of business (MBA’s) and engineering rather than subjects like history, political science, and other social science fields is a net negative for our service.  Most MBA curricula don’t really focus on innovation and new ideas, instead they teach number crunching and bureaucratic organization.  Steve Jobs, used by Ben as an example in his essay, was a great innovator…he dropped out of college, never mind getting a graduate degree from any of the schools Ben suggests.  Alfred Thayer Mahan warned us to “avoid the administrative mindset” and I don’t know that a Navy filled with people who have mastered business administration really makes us better or more innovative warfighters.  Ben is 100% right, however, when he points out that we should be encouraging interaction between our officer corps and thought leaders from other fields, I just don’t believe the business field is the one we should be focusing on.

I also think that Ben is catching some flak for his use of the term “disruptive.”  I think we all know why.  We’ve had them in our ready rooms or wardrooms, that “disruptive JO” who constantly mouths off about what he or she hates but never has a constructive idea to attempt to solve the problem.  Disruptive behavior doesn’t exactly sound military, and by itself it doesn’t give us innovation or solutions.

Disruptive thinking is, however, the starting point.  We need critical thinking that starts with new ideas and we need to develop those into innovative solutions that are researched and workable.  Just pointing out problems doesn’t get us anywhere.  John Boyd, another great example from Ben’s essay, always did his homework and knew exactly what the staff-pukes were going to ask at the end of his briefs.  Their questions were usually intended to try and derail him or embarrass him.  But, he used his research to set traps for them, using their own questions and lack of homework against them to help push his ideas through the Pentagon bureaucracy.  He wasn’t just disruptive, he had the research done in advance and the solutions ready which made him unstoppable.

So where do we go from here, whether we’re talking about disruptive thinking or contrarian ideas?  First, we need to know what we’re getting ourselves into.  John Boyd never commanded a fighter squadron, he made too many enemies to survive a selection board.  Then again, ADM James Stavridis has had a career which has taken him to the pinnacle of the naval profession.  If you’re going to be disruptive or you’re going to put your ideas out there, you have to do it aware of the risks and possible feedback.  But, if you’re already that kind of person then you probably agree with Mahan that “failure to dare is often to run the greatest of risks.”

Second, we need to develop our ideas properly and do our homework.  This includes figuring out how to best introduce them.  Writing for professional journals is frequently a great way to launch innovative ideas and solutions.  Whether we’re talking about traditional journals like Proceedings or new online mediums like Small Wars Journal or USNI Blog, discussion of a new idea can start quickly once you summon the courage to publish it (just look at the debates swirling around Ben’s article on social media sites).  In 2008 Proceedings had a pair of articles that help give us some guidance.  ADM Stavridis’ article “Dare to Read, Think, Write, and PUBLISH” charts a course for us, or at least gives us a point to begin our own dead reckoning.  The process of writing should help us develop our ideas and force the right research to defend them.  Captain William Toti followed a few issues later with “Write with Your Eyes Wide Open,” which helps develop our sense of the I&W as we enter the battlefield of ideas.

Third, and finally, we need senior leaders who believe what they are preaching.  If we are going to “start thinking” what that really means is that leadership has to “start listening.”  General George Patton once said that “If everyone is thinking alike, someone isn’t thinking.”  For over two hundred years Sailors have been offering new ideas, whether we’re talking about Sailors figuring out how to repair their systems instead of using contractors at the turn of this century or a young William Sims fighting his superiors to improve gunnery practices at the turn of the last century.  Ideas are already out there and leaders need to encourage them to develop, while at the same time growing new thinkers and ideas.   The question isn’t whether or not we need to start thinking, the question is whether or not the decision makers are willing to listen, and willing to help.  As General Mattis once told a group of officers, “Take the mavericks in your service, the ones that wear rumpled uniforms and look like a bag of mud but whose ideas are so offsetting that they actually upset the people in the bureaucracy. One of your primary jobs is to take the risk and protect these people, because if they are not nurtured in your service, the enemy will bring their contrary ideas to you.”

The opinions and views expressed in this post are those of the author alone and are presented in his personal capacity. They do not necessarily represent the views of U.S. Department of Defense, the US Navy, or any other agency.

Sixty-one years ago today, April 5th, 1951, Judge Irving Kaufman sentenced Julius and Ethel Rosenberg to death by electrocution.   They had both been convicted seven days earlier of passing atomic secrets to the Soviet Union.  While there has been some attempts to claim their innocence and attribute the Rosenbergs’ conviction to a post-war “Red Scare” and paranoia of Communism, the evidence was overwhelming in 1951, and has become even more so in the decades since.  The opening of Soviet archives in 1992-3, the 1995 release of the decoded VENONA cables, and several books by former Soviet agents point to a far more widespread espionage effort than the United States had heretofore acknowledged, and also removes any doubt as to the guilt of the defendants.   The Soviet spy ring which successfully infiltrated the Manhattan Project included both of the Rosenbergs, Ethel’s brother David Greenglass, German scientist Klaus Fuchs, Harry Gold, and others, is estimated to have obtained information that allowed the Soviet Union to develop their own atomic bomb a decade before otherwise possible.  The Soviets successfully detonated an atomic device in late-August, 1949.   At the sentencing of the Rosenbergs, Judge Kaufman remarked:

    I consider your crime worse than murder…  In committing the act of murder, the criminal kills only his victim…  But in your case, I believe your conduct in putting into the hands of the Russians the A-bomb years before our best scientists predicted Russia would perfect the bomb has already caused, in my opinion, the Communist aggression in Korea, with the resultant casualties exceeding 50,000 and who knows but that millions more of innocent people may pay the price of your treason.

As we enter our second decade of the 21st Century, it is somewhat disconcerting to recognize that the massive efforts which the Soviet Union expended to infiltrate US government and scientific research,  the expenditures of millions of dollars,  lengthy and risky recruitment of American Communists who were willing to betray their country, NKVD and GRU operatives working from US and Canadian cities, the transmission of stolen secrets via encrypted cables and microfilm, all are largely unnecessary today.    In this, the information age, penetrations of computer networks of both Government and industry can obtain results very similar to Soviet efforts regarding “Enormous”, the NKVD code name for the Manhattan Project.   Industrial espionage is exceedingly widespread, the vast majority of it from compromised computer networks that hemorrhage proprietary information to rivals businesses and foreign governments, to include those of our enemies and potential enemies.

While some traditional HUMINT espionage undoubtedly still exists and has its uses, the fact of the matter today is that the great balance of the damaging espionage work done by the Rosenbergs, and Greenglass, and Harry Gold, and Kim Philby, Donald MacLean, Klaus Fuchs, and the others recruited and employed by the Soviet Union, is now performed by for-hire hackers, often called “Black Hats”, working for those rival businesses and governments.   Gaining access to sensitive information has become infinitely easier, cheaper, and far less risky than ever before.  The days of photographing stolen documents and making “drops” of bundles of information are all but ended.  Often these hackers are operating outside the United States, in areas where arrest and prosecution are not options, even if the hackers were caught.    With the ability of these skilled “Black Hats” to cover their tracks, and indeed their presence, attribution to the hackers themselves is all but impossible without other corroboration, and the entity or government paying for the hacking can only be surmised.

However, like the Rosenbergs’ treason moved the Soviet Union a decade ahead in its atomic efforts, stolen technology and data from both military and industrial networks have greatly accelerated technological developments in The People’s Republic of China, and in other places where economic and military rivalry with the United States is seen as a reality.  The compromise of classified and sensitive information has also allowed hostile entities to have an inside look at vulnerabilities of critical US infrastructure, as well as preparedness efforts and response capabilities to certain threats, information which can be exploited to increase the damage and disruption of an attack on US infrastructure or our populace.  Much like the Soviet espionage of the Stalin era, the infiltration and compromise of US industrial and government information systems is likely more widespread than previously acknowledged.

There is another down side to the shift from traditional espionage to network exploitation:  It doesn’t lend itself nearly so easily to parody.  Maxwell Smart is nowhere near as funny if you put him behind a laptop.  No shoe-phone or cone of silence.  No Hymie in the mailbox.   Same with Boris and Natasha.  If they do all their work from Pottsylvania and never come to Frostbite Falls, where’s the humor in that?   If “fiendish plan” means stealing the formula for Upsidaisium via computer hacking, it just isn’t the same.

Last week, Sen. McCain delivered a speech to the Brigade of Midshipmen as part of the Forrestal Lecture Series. Like most USNA graduates who return to speak at the Academy, Sen. McCain began his speech by joking about his terrible performance as a midshipman.

Sen. McCain discussed the differences between leadership and management. He believes the nation is producing too many managers and not enough leaders- citing the increased number of MBA graduates as proof of this trend. Being a manager is easy, as the manager must merely maintain the status quo. Leaders must motivate and inspire subordinates to reach new limits.

Lamenting the military’s one strike policy on mistakes, Sen. McCain noted that most great U.S. Navy leaders would not have made it out of the lower ranks had they served in today’s armed forces. This intolerance towards failure of any kind has caused our military to become more risk averse than ever before.

While Sen. McCain criticized changes in military policy, he vehemently stated that America was not on the decline. Supporting his opinion, he remarked that the U.S. political and economic system is still the golden standard. This part of the speech sounded very much like President Obama’s recent State of the Union address. They both chastised and dismissed those skeptical of long term U.S. standing in the world, while conceding that the U.S. will face difficult choices in the years ahead.

Sen. McCain then switched gears and discussed current decisions facing the country. He deplored the fact that people are fighting and dying in Syria for what Americans fought many years ago for and receiving no help from the U.S. Criticizing Obama’s inaction in Syria, he quoted Gen. Mattis that replacing the Assad regime would cripple Iran. He did not mention the possibility that the U.S. aiding the Syrian rebels might cause Russia to counter by escalating their help to Assad.

When asked if he had ever sacrificed his morals for political expediency, he at first said no, then he changed his mind and called himself a “coward” during the 2000 GOP primary in South Carolina. At the time, the hot issue in South Carolina was whether or not the state capital could fly the Confederate flag. He said it should be left up to the states to decide, when he personally felt it was wrong. After the election he went to South Carolina to apologize. I think the entire Brigade was amazed that someone who survived over five years in a Vietnamese POW camp could call himself a coward.

Answering a question about Obamacare or Obama cares (depending on your political leanings), Sen. McCain said he thought mandatory health care was unconstitutional because it violates both the Commerce Clause and the 10^th Amendment, which gives all powers not delegated to the federal government to the states. Furthermore, he reminded the audience that President Obama promised medical costs would drop, and they haven’t (though since the act doesn’t take effect until 2014, I don’t think anyone can say for sure how the act will affect health care costs).

In conclusion, the Brigade enjoyed hearing from a legend. Next week, Secretary of State Clinton will speak to the Brigade. The Naval Academy, while an imperfect institution, does do a great job of bringing in interesting speakers.

A continuation of a 60 year alliance and a message:

ALAN DUPONT, INT. SECURITY STUDIES, UNSW: It’s not so much the Marines themselves but it’s the symbol – the signal it sends to the region that Australia is – and the United States are working together to meet these common challenges. So I think it’s quite an important shift.

UPDATE: Robert Kaplan has a related analysis at Stratfor America’s Pacific Logic:

Were the United States not now to turn to the Indo-Pacific, it would risk a multipolar military order arising up alongside an already existent multipolar economic and political order. Multipolar military systems are more unstable than unipolar and bipolar ones because there are more points of interactions and thus more opportunities for miscalculations, as each country seeks to readjust the balance of power in its own favor. U.S. military power in the Indo-Pacific is needed not only to manage the peaceful rise of China but also to stabilize a region witnessing the growth of indigenous civil-military post-industrial complexes.

Without its history, a organization is ungrounded and without a baseline to reference. In that light, what are we to make from paragraph 2 of the Navy IG’s Command Inspection report from AUG 11 (you can get the entire document here) ?

Three core mission areas are at risk in the future because of facilities challenges, command practices and resource constraints. … the perceived quality of work life at NAVHISTHERITAGECOM is the worst we have observed since NAVINSGEN began collecting such data in January 2006.

Give it a good read.

What is going on? An internal battle over the direction of an organization that has leaked in to a Command Inspection, or is something this important broken?

In a recent Guardian interview, part of the larger coverage on the Falkland Islands war that occurred 20 years ago, Rear Admiral Sir John Forster Woodward offered his tactical perspective on events in the Falklands today.

If the Falklands are ever captured by Argentina it will be impossible to win them back, says Woodward. “We could not retake the Falklands. We could not send a task force or even an aircraft carrier. If we had been in this state in 1982, the Falklands would be the Malvinas. We rely on sending reinforcements by air, but that would be impossible if we lost control of the airfield at Mount Pleasant.”

He is not, however, as despairing as that sounds. “The problem doesn’t arise, because they won’t be taking it,” he says, rapping his knuckles on the kitchen table for luck. “I hope I’m right.”

His hope is based on the recent arrival of the destroyer HMS Dauntless. “We need her surface-to-air missiles. The Argentines might hope to overcome the four Typhoon jets at Mount Pleasant with a dozen Mirages and then bomb the airfield out of action, but while she’s there with her missiles they won’t try that. I’m not sure the Government understands how important she is.”

Argentina believes Britain has also sent a nuclear-powered attack submarine, or SSN, which the MoD neither confirms nor denies. As an expert submariner, Woodward sees the use. “If they want to invade, it will have to be by sea and an SSN will chop them up. They know that.”

If you haven’t read the article, it is worth reading in its entirety. Also worth reading is this article from Chris Parry in the Daily Mail.

The inherent capability of seapower to dissuade aggression is often taken for granted, until it is plainly obvious. It is highly questionable whether HMS Dauntless (D33) is actually preventing a new war in the Falklands, as it is highly questionable whether Argentina would ever try to take the islands by force again, but it is very clear that the presence of credible naval power will cease the tension that comes from speculating about military action.

What the presence of HMS Dauntless (D33) around the Falkland Islands does is clarify the costs to Argentina of military adventurism, specifically forcing Argentina to adjust any calculations potentially made undertaking a military option to retake the Falkland Islands. In any scenario where two sides face off against each other in diplomatic disputes, the addition of military power by either side forces adjustments to the cost calculations of the other side.

With that said, the Royal Navy is the smallest it has been in centuries, and today is too small to sustain deployments of Type 45 destroyers or nuclear attack submarines for the protection of the Falkland Islands indefinitely. When HMS Dauntless (D33) leaves the region, should a similar replacement not show up – it is a safe bet that the political rhetoric and tension will return to the Falkland Islands.

One final thought. It is still remarkable – to say the least – that a single warship in the 21st century can still carry with it so much political influence and virtually cease the potential for tension through the forward deployed presence of credible naval power alone. In a nation with a large Navy like the US Navy, the value of a single ship is often taken for granted by the political leaders and the people of the United States who enjoy the benefits that come from being a large naval power, but in a small Navy like the Royal Navy, the influence of naval power stands evident today to one and all.

Got my orders today, actually.  I have a No Later Than date in June.  Yeah, June.  We’re in April.

It’s definitely a trend in my life for me to leave from places in unexpected ways.  I left Afghanistan all of a sudden, and rather abruptly from my ship to go to Afghanistan–just crazy, crazy transitions.  But, I’d be lying if I said I don’t find it all an adventure.

But, so yeah, Pensacola is next, and STA-21 probably isn’t going to happen for me this year. The due date for the package is July, and I’ll have been at A-school for only two months by then.  So, meh, there will be other options out there.   I figure most of the things I’m going to have to talk about in the near future will have to be [redacted] or maybe [redacted] cause you know CTRs do stuff like [redacted] for a living.

I’m a little bummed that the odds of putting a STA-21 package in are nil.  Becoming a CTR was supposed to be [redacted]. But, has seemed to  have become the primary plan.  But, again, no biggie, I’m fine with that; it all happens for a reason. I only entertained this notion of becoming a CTR because it was something I was interested in becoming in the first place.

I just hope I find it fascinating.

One recurring thing I’ve been told over my last 15 or so months working at SHAPE is that I might be peaking in my career–very early in my career.  And well, yeah, maybe I am.  But, I don’t think so.

What now; what’s next?

By R. R. Keene

If you’ve never been to Dong Ha, you haven’t missed a thing. Well, perhaps with the exception of Easter 1972.

No one really knows how many of those who were there are still around to talk about it. The South Vietnamese Marines are no more: banished or dead. The North Vietnamese soldiers who fired their weap­ons in frustration from across the Cau Viet River are scattered and old or dead. John Ripley’s been dead for three years and wasn’t the kind to brag.

So, from time to time we have to retell his legendary tale and pass it to every generation of Marines.

Colonel John W. Ripley: When they talk of Marines with cojones, one thing comes to mind—Ripley as a captain at the bridge at Dong Ha.

****

At 33, Ripley was an “old Asia hand” on his second Vietnam combat tour. He deployed in country as a reconnaissance platoon leader in 1965 and then commanded “Lima” Company, 3d Battalion, Third Marine Regiment. “Ripley’s Raiders” they call themselves, and they insist the “33” label of Vietnamese “Ba Muoi Ba” Bier (beer) really means 3d Bn, 3d Marines. They liked Ripley. He was no wuss. He gave his Marines no slack, kept them in the field and got them in plenty of combat, but also took good care of them, and they took their wounds together.

In addition to the Purple Heart, Ripley won a Silver Star during an attack with Lima Co against an NVA regimental com­mand post.

The men of Lima Co admire their “skip­per” and like telling stories about him.

One Marine said, “I remember Staff Sear­geant Joe Martin saying, Ripley was on Harlan County [(LST­1196)] in port on the Caribbean in 1964. He was cross­deck­ing when one of the ‘squid’ officers of the day said something insulting about the Corps. ‘Rip’ threw him in the drink. They put him in ‘hack’ down over the bilges in the bowels of USS Boxer [(LPH­4)], where the hull makes a V. He did push­ups all day. Eventually he took over Weapons, 2/2 and was Martin’s platoon commander.”

Ripley, even for a Marine, was a physical fitness animal. He was a “The ­more ­you­ sweat ­in ­peace, the ­less ­you ­bleed­ in­ war” believer who’d taken it to heart—and all the other muscles of his body—as an enlisted man and later as a midshipman at the U.S. Naval Academy. It gave him an edge on his exchange tour with the British Royal Marines on the Malay Peninsula, at the U.S. Army’s Airborne and Ranger schools and with the Navy’s underwater demolition teams. He had be­ come jump­, scuba­ and Ranger ­qualified.

Ripley said, “Endurance: We confuse this with fitness … but mental endurance is like an extra bandolier. … You lock­ and­ load and keep going.”

Read the entire article here at Leatherneck Magazine

More about the Memorial to Company L, 3d Battalion, Third Marine Regiment gathered at Semper Fidelis Memorial Park, National Museum of the Marine Corps in Triangle, Va., to dedicate the “CAPTAIN J. W. RIPLEY LIMA CO RVN-1967” Memorial, honor their fallen comrades and remember their commanding officer.

*******

Thank you Leatherneck Magazine and Mr. Keene.

Semper Fi Dad

When all else fails, we fall back on ourselves – this time on April Fool’s Day. For what it is worth, there are many foolish things to discuss – the Navy’s shipbuilding budget, the U.S. defense budget writ large, fueling the fleet stuff, the SecNav’s idea of testing the on-coming watch sections for alcohol and drugs and much, more.

Join us by clicking here. You can call in at (347) 308-8397 and be foolish, too.

UPDATE: Actually, film maker Scott Kesterson is our guest.

On board USS Antietam, Pusan, South Korea, March 2003

It’s been almost 6.5 years since I resigned my commission in the US Navy where I served 2 tours at sea on board west coast-based warships followed by an instructor tour at the US Naval Academy. Since leaving the service, “civilian-life” has kept me pretty busy. I’ve traveled the world, met thousands of people, and even worked for a year on a drilling rig floor! It’s really been an incredible learning experience and I certainly have a much greater sense of self than I ever did before.

It’s also given me an extraordinary perspective on my time in the US Navy, and how completely backwards and inefficient the US Navy operates at times.

In 2009, I was hired by Transocean (NYSE:RIG) as a part of their Rig Manager training program. Essentially, this was an 18-month program designed to go through all the different positions on an offshore drilling rig, including all the shore-based training, to prepare me to become a Rig Manager-Performance. It was an incredible opportunity and I was psyched to have the experience- not recognizing at the time just how different it would be from my previous leadership training in the Navy.

My first two weeks at Transocean were spent in Amelia, Louisiana with about 20 other new-hires, including Roustabouts, Roughnecks, Subsea Engineers, Crane Operators, Drillers, and two other Rig Manager trainees. We weren’t allowed to leave the facility grounds during that time period and we were fed Transocean’s safety culture, learned their processes, studied damage control, and gained an understanding of the level of attention to detail expected on board an offshore drilling rig.

After two weeks, I still didn’t know much about drilling, but above all else what I knew what was expected of me. I was now a safety leader and fully ready for that immense responsibility.

My first experience out of the US Naval Academy was attending Surface Warfare Officer’s School in the fall of 1999. During the 6 month training program in Newport, Rhode Island, we learned all about naval weapons systems, gas turbine engineering, and conducted in classroom-based scenarios. It was a really fun time and my classmates and I drank a lot of beer while celebrating the fact we were no longer midshipmen.

At the end of it all, the course turned out to be a total waste and I was no more adept at my next job than I would have been had I gone straight to the ship. I was put in charge of 35 enlisted sailors who were working on systems that I had no real understanding of, and my immediate supervisor’s response to everything was, “did you look it up?”

I was miserable.

The following is the mission of my alma mater, the US Naval Academy:

To develop Midshipmen morally, mentally and physically and to imbue them with the highest ideals of duty, honor and loyalty in order to graduate leaders who are dedicated to a career of naval service and have potential for future development in mind and character, to assume the highest responsibilities of command, citizenship and government.

Even as I was handed my diploma and was commissioned an Ensign, I really didn’t have a good idea of what was in store for me when I got to the “fleet”. What does a leader in the fleet look like anyway?

The confusion lies in the fact that leaders come in all forms, but the Navy’s “corporate” vision of a leader is really quite narrow.

I have a very competitive personality, am internally driven, and hate being told what to do. The type of leadership that will get the best results and work out of me is not the same kind for someone who is detail/technically oriented and introverted. As a junior naval officer, I just assumed after a while that I had a problem with authority. To a certain degree maybe I was right, but the root cause is that personality and recognizing motivating factors are not well understood in the context of naval leadership.

Understanding this is key.

You can have the most spit and polished officer in the fleet, but if he or she can’t figure out the personal motivating influencers within each subordinate, then they’ll have a difficult time getting the most out of them, or retaining them. This ultimately impacts the performance of subordinates and subsequent mission accomplishment.

Looking at professional advancement…

In the US Navy, you’re expected to advance and move on to other, more senior roles regardless of your actual strengths, and you’re expected to have checked all the boxes along the way. As an officer, this means qualifying as Engineering Officer of the Watch, Officer of the Deck, and Tactical Action Officer (TAO).

Ok, fair enough, I can appreciate the importance of being well rounded, but can someone tell me WHY THE F&*K you need a full body photo included as part of your promotion board? What is this, Match.com?

If you want your leaders to look good, and feel good about themselves, then throw away those horrendous blue camouflage uniforms and get back to khakis. ADM Nimitz and Steve McQueen are rolling in their graves right now.

The Navy doesn’t attempt to tailor officers to specific jobs that reflect their strengths or even teach them how to best lead their Sailors. Those who don’t fit in the pegs properly are considered “problems,” not potential assets that are capable of thinking outside the box and improving processes with their creativity, if they were only given more understanding leadership. Sure, there are sailors and officers who are prone to stupid acts, but more often than not, a deeper look would reveal a highly capable individual who is simply misunderstood and unappreciated.

“People quit managers, not jobs.” – Marcus Buckingham

Transocean had a solution to this, one that I found rather profound. Every employee is required to take a personality test that accurately depicts their tendencies, weaknesses, ideal situations, leadership needs, and growth areas. The results of this test are color-coded and you literally wear your personality on your hard hat, or at the entrance to your office. I’m a red over yellow. This essentially means that I have a go-getter/director personality coupled with a communicative/extroverted side.

Makes sense right?

There’s more to it than that…follow this link to see some of the other bits of info that go along with this profile.

I was at the Surface Navy Association National Symposium this winter and attended a speech by the Vice Chief of Naval Operations. At the end of his speech, I got up to the microphone and mentioned how Transocean employees wore their personality profiles on their hardhats and on the entrance to their offices. I asked him if the US Navy was pursuing initiatives like this to support leadership development and fleet operations.

Most of the people in the audience laughed at the idea that officers would have their personality profiles affixed to their stateroom doors, but I think the VCNO saw what I was getting at.

Transocean (and every other civilian company) does something else that contributes to a positive working environment and leadership development…

Everyone eats together.

I realize this goes against a couple hundred years of Navy tradition, but seriously, why is it a privilege to eat in the Wardroom or Chief’s Mess? If you want to get to know your people, or anyone for that matter, have lunch with them. Listen to their conversations, talk to them, find out what motivates them. It’s really quite simple.

Leadership has nothing to do with the bars on your shoulder, or your job title, it has everything to do with getting the most out of the people you work with. The US Navy’s latest ship designs and technology have clearly evolved far quicker and further than its leadership. Perhaps it’s time to take a big step back and really ask the question, “why do we do it this way?”

Rob Almeida is Partner/Editor of gCaptain.com. He graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1999 with a B.S in Naval Architecture and spent 6.5 years on active duty as a Surface Warfare Officer. He worked for a year as a Roughneck/Rig Manager trainee on board the drillship Discoverer Americas in 2009/10. He is an accomplished sailor and competes in the US Australian Rules Football League with the Baltimore/Washington Eagles. He can be reached via email at rob@gcaptain.com.

What if we knew that – but – decided that we were not only going to continue to try to control the uncontrollable, but to try to create accurate metrics from inaccurate data?

Well – that is what we are doing – and we’re even saying it.

The Naval Audit Service put out a report in OCT of 2011 titled, “Naval Pilot and Naval Flight Officer Diversity” that was released in a redacted version via a FOIA. You can get your own copy of it here. There is a lot of good in the report, and it deserves a full read.

The problem as some see it is outlined early.

The Naval Pilot/Flight Officer communities, a significant portion of the Navy’s commissioned officers, are not on track to reflect the diversity of the nation. In his 2011Diversity Policy, The Chief of Naval Operations states that we “must…build a Navy that always reflects our Country’s make up.” Low enrollment, high attrition, low preference,and low selection at commissioning sources for certain minority groups, and low performance in flight training, are contributing to the lack of diversity.

If this trend continues, future senior leadership in the aviation community will not reflect the diversity of the nation.

That identifies the “what” and “so what.” Is the solution inside the lifelines of the Navy to correct? As real barriers were removed well over half a century ago – then, “what next?”

The reasons for the delta are now socio-cultural in the nation at large. Just one of the core entering arguments:

We know it is beyond our control too.

A review of the “reasons why” certain groups enroll at low rates, or have higher attrition, may identify issues beyond or outside Navy control.

This is good. This is a modern, mature, and logic based approach to a tough problem; sadly we don’t flesh it out much in the report – but it is a start.

Objective standards are fair, but do not guarantee equal outcomes when, on average, the indicators for success differ at the start.

Student Naval Pilots/Flight Officers’ performance is measured using a Navy standard score. To be eligible for the jet training pipeline, a student Naval Pilot must receive a score of 50 or above. We reviewed the flight training performance standards and found that they appeared objective.

However, we determined that African American, Asian/Pacific Islander, and Hispanic students’ average Navy standard scores were lower than Caucasians. These lower scores negatively affected the number from each minority group entering the jet pipeline.

Is that the Navy’s fault? No – that simply reflects the educational and socio-cultural challenges the broader nation has.

In the past, the Navy has got itself in trouble by pushing good people with good intentions to start to do bad things. This is where the bad comes in.

Establish metrics to monitor and track progress of enrollment, graduation, preference, selection, and performance …

We all know what metrics mean. From measures of effectiveness to “goal achievement.” If you cannot move the needle due to factors outside your control and only have objective criteria based on indicators for success under your control … what can you do to move the needle that the metrics demand? The answer isn’t good for anyone.

Even if we could chase numbers – are the numbers accurate?

It should be noted that race and ethnicity was self-reported by the students, and they could self-report as a different race or ethnicity when asked at different times.

Well, there we go. It is good to see in print what we have all seen in the Fleet. Fraud, folly, or foolishness; it is there when it comes to checking the block, and it increases the margin of error for all these numbers.

To our credit, the Navy has not lost faith in its objectivity, but knows there is pressure to move away from that objectivity. More than most warfare specialties perhaps, aviation is exceptionally sensitive to standards due to the minimal margin for error in that line of work. You can feel that undercurrent in this report – the professionals trying to push past the retrograde zeitgeist.

We concluded that the Multi-Service Pilot Training System, used by Chief of Naval Air Training to measure student performance, appeared objective. To account for potential differences in scoring across training squadrons, student scores are normalized over the last 60 students that graduated from the same squadron to create the Navy standard score.According to Chief of Naval Air Training officials, the Multi-Service Pilot Training System is a legally defensible and objective system.

Towards the end, the authors touch on a survey that was a lost opportunity. What would have been the results if “non-diverse” and male students were asked the same questions about themselves? Just to compare results, it would be interesting.

We also reviewed the “Naval Aviation Student Training Attrition Report,” a summary of exit surveys administered to student Naval Pilot/Flight Officers after they resign from or complete major phases in flight training. When asked whether diverse students were discriminated against, 0.08 percent (4 of 4,996) of respondents indicated that this occurred, and 0.39 percent (3 of 766) of diverse respondents indicated that this occurred. When asked whether female students were discriminated against, 0.46 percent (23 of 4,996) of respondents indicated that this occurred, and 2.67 percent (12 of 450) of female respondents indicated that this occurred.

In any event – those are incredibly small numbers and considering the human condition – numbers to be proud of. You will never find 100% of people who think they are being treated fairly – but 99.92% to 97.32% ? Even by Soviet election standards — that is exceptional.

This whole exercise is sad in another, broader sense. This is the second decade of the 21st Century. Many of those entering flight training are 22-23 years old. They were born in 1990-91. So much of the training, ideology and talking points about diversity seem stuck in the 1970s. It simply is not reflective of today’s generation of young people; why are we forcing division down their throats?

Unlike those of earlier generations who are making these decisions, today’s young men and women live diversity every day. It is a natural part of their lives, and to force such a multi-racial and mixed-race generation to divide themselves by something as meaningless yet divisive as race (my family can pick a minimum of three if they want) is, at best, counter productive.

At worse? Review history – your answers are there.

As I drove away I thought this: how lucky we were to have had a man such as this in this world, brief though his time on station was.  And I thought of a short poem often read to me when I was a child that I had thought was long forgotten but wasn’t and said to myself out-loud as I descended from Point Loma’s hills…

CHARTLESS.

I never saw a moor,

I never saw the sea;

Yet know I how the heather looks,

And what a wave must be.

I never spoke with God,

Nor visited in Heaven;

Yet certain am I of the spot

As if the chart were given.

-E.D.

Rest easy now Lex.  We have the watch.

Today at 1300 PDT, Captain Carroll “Lex” LeFon, United States Navy, Retired, will be laid to rest in Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery in San Diego, CA.

non omnis moriar

                                           – Horace

Fred L. Schultz

From Naval History Magazine, April 2000

In January 1960, he and Swiss copilot Jacques Piccard navigated the U.S. Navy’s bathyscaphe Trieste into the Challenger Deep, the deepest spot in the World Ocean. At nearly seven miles, the record still stands. Retired U.S. Navy Captain Walsh also was a member of Operation Deep Freeze in 1971, spending more than a month on the ice in Antarctica and earning recognition for his contributions there by having an Antarctic mountain ridge named for him. Today, Captain Walsh is president of International Maritime, Inc., an Oregon-based consulting company that has completed projects in 20 nations. He is one of 20 living Honorary Members of the Explorers Club, an Honorary Life Member of the Adventurers Club, and a Fellow of England’s Royal Geographic Society. Captain Walsh is a 1954 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and earned Master’s and Doctorate degrees in Oceanography from Texas A&M University and a second Master’s degree from California State University in San Diego. A technical advisor for such films as Gray Lady Down, Raise the Titanic, The Hunt for Red October, and The Abyss, Captain Walsh is scheduled to lead an expedition in April 2000 to HMS Breadalbane, the world’s northernmost shipwreck, 350 feet beneath the ice off Beechey Island in the Canadian Arctic. He spoke recently about a variety of topics to Naval History Editor Fred L. Schultz.

Naval History: In a Naval History interview a few years ago, Jean-Michel Cousteau referred to you as the Buzz Aldrin of the ocean. What do you think he meant by that?

Captain Walsh: I’ve known the Cousteau family for many years. I know Jean-Michel well. I’ve been a guest in the Cousteau home. We go way back, so I believe that was a compliment and not a complaint.

Naval History: We thought he might have meant that Jacques Piccard received more of the credit for your expedition to the Challenger Deep, comparing you to Aldrin and Piccard to Neil Armstrong.

Captain Walsh: Well, it’s a tad nationalistic. Europeans tend to favor the European, and Americans tend to favor the American. I think that’s just human nature. The Piccards, of course, are a dynasty. I don’t think any family in the history of exploration has had three generations who, essentially, all established world records. Auguste, of course, was a great balloonist. He was basically a physicist, but he set the world altitude record in the early 1930s in a balloon. And, of course, his son Jacques was with me in the Trieste. And now Jacques’s son Bertrand is the first man to fly a balloon around the world.

So they’re a dynasty of explorers and scientists in Europe, and, understandably, the press treatment would probably favor them. I don’t think it’s any kind of a deliberate spin; it’s just the way people see the news and report it. It doesn’t trouble me.

Naval History: What was it like competing against the space program at the time?

Captain Walsh: It was pretty tough, because the advent of the space program came at just about the time we brought the Trieste to the United States. We and this inner spaceship we had didn’t even enjoy a year of primacy. NASA already was off and running. The Navy’s entire undersea program has lived in the shadow of the space program. Of course, our project seemed to be under wraps from the beginning.

I remember presenting the program to Admiral Arleigh Burke. Of course, the Navy doesn’t require lieutenants to go the Chief of Naval Operations to get approval for programs, but nobody wanted to make the decision. I kept getting handed up the chain until one day I ended up in front of Admiral Burke.

So I briefed him on the program. And he said, “How many of you are in this thing?”

And I replied, “It’s just myself and Piccard.”

Then he said, “Are there any other Navy people associated?”

And I said, “There’s Lieutenant Larry Shumaker, who’s the assistant officer in charge. He’ll be in charge of the topside aspects.”

The Admiral then said, “Well, if this thing doesn’t come back up, you tell Shumaker that you’re the lucky one, because I’m going to have his lower appendages.” Arleigh Burke said what he meant and meant what he said. So I got the approval from him, but he put a condition on it. He said, “There’ll be no publicity, none at all.” I looked at him in surprise, because if we were successful, this was going to be quite a coup for the Navy.

“The science guys and the research and development engineers in the Navy,” he said, “have been promising me spectacular things. We were going to put up the first earth-orbiting satellite.” They had lit off a rocket at Cape Canaveral, and it shot into the ocean rather than into space. So Admiral Burke said that he didn’t want any more of these promised science spectaculars that turn out to fizzle. “If you do it successfully,” he said, “then we’ll have the publicity. But until then, just keep your mouth shut and go do it.”

So we didn’t really have a ramp-up to this great event. There was no general knowledge of what we were doing. Although Life, National Geographic, and improbably, The London Daily Mail got a whiff of it, the Navy’s Chief of Information bought their silence by saying they could go on the trip but they couldn’t tell anybody. And they didn’t. Does Macy’s tell Gimball’s? They were inside, and the door was shut. They essentially had scoops. And so, off we went to Guam. That was good coverage.

The London Daily Mail had a wonderful foreign correspondent, Noel Barber. He was out of the trench coat-Lowell Thomas school. When the Dalai Lama came out, Barber hired horses and rode a hundred miles into Tibet to greet him and get the scoop. He was a wonderful raconteur. During the evenings in Guam, when we’d all go out for dinner, we didn’t talk about the Trieste, we sat around and listened to the reporters tell stories about their adventures. It was great fun.

Naval History: Were you at all trepidatious before your dive in the Marianas Trench to the Challenger Deep?

Captain Walsh: No. People say, “Well, you’re just being modest.” And my wife says I’ve got a lot to be modest about. But the fact is, the whole strategy of the testing of the Bathyscaph, over nearly a year, was to make increasingly deeper test dives. When we got it, it was configured for only 20,000-foot diving depths. We had to reengineer it, enlarge it, and buy a new cabin for it, to be able to go to 36,000 feet. And so we did a few test dives in San Diego, then shipped the whole thing to Guam.

At Guam, we started out at 400 feet in the harbor and worked our way offshore, in increasingly deeper water. And we actually brought the world’s depth record home to the United States in November of 1959, when we made a dive to 18,000 feet. The previous record, of course, was held by the French Navy, at 12,500 feet, which actually is the average depth of the ocean. That was set in 1954. So we captured the record again in 1958, and by early January 1960 we dove to 24,000 feet. Then 12 days later we made the deep dive. It was all incremental.

So I say it was just a longer day at the office, and people think I’m trying to be clever. But that’s the truth. All the manipulations we did to make it dive were the same whether we were diving 1,000 feet or 36,000 feet. And we got to know it intimately. I’d put on a boiler suit, scrape rust inside that tank, and help paint it. Everybody turned to. We were a small team—only 14 people. And we worked seven days a week, dawn to dusk, at Guam. You build a certain confidence in your equipment.

Naval History: Why do you think no one’s done it since? Is it a cost/benefit matter?

Captain Walsh: Yes, it is. If you can dive to 20,000 feet, you can cover 98% of the sea floor. For engineers and bean-counters—even the users—98% is pretty good.

Having said that, the last 2% is about the size of North America, in terms of unexplored ocean floor. Today, four manned submersibles can dive to 20,000 feet. We did have five, but the U.S. Navy has resigned from the game. We had the Sea Cliff, which replaced the bathyscaph Trieste. In 1982, that was converted to a 20,000-foot submersible by adding a titanium hull, among other features. So the Trieste left service, and the Sea Cliff went into service.

That was soon followed by the Nautile, the French 6,000-meter, or 20,000-foot submersible, in the mid 1980s. The Russians bought the two Mirs—actually made in Finland—in the late 1980s. And then the fourth country to get into the game was Japan, which built a Shinkai, at 6,500 meters. The extra 500 meters means that the Japanese now have the deepest-diving manned submersible in the world.

Naval History: Why is the U.S. Navy out of the game?

Captain Walsh: Beats the hell out of me. I wish I knew. We pioneered manned submersibles. Sure, the Piccards invented and developed the bathyscaph, but it was perfected in our Navy. And this led us on to other submersibles. Most that exist in the world today are based largely on work that began in the U.S. Navy R&D establishment. And all of the remotely operated vehicle (ROV) technology came out of the Navy, principally the Navy lab in San Diego. The same goes for the autonomous untethered vehicles (AUVs). So much of this early work was started by the Navy in the Sixties and the Seventies, which was sort of the golden age of undersea vehicles. But over the years, the Navy has just pulled clear of all of it. I guess it doesn’t see any operational need.

Having said that, I think that the state of technology in the civil sector, for ROVs and AUVs today, is such that the Navy is probably better off just buying what it needs, or contracting to have built what it needs, rather than being involved in the research and development.

The genesis of civil involvement in deep submersibles rested in the Navy lab system, with submarine force involvement. And it’s all kind of gone away. The Navy doesn’t do that kind of R&D anymore, and it really doesn’t contract for much of it. It’s not even a sponsor of new developments, which are all being done in the civil sector.

We’ve just resigned from the game. That’s an all-embracing statement, but essentially it’s correct. It just seems to me today—as it did a long time ago—that being able to go deep in the oceans, to maintain a presence anywhere in the oceans, and to be able to work anywhere on the floor of the oceans, is pretty important. But after we made the deep dive, the Navy restricted the Trieste to 20,000 feet. From then on, the U.S. Navy did not have a ultimate-depth capability.

Naval History: Why was that restriction made?

Captain Walsh: The Navy felt the new cabin that was built for it was not safe and didn’t want us to use it anymore.

There is an apocryphal story; well, maybe it’s true. When we were on board the Trieste, getting ready to make the deep dive, my leading chief petty officer was on board a destroyer escort called the Lewis (DE-535), some distance away.

A radioman came around with his clipboard, looking for Lieutenant Walsh. He said he had a message from Washington. The chief said that Lieutenant Walsh was on the Trieste, but that he’d certainly give this message to him at the earliest possible opportunity. The message said: “Don’t make the dive.” The chief gave me that message about five years ago. That shows how much confidence we had in each other and in the device, a confidence that probably wasn’t shared in Washington.

Naval History: You brought up the ROVs and the AUVs. That brings me to a question about Robert Ballard. What do you think of his adventures and his ability to have them funded by public means?

Captain Walsh: Well, I think it’s wonderful. I don’t know what hold he has over these people. Normally, that kind of deal stems from a personal relationship with somebody like the Secretary of the Navy or somebody who controls resources; both the policy resources as well as the physical resources.

Bob’s been able to do it across several changes of top-level personnel in Washington, and that’s a remarkable thing that he’s done—to gain access to Navy assets and resources for these jobs. I’m sure he’s not paying market rate, if he’s paying at all. It’s not only remarkable; it’s unique.

In the old days of exploration, people like Richard Byrd had hybrid expeditions with Navy assets. How many of his flights were done with Navy air, and how did he get the time off, as a serving naval officer, to do these things? There was a lot more flexibility in those days that isn’t present today.

So what Bob is doing is truly remarkable in the sense that he’s been able to plow straight ahead, get access to these assets, and do some interesting things. He’s a great communicator. He gave a talk once to some educators in a meeting I attended in England. He said that when he did dives on the deep sea vents, the black smokers, with the Alvin, he’d get a few letters a week from students who were interested in what he was doing. When he found the Titanic, he said it went to hundreds of letters a week.

Here was something that was recapturing young people’s imaginations. From a scientific point of view, finding the Titanic was probably far less valuable to society than working with the deep sea vents and trying to explain them. He’s developed a formula that allows him to connect with a large body of the public, with the underlying message that not only are strange and wonderful things happening in the sea, but there’s almost nothing that has been lost or dropped into the sea, in man’s history, that we can’t find and study.

Naval History: What do you think he might find in his next expedition?

Captain Walsh: The next expedition, I understand, is the Black Sea, which is an anaerobic basin, where the water is oxygenated down to a certain depth; it’s a very shallow layer on top. And that’s because the sill depth at the Sea of Marmora is high enough that only the top layer moves in and out and gets oxygenated. Of course, biological and chemical processes use the oxygen quickly.

After the oxygen is depleted and not being recharged, the result is an anaerobic body of water. The notion is that ancient wrecks will not, perhaps, deteriorate as rapidly as they do in an oxygenated area, which can support chemical breakdown of substances or support bacteria that facilitate that breakdown.

My question is: If we’ve got two life systems on our planet—beyond the traditional photosynthetic sun-based system—that exist in the absence of oxygen, couldn’t bacteria microbes that live in the Black Sea have adapted to a virtually no-oxygen environment and still be able to carry on the deterioration of organic materials?

Chemosynthetic organisms live around the hydrothermal vents on the sea floor. Microbes known as archae live under very high temperature and pressure within the rocks. This gives us a clue about whether there might be life on other planets. These microbes are able to live in extraordinarily tough environments. And so we need to go back and start looking and sampling from other planets in our solar system, to see whether or not there might not be life at this level there. If something can live in conditions as brutal as that, why couldn’t they adapt in the Black Sea? Very few archeological expeditions have gone into it, so it’s virgin territory. Trade and shipping were very active in early civilizations around the edge of the Black Sea. One of our best-known oceanographers, Willard Bascom, judges that about 15% of all ships that sailed in ancient times never got to their destination. And so Bob’s going in an area that is like a big bank.

Naval History: You were talking about technology transfer. Has deep-sea exploration brought us anything similar to what the space program has brought us? Or is it all intangible?

Captain Walsh: That’s a good question. In the case of sea exploration, we’re really talking about technology that has migrated to other segments of the science. A lot of that know-how, those technological building blocks, might be borrowed by another project, without having to pay for the technology again. That’s technology transfer, but that’s intramural. When they say technology transfer, most people talk about it as extramural.

Undersea technology probably has not had that much extramural transfer, but has produced a lot of intramural benefits. Things that we developed for the Trieste have shown up in other programs over the years. We had the first underwater manipulators—the artificial hands—and the first high-resolution sonar. The first ROVs were a technology transfer from the U.S. Navy lab to profit-making companies. But that is intramural. So it depends on how you ask the question, when you’re talking about technology transfer.

A little bit has gone the other direction. For example, take Europa, the water-covered moon of Jupiter. Its outer skin is ice, with some icebergs sticking out of the crust. It appears that surface disturbances were caused by thermal venting from inside. The ocean on Europa has been determined to be about 100 kilometers deep—33 miles. That’s a pretty deep ocean. So the biggest ocean in our planetary system may be on the Europa moon, or satellite, of Jupiter.

So what is being discussed now is the development of a Europa lander with the capability of boring through this ice crust to put an ROV or an AUV into the ocean. This would be able to determine whether or not things are living in the water and to analyze water-dissolved gasses, salinity, and other characteristics. So U.S. companies that build ROVs have been approached. Antarctic Lake Vostok, an ice-covered lake, would be a good prototype experimental area, but the horns of the dilemma now is whether we want to contaminate Lake Vostok with our atmosphere.

Right now, we’re studying the ice layers on Greenland. I think we’ve been able to core down to about 300 feet, which represents something like 250,000 years of earth’s climate. It’s just like tree rings. Here we actually have a sample of the atmosphere, earth’s atmosphere, a quarter of a million years ago. But have we contaminated it? That’s the dilemma on Lake Vostok—that we will open it up and contaminate it. Or will we?

Naval History: Do treasure hunters have a role in the understanding of history?

Captain Walsh: I’m glad you asked that question, because it’s something I’ve been working on recently. Underwater archaeologists and salvors need each other. Even in a big country like ours, or a European country like France or Great Britain, underwater archeology ranks below ballet in terms of government support. I won’t say it doesn’t get any respect; of course it does, because it’s an academic discipline. But it doesn’t get a lot of public funding for the conduct of research.

Working in the deep ocean is terribly expensive. A good first-class oceanographic research ship with a manned submersible or an ROV system on board might cost $45,000 to $60,000 a day. And finding things on the sea floor isn’t easy. Ocean water magnifies, so a square mile on the floor of the ocean is huge, in terms of being able to sweep through it and find small objects. That’s a slow, time-consuming business. Virtually nothing that has been lost on the floor of the ocean cannot be found, if you can pay the price.

So a marine archeologist had better know very well where something is before he goes out, because you can burn up your budget quickly and come home empty handed. This is not good for an academic or a program manager. I think there’s a place for people—I would prefer to call them “shipwreck diving companies” rather than the pejorative-sounding “treasure hunters”—who have a different motive to search for, locate, and classify things. These companies work with the additional incentive of being able to recover artifacts, market them, and sell them.

Now, that may sound bad. But these two communities—the shipwreck diving companies with a profit incentive and access to the technologies and the search methodologies, and the archeologists who have the research and historical information to identify, classify, and to conserve artifacts properly—need to get together. The archaeologist will never be able to afford deep-water work. It’s just too expensive. Very few in fact will ever have a chance to do it. And so, if the archaeologists just say, “off with their heads” to the deep shipwreck people, they’re never going to get out there to do their work. The shipwreck people are not going to take them. And they certainly won’t cooperate if they are ruled out by governments and laws and regulations. If they can’t work, that’s the end of it. Nobody will go in the deep sea. So it’s a Pyrrhic victory if you get rid of the shipwreck companies.

I visited one of those companies recently, so it’s on top of my mind. They’re very careful. They are working with governments, and they don’t take anything without permission. They welcome archeologists and government officials to go with them on these trips. Every find is documented, and the disposition of each item is auditable.

The deal they usually work out is: 75% of cultural items go to the government, to museums and archeologists, and 25% are retained by the company. In the case of trade goods and gold–the freight, if you will, of the times—75% stays with the shipwreck exploration company and 25% goes to the government. They can swap shares back and forth, but that’s the basic opening deal.

The shipwreck exploration company takes all the risk and does all the research to find the wreck. Once they have a target, they send down the ROVs and classify it. They have their own archeologists on staff, and when they start recovering artifacts, they conserve them in a way generally accepted by all marine archeologists, as far as methodology goes. So they’re doing all the work, taking all the risk, and then they share what they recover with the local government.

Naval History: The trouble with that is, all of them don’t have equal integrity.

Captain Walsh: Deep shipwreck work is not a subtle thing. It takes a big ship, a big staff, and a very sophisticated ROV system or a manned submersible, all of which costs a lot of money. So they have to find investors. It’s all very high-visibility. Governments can track these activities and insist that the appropriate things be done, in terms of employing archeologists and having some control over the artifacts being removed.

Now you might say, “Look, when you get beyond territorial waters, who’s going to track you?” The Mediterranean, which is the richest trove, and the Black Sea are all government waters. I think it’s easier than you think to put some controls and constraints on the shipwreck-location and diving operations being conducted by these private companies.

And so I think that, instead of being adversaries, the direction for archaeologists to take is to work out a set of rules and regulations and protocols to get everything they want. But they need to recognize the only way that these expeditions are going to get funded. And museums can’t house all the artifacts, anyway. The world does not have 10,000 maritime museums. A lot of museums say, “No. Don’t send us any more stuff. We’ve got plenty.”

I saw a video tape when I was in France late last year of a Roman ship that was carrying roof tiles that looked just like the tiles you see today. How many of those can a museum handle? I think there’s enough to go around.

The archaeologists and the governments get first pick, and the rest of it is handed off to the shipwreck diving company to market and thus finance future expeditions. I think you can control it in a way that satisfies everybody.

Naval History: What have you enjoyed most about your career?

Captain Walsh: You know, the great thing about doing this kind of work is not only the work itself, but also the people you meet. I was once loaned to the State Department for a couple of months to lecture in the Indian Ocean region and the Middle East as a sort of advance man just before the third U.N. Law of the Sea Conference. My role was to give talks to people of consequence in these countries, to demonstrate what was possible at the time in uses of the sea. The notion behind it was to communicate the State Department position that, “If you affiliate with the American position on the sea, then these things can be yours.”

It was great for me, because I was able to go to India, Iran, Pakistan, and Ceylon [Sri Lanka]. I was gone for about two months. One of the people I had the pleasure to meet was sitting in the front row when I was lecturing in Ceylon. He certainly looked familiar. It was [science-fiction author—2001: A Space Odyssey] Arthur C. Clarke, who lives there. And so we became friends. We went skin-diving in Trincomalee, and I was his guest. That’s what I mean about meeting people.

I remember we stayed at the old officers’ barracks in Trincomalee, which was a huge naval base from World War II. The Sinhalese Navy had two 40-foot Vosper patrol boats. When they left at night, the whole base turned off its lights. Arthur had brought along his Celestron telescope and gave me a personal tour of the heavens as we sat outside in wicker chairs. You know, I can’t think of a better guide for space. He’s an example–one of my best–of the people I’ve had the chance to meet while touring around.

There is an echo that regular listeners to Midrats are very familiar with; the critical importance of an understanding of history in the profession of arms.

More than almost any other field, there is nothing new under the sun. The tools may change, but the play of power, economics, intellect, and drive which makes the difference in war and therefor human history remain the same.

A professional must reach back to Sun Tsu and Alexander the Great … but he must also look closer.

To discuss for the full hour will be returning guest LCDR Benjamin “BJ” Armstrong. He recently returned from deployment as the Officer-In-Charge of an MH-60S Armed Helo Detachment which conducted operations with the BATAAN ARG and 22D MEU in support of Operation UNIFIED PROTECTOR in the 6th Fleet AOR and maritime security/counter-piracy operations in the 5th Fleet AOR.

When BJ isn’t off playing helicopter pilot, he is an occasional naval historian. His research extends over the subjects of naval history and irregular warfare. He is the author of numerous articles including “The Most Daring Act of the Age: Principles for Naval Irregular Warfare” in The Naval War College Review, and “Nothing Like a Good Maritime Raid” in USNI’s Proceedings.

His article “Immediate Redress: The USS Potomac and the Pirates of Quallah Batoo” is forthcoming in the May issue of Small Wars and Insurgencies.

You can listen live by clicking on this link, or download the show later from the same link or on iTunes.

Another Flightdeck Friday and sadly, another memorial – this time for another pillar of the E-2C Community, CAPT Edward C. Geiger, USN, ret. (“Ned”). Ned passed away suddenly earlier this week just as he was beginning to enjoy a well deserved retirement having wrapped up his post-Navy career. Services are tentatively slated for Saturday, 31 March 2012 in Norfolk; time and location TBA.
UPDATE:

Memorial Service in Honor and Memory of Ned Geiger: Saturday, March 31, 2012 at 4:00 pm; Royster Memorial Presbyterian Church, 6901 Newport Avenue, Norfolk, Virginia 23505

In lieu of flowers donations may be made in his memory to either of the following organizations.

• The Baldwin Fund of The Williams School,419 Colonial Avenue, Norfolk, VA 23507 (757)627-1383
• VAW/VRC Memorial Scholarship Fund, Post Office Box 15322, Norfolk, VA 23511-0322

It has been said here and elsewhere that all the advanced technology in the world isn’t worth squat if you don’t have the people to go with it. How many bright ideas and technological wonders have ended up on the rocks of time, rusting and forgotten because the human element was absent? Perhaps no area is this more noticeable than in naval warfare, especially the Naval aviation side thereof. When you look at the life of carrier aircraft, the successful ones have had people of all stripes come along at key points in their life to give direction, purpose and advocacy. Sometimes they are in highly visible positions — VADM Tom Connolly (DCNO-Air) whose famous (or infamous, depending on which side of the table you were on) spike in the heart of the TFX (“There isn’t enough thrust in Christendom to fix this plane”) was key in getting the F-14 off the ground. But for all the FOs, high level SESs or heavy-hitting industry program managers, for all the slick brochures and eye-popping PPT presentations, unless you have skilled aircrew who can raise others in the stead, who have both an affinity for the mission, a vision of where the community needs to go and leadership skills in the plane and on the deckplates to reinforce and grow the aircrew and maintainers, the aircraft will ultimately fail and be relegated to a footnote. In the early 1970′s, the VAW community was faltering despite the growing needs of a Navy pushing ever farther in to the digital revolution. The E-2B, an improvement over the hapless E-2A, was nonetheless beset with material problems and had fallen far short of expectations. The leap in capabilities over the WF/E-1B that were expected of it had yet to fully materialize – and many outside of the community openly doubted it ever would. Mission assignment often came as an after thought and the very idea of putting the E-2B in a critical role for a particular mission just wasn’t considered.

The entry of the E-2C came via muted applause – and much skepticism outside the community. It would take the concerted efforts of a group of tactically astute visionary aircrew – and especially NFO’s (recall we are still less than a decade from the creation of the NFO out of the NAO community) to work within the community to build NFOs who would be technically and tactically adept with the new technology the E-2C was fielding, and at the same time, advocates outside the community and within the airwing to raise awareness and relevance of the new Hawkeye. As has been the case since the beginning of US Naval aviation, the core of the effort was centered on a group of “senior” JOs who brought experience and hard lessons to bear in the Fleet and in the RAG (Fleet Replacement Squadron for you young pups).

Ned was not only one of those folks, he stood head and shoulders above the pack.

Ned brought his considerable skills to bear with the VAW-122 Steeljaws in the mid-70′s as they not only transitioned to the E-2C, but became one of the two East Coast squadrons to end up with a West Coast airwing and all the challenges that ensued with a continent between them. As the squadron NFO NATOPS officer, and later, head of NFO Training (aka “Mayor of Mole City” at RVAW-120), the standards and expectations that Ned set would have far ranging effects on those who would later go on to other squadrons and positions within the VAW community and elsewhere. Among those were an expectation of a level of knowledge about the system and how it worked that was at once detailed and integrated — not only would, for example, you have to be able to understand how a radar return was processed in the (then) new digital processing system the E-2C (and later E-2C ARPS), you had to combine it with what the IFF system and main computer and display processing system was doing with it to eventually display it on the scope. But it also wasn’t enough to be radar or system geeks — Ned was also one of the forward thinking VAW tacticians who looked to expand the mission beyond mere radar-based early warning and in the process, grow the capabilities of the CVW as a whole. And to do so, you had to get out of the hangar or VAW Ready Room and into the fighter, attack and others’ home turf. Face-to-face debriefs were emphasized, early participation in mission planning and always, an aggressive, assertive approach that sought to push back the residue of the E-2B years and show what we could do. The Ensigns, LTJGs and LTs that emerged from the RAG and squadrons in the late 70′s/early 80′s epitomized this new approach and formed the nucleus that pushed for continued advancements in the weapons system and standing in the airwing. And again, Ned’s fingerprints were all over them. The crews that flew over Bosnia and in OIF and OEF had links, directly or indirectly to Ned’s efforts. The fact that we are pusing the envelope even further today with the advent of the E-2D Advanced Hawkeye can be directly traced back, in no small part, to his body of work.

To a young NFO just entering the community in 1979, Ned was central in shaping and directing my focus as a Hawkeye NFO, both in RVAW-120 and later, when he joined us in VAW-121 as one of our department heads. We learned much from Ned — even as a standout squadron on the seawall, Ned was the sort that prompted you to raise your personal and organizational bars and push out even more. Flying with Ned was always great – whether it was watching him handle a covey of fighters or deftly influencing Alpha Bravo towards a particular course of action on the AAW net, no matter how much time you had in the aircraft, you always took away something from flying with him. On the ground, Ned was a leader without peer as a DH and later, as many will attest to, as CO of VAW-126. As VAW/VRC placement officer, he played a vital role in guiding and slotting up- and coming talent in the community – not an especially easy thing as CO’s from time to time have their own interests in mind and their own desires which may not always mesh with the individual’s or community’s best needs. And later as Chief of Staff for the Eisenhower Battle Group, he brought those abilities to further fruit. In fact, now that I think of it, Ned’s ability to convince someone of a particular COA without them actually being aware of how they were being influenced brings to mind another master of the skills of persuasion – except he wasn’t fictional…

Ned will be greatly missed by a large and geographically dispersed community and his family are certainly in our prayers.. He was a pioneer for the Hawkeye community, a consummate Naval officer and aviator, a leader, mentor, husband, father and a friend. A fitting epithet when one thinks about it. Godspeed and rest in peace.

(crossposted at steeljawscribe.com)

Headstone of Commo. Arthur Sinclair, captured by his descendant Lt.j.g. Lloyd "Link" Mustin.

Navy Lieutenant Junior Grade (LTJG) Lloyd “Link” Mustin grew up hearing many tales of his family’s long history of service in the U.S. Navy. As the seventh successive generation to serve, Lieutenant Mustin can trace his lineage directly back to the first in his family to serve – his fifth great-grandfather Commo. Arthur Sinclair. Family lore abounded about Commodore Sinclair, but no one in the family knew where he was buried.

Stationed in Norfolk, Virginia, aboard USS Stout (DDG-55) as the Fire Control Officer, Lieutenant Mustin’s naval career has been inspired by his family’s long dedication to service in the U.S. Navy and, as his grandfather, Vice Adm. Henry “Hank” Mustin, says, he “has taken on the mantle of family history.” So, over the Christmas holidays 2011, with a bit of vacation time on his hands, Lieutenant Mustin began his quest to find the Sinclair burial plot.

Commodore Sinclair’s legendary feats in the Great Lakes campaign of the War of 1812 are well documented, but his career spanned many early American conflicts. He began his apprenticeship at the age of 12 under the tutelage of Commo. Thomas Truxtun aboard the USS Constellation during the quasi-war with France. It was during that time that he was involved in an engagement with the French frigate Insurgent. He also served under Capt. William Bainbridge and participated in the war with Tripoli. While in command of his second ship, USS Argus, in October 1812, he captured several British “prize” ships and crews, earning him a legendary reputation for his battle acumen against the British.

But he solidified his place in history through his actions against the British in the Great Lakes. As Lieutenant Mustin’s great grandfather, Vice Adm. Lloyd Mustin, recounted in a 1972 Naval Institute oral history, “He succeeded rather dramatically in his assignment up there, which was to rid the Great Lakes north and west of Detroit of the British naval presence. He destroyed their navy completely in some fairly stirring actions and left them with nothing but canoes and rowboats and the like.” After the war, Congress presented Commodore Sinclair a silver plate with an inscription that cited his victories. Lieutenant Mustin’s great uncle Tom Mustin, who also served as a naval officer, has the tray in his home.

The family knew that Commodore Sinclair finished his career as the commander of the Norfolk Naval Yard – which was called Gosport during that time, and that he established a nautical school there that was the predecessor to the Naval Academy. The family also knew that Sinclair had established a family home in the city and died there in 1831. Lieutenant Mustin surmised that Sinclair must be buried somewhere in Norfolk. So he followed his hunch.

“It’s amazing what you can find on Google,” Mustin said. “I started searching for ‘Arthur Sinclair’ and ‘Norfolk’ and found many interesting results. As I combed through them for awhile, I came across the Cedar Grove Cemetery web site and contacted them. I was pleased to find that they did in fact have a Commodore Arthur Sinclair buried there.” And it was five minutes from his apartment!

Lieutenant Mustin grabbed his fiancé and jumped in his car.  Following the map emailed to him by the cemetery, he quickly found the family plot and headstone. The Commodore is surrounded by his contemporaries, including Commos. William Jamesson, Samuel Barron, and William Skinner, and Capts. Benjamin Bissell and Lewis Warrington. “It was obvious the Sinclair plot was very old and many of the graves had settled.” Indeed, Sinclair’s headstone was cracked in the middle, but the etched names of the Sinclair family members buried with Commodore Sinclair were still legible.  

Lieutenant Mustin was astonished at his find. “I was overwhelmed to be standing over the grave of Commodore Arthur Sinclair,” he said.

Later, he went back to the cemetery by himself just to view once more the grave site of this “near-mythical man about whom I had heard stories my entire life.” He revealed that learning more about his ancestors and their accomplishments has given him a context for how to understand the world and his place in it. “It filled me with a tremendous sense of purpose!”

There are several resources to research your family’s 1812 ancestors, including the Naval History & Heritage Command; the Society of the War of 1812; and Fold3, a company that is digitizing all War of 1812 pension files stored in the National Archives. 

For more information on the events planned to commemorate the Bicentennial of the War of 1812, go to www.ourflagwasstillthere.org. 

As an observation and a nod, not a criticism (of course) of our Vice President Joe Biden –  who observed that, “You can go back 500 years. You cannot find a more audacious plan. Never knowing for certain. We never had more than a 48 percent probability that he was there.”

Because this will be a list, compiled into one blog post, whatever you put in the comments (respectfully and to the point of the post) we will incorporate into the post – then delete. Please submit your comments to us here or via blog@usni.org or give us your submissions via Twitter  or Facebook . And when the first 500 hits it, [UPDATE]: WE WILL MAKE A BRACKET COMPETITION.

Give us your best of the best who were audacious – winners or losers – those who dared. We will update the list daily, no repeats – so dig deep when your favorite has already been mentioned.

Listed in order of submission and raw commentary (and without attribution and to protect the innocent):

500. SEAL mission per Vice President Joe Biden: Audacious on the part of our Commander in Chief, President Obama.

499. Japanese attack on Pearl was an Orange/Blue war-gamer exercise 6 or 7 years before 1941.

498. Entebbe, anyone? Or one might even argue that the raid on Bin Laden’s compound would not have been possible without the lessons learned from the even more audacious (if ultimately unsuccessful) plan of Operation Eagle Claw.

497. Lets start early. 1519 Hernan Cortez landed 600 Spaniards and about a dozen horses at Cozumel. He BURNED HIS SHIPS so there was no way to escape, and he and his men had to fight to the death. He led his men to destroy the entire Aztec Empire something that no invader had done in over 6 centuries. In the process he actually convinced the Aztecs that he was THEIR GOD.

496. Henry V at Agincourt – Nope, too early. 

496. (Do-over) ‎”Kedging“- How USS Constitution Sailors evaded 170 guns of HMS Africa, Shannon, Belvidera & Aeolus!

495.

Dare I say George Washington before the Battle of Trenton? Christmas Day 1776.

George Washington Crosses the Delaware in the dark of night to attack the British in Trenton.

For me there is one and only one #1. Without it an army driffs away, an idea dies, a piece of paper signed at the greatest personal risk becomes meaningless. General George Washington’s decision to attack Trenton on the morning after Christmas 1776 with a night march of impossible proportions couples not only audaciousness, but the greatest risk. For me it is the single most important moment without even a close second in American history, and for the idea of freedom as the world knows it today, possibly. My own telling here: http://blog.projectwhitehorse.com/2010/12/christmas-1776-the-crossing/

494, Eben Emael and the raid to free Mussolini

493. CDR “Red” Ramage, USS Parche, Pacific, 1944: as commanding officer of the U.S.S. Parche http://www.homeofheroes.com/moh/citations_1940_wwii/ramage.html

492.  Col Robin Olds, Operation BOLO Mig Sweep, North Vietnam, 1967 http://user.icx.net/~arlisk/bolo.html

491.  Doolittle Raid Doolittle Raid, 1942…(while a japanese radio broadcast stated, almost to the moment of the attack, how Japan would never be attacked, with air raid sirens suddenly going off-a “baghdad bob” moment)…which in turn, caused grave consternation, and thus triggered rash action by the Imperial Japanese Navy, resulting in catastrophic loss at Midway, with which they would lose their offensive initiative for the remainder of the war…despite efforts to regain it at Guadalcanal and others.

490. Admiral David Farragut leads his ships into Mobile Bay, 1864. Approaching the mine field laid by the Confederates the USS Tecumseh (first in the battle line) hit a mine and exploded, shocking the entire fleet. The USS Brooklyn stopped dead in the water, and the Captain asked the Admiral for instructions. Farragut ordered his ship, the Hartford, to steam around the Brooklyn and take the lead, signaling his forces “Damn the Torpedoes…Full speed ahead!” The entire column of 14 ships passed safely through the mine field and took Mobile.

489. April 22, 1778. At 11 p.m. on this day in 1778, Commander John Paul Jones leads a small detachment of two boats from his ship, the USS Ranger, to raid the shallow port at Whitehaven, England, where, by his own account, 400 British merchant ships are anchored.

488. Captain Charles Stewart of USS Constitution taking on two warships simultaneously in February 1815.

487. Though unsuccessful, Desert One was audacious.

486. How USS Constitution Sailors evaded 170 guns of HMS Africa, Shannon, Belvidera & Aeolus!

485. Berlin Airlift

482. Market Garden (for a not-so-successful example)

481.Camp Century Greenland, 1959-1966.http://gombessa.tripod.com/scienceleadstheway/id9.html. A nuclear powered, under-the-ice-camp of about 200 men doing Arctic military research and testing the feasibility of siting ICBMs in the Greenland icecap. Project Iceworm was the code name for a US Army Top Secret proposal during the Cold War (a study was started in 1958), to build a major network of mobile nuclear missile launch sites under the Greenland ice sheet. The ultimate objective of placing medium-range missiles under the ice – close enough to Moscow to strike targets within the Soviet Union – was kept secret from the Danish government.

480. Manstein Plan, France 1940 (replaced the original von Schlieffen plan), bait the allies into the low countries, cut them in half, and take the entire region in 6 weeks.

479. 1588, english channel, England vs Spain. English ships, more maneuverable, chipped away at the snds of the Spanish Armada’s ships (arranged in an arcing format) instead of taking them head-on. Forced the Spanish ships into disorder, and over a few days, whittled them down to near-insignificance…forced the Spaniards into a roundabout route around Scotland back home…but were destroyed in a storm before they could make it back, save 50…out of 130.
Audacious to say the least.

478. 1970, USAF and Army Special operations crash land an HH-3 helicopter in the middle of the Son Tay prison complex in North Vietnam in an attempt to rescue 65 American POWs. The operation is carried out perfectly, but the prisoners were moved a few months earlier to different accommodations.

477. Operation Dynamo, the “miracle of Dunkirk” in WW2

476. Battle of the River Plate, 1939.  One of the greatest psyche-outs in naval annals. Spee literally pulverized UK’s Ajax, Achillies(NZ), and Exeter.  One’s fire control was out, another’s main gunnery was out, the third was mauled but intact.  GS was also damaged, and thinking the UKs 3 were still coming after him (most would’ve broke off by then),  he made for Montevideo…where he was told to leave within 72hours. GS was relatively intact, despite some damage, and could have re-engaged.  Thinking there were more heavies coming (via the radio traffic of the 3, who remained, even though they would have been cut to pieces had the GS came out to face them),  Capt Langsdorf scuttled the Graf Spee without a battle.  3 days later he shot himself. Sheer audacity, and well executed…using nothing but guile.(the truly genius strategist finds ways to war without battle-Sun Tzu)

475. The bayonet charge of Joshua Chamberlain on July 2, 1863 at Little Round Top during the Gettysburg battle.

474. Bridge at Dong Ha

473.  ‎1918 Battle of Belleau Wood

472. June 1995 rescue of Scott O’Grady

471. Battle of the Bulge, with the Germans scraping up enough armor, soldiers and fuel to give the US and Allied Armies a real good scare

470. USS ENGLAND taking the bull by the horns, and sinking 6 Japanese subs in less than 2 weeks.

469. Eugene Fluckey sending a landing party ashore from BARB, to mine the rail line near Kaihyo To, and blew up a 16 car Japanese train.

468. The voyage of the SEEADLER, where Felix Von Luckner carried out a successful voyage of commerce raiding, without anyone on either side getting killed.

467.  The battle Cowpens where Morgan put his back to the river, trusted the militia to fire two shots and trounced Tarleton.

466. Vincennes where Clark crossed swamp and woods in the middle of winter to seize the town from Hamilton

465. Vicksburg Campaign where Grant cuts his supplies and moves towards Jackson without communication with the rest of the world

464.  Grierson’s Raid during Vicksburg. Crossing through enemy territory and tying up Confederate forces that could’ve been used against Grant.

463.  The seizure of the Altmark by boarding party in Norway

462.  Raid on Scapa Flow by Prien sinking the Royal Oak

461. Sherman’s march through Georgia.

460. The Keyes Raid. This was the SAS attempt to assasinate Rommel during the African Campaign during WWII.

459. The First Marine Division captures Inchon (can’t give Mac too much credit)

458 & 457. Norm Hatch would be highly disappointed if Tarawa and Iwo Jima weren’t mentioned. Hell, the entire Pacific island hopping campaign can be lumped into one number.

456 – 452.  Not all audacious plans were formed by the “good guys”

• Edward Teach blockades Charleston, SC in 1718.
• Henry Morgan takes Panama with 1400 men in 1671.
• Drake’s raid on Cadiz in 1584.
• Barbarossa captures Capri in 1535

451. Operation Frankton 11 Dec 1942: Royal Marines in kayaks attack German shipping in Bordeaux Harbour.

450. Trafalgar 21 Oct 1805: Nelson cuts through the centre of the Combined Fleet line overpowering the rear section before the remainder can reverse course and bring superior numbers to bear on his Mediterranean Squadron.

449. Operation Judgement 11 Nov 1940: Centrepiece of a complex series of operations across the Mediterranean. 21 Royal Navy Swordfish biplanes, flying at night, destroy half the Italian battlefleet in Taranto Harbour.

448. Operation Chastise 16-17May 1943: 617 Squadron RAF Bomber Command attacks and breaches the Mohne and Eder Dams in Germany.

447. Operation Mercury 20 May 1941: German Fallschirjager invade Crete.

446. Operation Weserubung 6 Apr 1940: German invasion of Norway, despite lacking naval superiority.

445. Russian Baltic Fleet voyage 1904-1905: Baltic Fleet under Admiral Rozhestvenski attempts reinforce the Pacific Squadron, then under seige by Japan at Port Arthur, by making an unprecedented 18,000 mile, round-the-world voyage despite epic deficiencies in materiel, training and logistics. Rozhestvenski’s reward for this feat? Wounded and captured in the catastrophic defeat at Tsushima and court martialled upon his return to Russia.

444. Operation Rheinübung – German Battleship Bismarck and Battlecruiser Prinz Eugen surface raid in the Atlantic. The operation was supposed to include three other battleships (Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, and Tirpitz – the first two were undergoing repairs and the third was not complete/prepared), but Großadmiral Raeder ordered the operation to commence without them, and he did so behind Hitler’s back.

443. The British response to Operation Rheinübung. After the Bismarck sank the Battlecruiser HMS Hood, Churchill ordered the Royal Navy to “Sink the Bismarck.” The Royal Navy diverted nearly every vessel in the fleet to converge on the Bismarck, abandoning convoys in the process.

442. Stephen Decatur and the burning of USS Philadelphia. Acclaimed by Nelson as the “the most bold and daring act of the Age.”

441. Battle of Tsushima

440. H.L. Hunley sinks USS Housatonic off Charleston – 17 Feb, 1864. An audacious first.

439. Presley O’Bannon and his detachment of 2 midshipmen and seven Marines marching on Tripoli.

438. Recon of Wewak Harbor, New Guinea by LCDR Dudley Morton and USS Wahoo using an Australian school Atlas bought in a used book store for the coastal and harbor charts.

437. USS Halibut SSN 587. Nuff said.

436. “We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.”

435. The Tet Offensive. Gambled everything on a single make-or-break operation, lost a substantial portion of their insurgents, and it worked… Strategic success off what could only be considered a tactical failure.

434. Project Excelsior – Joseph Kittinger jumping from 102,800 feet.

433. Richard Zarvona, dressed in a hoop skirt and wig going by the name Madame LaForte, captured the steamer St. Nicholas after departing Baltimore on 28 July 1861, with a dozen Confederate sympathizers dressed as women and other disguises.

432. To go a bit more modern, how about Operation Ivy Bells?

431. Battle of Manila(1898)430. Defense of Rorke’s Drift(1879)

429. Defense of the Alamo(1836)428. Invasion of Kuwait(1990)

427. Operation Desert Storm(1991) [Normally, we think of it like an overkill and that we had it in the bag. According to many, it didn't feel like that on the ground. Planning - and luck - paid off.]

426. Operation Tomagachi

425. USS BARB (SS-220) (again)“On 22–23 January Barb penetrated Namkwan Harbor on the China coast and wrought havoc upon a convoy of some 30 enemy ships at anchor.Maneuvering in dangerously shallow waters, Barb launched her torpedoes into the enemy group and then retired at high speed on the surface in a full hour’s run through uncharted, heavily mined, and rock-obstructed waters. In recognition of this outstanding patrol, Commander Fluckey was awarded the Medal of Honor and Barb received the Presidential Unit Citation.”

424. Gen. Patton’s drive to relieve Bastogne-Army , Midway- Navy- superior U.S. Planning defeated a superior Japanese Force, Rolling Thunder- Air Force- end of war became a reality, Iwo Jima-Marines-unprecidentedvalor by Marines and Corpsmen.

423. Operation Eagle Claw

422. Cabanatuan POW camp raid.

421. Benedict Arnold’s Expedition to Quebec (1775).

420 & 419.

For strategic audacity? How about island-hopping in the Pacific? Common wisdom at that point called for eliminating the Japanese strongpoints, not bypassing them…

For tactical, the charge of the “little boys” at Samar comes to mind.

418. With the 200th anniversary of the War of 1812 upon us, anyone care to mention the Battle of New Orleans?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_New_Orleans

417. Operation Source 22 Sept 1943: Royal Navy X-Craft midget submarines attack and disable the German battleship Tirpitz in Kaa Fjord, Norway.

416. Italian Regia Marina attack on Alexandria 19 Dec 1941: Attack using “Chariot” manned torpedoes sinks HMS Queen Elizabeth & HMS Valiant at their moorings in Alexandria Harbour, disabling the main battleship strength of the British Mediterranean Fleet. Fortunately the harbour is shallow enough that normal routine and appearances can be maintained and the Italians are fooled into thinking the ships remain operational

415. Dover Patrol raids on Zeebrugge and Ostend 23 Apr 1918: Attempt to block German held Belgian harbours by sinking old ships as blockships.

414. Operation Chariot 27 Mar 1942: Destruction of the Normandie Dock at St. Nazaire, France by Royal Navy and Commandos by sailing an old 4-stacker, HMS Campbeltown – ex USS Buchanan – packed with explosive, into the dock gates.

413. Attack on the Bolshevik Baltic Fleet at Kronstadt 18 Aug 1919: Coastal Motor Boats under Commander Claude Dobson penetrate the heavily defended harbour and cripple the Russian battleships Petropavlovsk and Andrei Pervozvanny.

412. 14 members of the SBS (the Royal Navy’s version of the SAS), paddle canoes into the fjords of Norway to attach limpet mines to the Tirpitz in an attempt to sink her.

411. The Raid on Dieppe (a failure, but it taught the allies alot for the D-Day invasion 2 years later).

410.  Israeli theft of the original Sa’ar boats from Cherbourg and sailing them back to Israel for outfitting and later dominance of both Syrian and Egyptian navies in the ’73 war. http://www.amazon.com/Boats-Cherbourg-Bluejacket-Books/dp/1557507147

409. Operation Opera (a.k.a. Operation Babylon), Israel’s attack on the nuclear reactor at Osirak
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Opera

408 -406.

Hate to say this one, but Al Qaeda’s attack on Sept. 11, 2001, does qualify.

And sadly, there was the attack on the USS Cole.

And while I’m on the subject of giving the enemy credit for audacity: There was the attack on Kandahar Air Field when I was there in August 2010 that comprised trying to breech the fenceline with 7 insurgents and a tractor. Needless to say, it wasn’t successful, nor was it smart, but it was audacious.

And although the media back home played it up as a lack of stabilization in the region, it showed the enemy’s desperation more than anything else.

405 – 395

• LT William B. Cushing’s attack on CSS Albermarle
• Rescue of survivors from USS Squalus
• First voyage of CSS Arkansas
• Submersible Turtle’s attack on HMS Eagle
• Lindberg’s solo flight
• Earhart’s attempted solo flight
• Submersible CSS Hunley’s sinking of USS Housatonic
• 11th war patrol of USS Barb
• First war patrol of USS Tirante
• USS Bonhomme Richard v. HMS Serapis
• Battle of Lake Champlain

Vietnam said earlier this week that six Buddhist monks will soon take up residence on one of the Spratlys. The monks, who reportedly will stay for the next year, belong to the government-sanctioned wing of the Buddhist church.

In all seriousness though, this has all the ingredients; oil, sea lines of communication – and overlapping claims that adds fuel to it all.

…to re-establish abandoned temples on islands that are the subject of a bitter territorial dispute with China.

The temples were last inhabited in 1975, but were recently renovated as part of efforts to assert Vietnamese sovereignty over the Spratly Islands.
…
The monks’ delegation is being organised by the local authorities in the southern province of Khanh Hoa, which exercises administrative responsibility for the islands on behalf of Vietnam.

It has also paid for the refurbishment of the island shrines. They include three larger temples and several smaller ones.

The monks have been appointed abbots of the island temples for a six-month period.
…
Along with China and Vietnam, parts of the islands are claimed by the the Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia and Taiwan.

To get the Monks there takes just a boat – to keep them there or to kick them off takes the ability to project naval power ashore.

Is this a provocation? Of course. The billion dollar question is; what national security concern is this of ours? If it isn’t, when does it become one, if at all?