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Greetings and welcome aboard the Naval Institute Blog. Not coincidentally, do we find its launching near the 67th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor. That event forced a severe reappraisal of naval forces, both those on hand and in the pipeline, for the fight ahead. Interestingly, that fight would be carried out with a plan, a strategy if you will, drawn up years before as one of several scenarios – a fight against a near peer that some claimed would never come about (sound familiar yet?).
Therefore, my question to you dear reader is this: Quo vadis Navy? Where are we headed? What is our relevancy in the 21st Century? Are we to become a dispersed fleet of small(er) vessels furtively probing the littorals? A dwindling fleet of immensely capable but numerically inferior behemoths – the current state of the Royal Navy writ large?
We have a new(ish) Maritime Strategy – but how does our acquisition match-up? Is there linkage? Is it a strategy for the next few decades or one with a half-life of a few years? Where is the Naval Operations Concept that operationalizes the strategy and presumably adds the force structure argument that many said was lacking in that same strategy? And what of the fleet? Why in the middle of two wars are we dithering around with ethos by committee and expending manpower on uniform surveys when we cannot come up with a viable CONOPS for the next generation cruiser and destroyer? And don’t get me started on the way we are burning up flight hour life on our maritime patrol and strike fighter assets while staring at a coming train wreck in both capabilities.
Lots to discuss and debate here – that is the purpose of this forum. There are some great folks on this panel; some I knew and served with while on active duty, others I have met in person or virtually through milblogs – all bring a unique perspective and viewpoint. Me? Bio’s to the right over there and website’s here if you want to see what makes me tick. Brownshoe that I am (or rather, was), you will find that while some of my posts will focus on naval aviation, on the whole my larger bias is for the maritime services and the issues affecting them.
Over to you now – so cry havoc and let slip the pens of war…
- SJS
7 Responses to “Launch ‘em!”
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Congratulations to USNI for establishing this forum and thanks to SJS for kicking it off in his typically provocative and thoughtful fashion. This should become the place for intelligent discussion of all issues Naval.
December 8th, 2008 at 10:43 amIt’s about time USNI did this. Glad to see you part of it.
December 8th, 2008 at 8:08 pmGiven the level of talent doing the blogging, you can be sure I’ll be dropping by quite often.
Who knows, maybe this will take the place of “Comments…”?
December 8th, 2008 at 8:11 pmSo what am I, chopped liver?…
I mean, my dues to the association are paid up.
The dues to the US Naval Institute are paid up, that it is. Yet, once again yours truly gets slighted-so that they can promote the work of some other semi-popular bloggers. Sounds to me, like they ne…..
December 8th, 2008 at 8:19 pmI don’t know, are you? This was never created for member-only, paying bloggers. I don’t know who is a member or who isn’t…they have the same rules and zero reimbursement as everyone else.
Simply sourced the web, made some inquiries. Interested? Maybe some thoughful comments on the posts? or email me at blog@usni.org
December 8th, 2008 at 9:39 pmI was wondering when the Naval Institute would get around to creating exactly this kind of blog. It’s good to see it finally hit the ‘net.
December 9th, 2008 at 3:36 amSkippy-san:
To second admin’s note — come on in, the water’s fine!
- SJS
December 9th, 2008 at 9:08 am