Shaping the Global Conversation

Over at The Drive, the redoubtable Tyler Rogoway relates the feel-good story of the summer, an instant classic: the defense firm BAE Systems says it has developed an “adaptable deck launcher” (ADL) that can be bolted onto any ship of war with deck space to spare.

CIMSEC had the opportunity to discuss the second edition of Red Star Over the Pacific with James Holmes, current J. C. Wylie Chair of Maritime Strategy at the U.S. Naval War College. In this conversation Holmes lays out how the theories of Alfred Thayer Mahan helped inform China’s maritime rise, how China built a formidable naval warfighting capability, and how the U.S. and its allies can more effectively deter China militarily.

The U.S. and Taliban are working to secure a peace deal in this weekend's eighth round of talks in Doha, Qatar. Washington's effort to wrap things up in Afghanistan contrasts with its confrontational policies toward Iran, China and Venezuela. But in reality there is strategic logic to President Trump’s madcap, Twitter-driven foreign policy — the logic of shifting priorities.

Let’s refuse to let the Chinese Communists of the world use linguistic shenanigans to disguise their intentions. Make them communicate clearly. Make them defend the indefensible frankly, and we might yet shame them into humane conduct.

It’s hard to drive China out of the headlines. Yet a dispute between Iran and Great Britain, each of which has seized a tanker ship belonging to the other, has managed it in recent weeks — eclipsing a running feud between Vietnam and China, whose ships have squared off at Vanguard Bank, the westernmost feature in the Spratly Islands. For all that, the South China Sea dispute entails consequences at least as severe as those in the Persian Gulf.

TR was only sixty when he shucked off his mortal coil. But what if he had never set out to chart an unexplored river in the Amazon backcountry?

How Iran could channel an old British strategy against Napoleon to fight U.S. forces in the Middle East.

By law a chief of naval operations is limited to four years in the post—and that's just not enough time to make any meaningful changes.

Earlier this week China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Rocket Force most likely tested a DF-21D or DF-26 anti-ship ballistic missile—sometimes know as "carrier-killers"—in the South China Sea. Details remain sketchy, as Chinese spokesmen have remained close-mouthed about the exercise.

As told by a famous professor at the U.S. Naval War College.

Convoys are the worst of all strategies for protecting mercantile shipping against raiders. Except for all the others. The logic behind convoy duty is straightforward. To defeat, say, an irregular maritime force like the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy (IRGCN) or an Iranian-backed militia, defenders of a merchant fleet need superior firepower on scene at likely points of attack.

Tension is mounting between Washington and Tehran with Thursday's shooting down of a U.S. drone by Iran's Revolutionary Guard. What would a U.S.-Iran war in the Persian Gulf look like? It’s worth trying to envision the contours of such a maelstrom before America drifts into one.

"Message to Beijing: you can try to deny U.S. and allied forces access to the Western Pacific or the freedom to move around within the theater, but you will see your access and freedom of movement curtailed if you do. Strewing missiles of various kinds along the island chain while deploying manned and unmanned aircraft and ships of war nearby would seal up the straits through which surface and air traffic must pass to reach the broad Pacific."

"Enough" explains a top naval historian.

Let me go further: I nominate an entire silent service.