Monday Morning Reading

The Navy is running a feel good story on the LCS. One would think if we learned anything from the weekends naval action, fighting without firepower in the Littoral being a bad idea would be one such lesson. Winter's comment that "LCS is a transformational program" may be praise in his world, but highlights the problem in our world.

It will be interesting to see what happens this week when the peace brigade tries to run an Israeli naval blockade of Gaza. Such stunts at sea have a history of ending badly.

More talk about the Kuwaiti Emergency War plan. There are a number of articles making the rounds of a major buildup of naval forces in the ME for a war with Iran. We attempted to provide some perspective last week on the naval activity, but believing the speculation of politically driven fear is much easier for some. Someone forgot to tell the speculation artists that Rimpac 08 was bigger than Operation Brimstone, but suggesting Japan and South Korea were going to bomb Iran probably didn't fit the narrative.

Observing Chinese soft power in action in Africa is always interesting. This time China goes to Ghana with security and investment. Compare and contrast the US State Department and how China is leveraging the entire range of their industry as a tool of its national influence and one can easily see the challenges we face. The Chinese system isn't perfect though, and there are plenty of options for exploiting their weaknesses. We have to make our State Department a priority though if we want to compete.

The Kearsarge voyage to South America continues. Recommended reading begins with McQ's entry here. We continue to follow David Axe and Chris Albon who are still with Kearsarge. We'll do a roundup of those who got off in Miami soon.