Wednesday Reading

The Sub Report recently took a tour on the USS Texas (SSN 775), and brought a camera. Eric has commentary and photo's up on his blog. That is a fun read with great photography.

Jim Dolbow is watching the waves in the Black Sea, and is hearing rumors regarding the first American hulls approaching Georgia. While it isn't the USNS Comfort (T-AH 20), which will not be deployed in case you haven't heard, at least one of the hulls is white.

Sean O'Connor has a detailed discussion called Russia, Georgia, & Disinformation from this past weekend. Very interesting analysis. There is a lot of fog in that war, because what you end up with is English speakers on both sides telling their story with the vast majority unable to read the local language. I can read Russian (not Georgian). In my opinion, anyone telling me one side is the good guy in this dispute is blowing smoke up my ass. This is a case of a country that is exercising military power as part of policy (Russia) and can be extra brutal in executing said policy with the military, and a country that is spinning the truth brutally for international sympathy (Georgia), and they are hardly an example of a Democracy by our idealistic terms.

The Russians Doing Joint Ops Right is an interesting read. We can learn a lot from the Russian military adventure in Georgia, both right and wrong.

Looking for a view that explains precisely why Georgia is a terrible strategic bet, and why Russia is in it for keeps. I'll up that by one, Americans play Monopoly, Russians chess explains why Russia is a good strategic bet, and btw, I'll take that horse trade in the end... because I have spent a week in Kiev.

Blog note. Yes posting has slowed down, but will pick up again very soon. We are in a bit of a research mode, as the old Proceedings articles we have been posting lately may indicate.