Please note the highlights from the new report from CRS below on the Ford-class carrier fiasco speaks to "welding issues", call me Captain Obvious but in shipbuilding or the building of any exquisite platforms, the identification of welding issues infers a complete welding inspection of the entire ship. That ain't cheap but then again when you build these future fish apartments on the taxpayer's dime, the pursuit of excellence is always optional. Procuring more of the incredibly poorly designed and executed new nuclear super-carriers is not only martial malpractice but a death warrant for...

Aiviq The US has 1.5 icebreakers because it has had to cannibalize one of its ancient and sclerotic icebreakers to make the remaining heavy work.But for all this, the same Coast Guard bought the Aiviq for $125 million late last year. And don't expect them to get this right. The ship was built to operate in the Arctic, but it has a type of propulsion system susceptible to failure in ice.  ...a type of propulsion system susceptible to failure in ice. ...a type of propulsion system susceptible to failure in ice. ...a type of propulsion system susceptible to failure in ice. Former Coast Guard...

Sandboxx does a terrific overview of the problems inherent in this. While I have beaten the drum on the inherent challenges of emerging problems in Revolutions in Military Affairs throughout the 21st century, no one at the Pentagon is paying attention as they leap onto an acquisition merry-go-round that creates more problems than solutions. NGAD is Next Generation Air Dominance. Here's the bottom line: in this era, the time of the manned combat aircraft has ended. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hSLLTdQStE Hollings makes a compelling case. CW Lemoine does a terrific overview of these...

Ep 010 "Fixing Fight Club: Naval Warfare in the 21st Century"   In the future near-peer and peer fight, salvo competition and missiles will be the preeminent means by which one country will kinetically overwhelm the other in a fight. I discuss the way the US Navy is in an existential hazard of being woefully under-prepared to meet the threat if Western forces go toe toe with regional hegemons in the East or West.   Let’s anticipate the disasters now that are the Spanish in the English Channel in 1588, the British Royal Navy at Jutland in 1916, and the discovery in WWII all these battleships...

Dear France, America will officially recognize that the French Channel is consistent with the identity of the Irish Sea. PS: Thanks for helping America defeat the English bastards from 1775-1783. For those interested in how the French and Spanish made American independence possible, please read: Larrie D. Ferreiro Brothers at Arms: American Independence and the Men of France and Spain Who Saved It Ferreiro notes that “in the space of just one year, Britain had gone from fighting what it thought was a minor civil war in a distant colony, to waging a full-scale world war against its two...

There is talk of taking the war to the cartels in Mexico and I have questions: So how successful have drug interdiction efforts by the DEA and associated agencies and bureaucracies been so far? We'll just go back to 1972 to make the history simpler. Once you eliminate the foreign importers (I am suspending my disbelief), how will this stop domestic production for a very hungry market segment? Will it involve anything that affects everyone's liberties like surveillance, asset forfeiture & seizure and the militarization of police even further. Will it require an even deeper surveillance of...