Talk to your enemies and ignore your friends.

Well, it is change.

While Big Navy continues to micromanage Sailors’ lives, the British cling to the quaint notion that they should treat their people like, you know, grown ups.

[A former British commander in Basra] offers an endorsement of alcohol that likely would get him charged in the U.S. military. “I found it had a very important role to play in easing grief and helping people unwind. And I found a glass of whisky at the end of an operation helped me unwind. We should not be too prudish about the small vices: drinking and smoking — they can be great comforts in times of danger.”

US military speeding help to Mexico: admiral

The United States is working to rush assistance to Mexico as it fights violent drug cartels, including equipment to help authorities track the narcotics mafia, the top US military officer said.

“We’re all working very hard to move the capabilities that are desirable to Mexico as quickly as we can,” Admiral Mike Mullen told reporters late Friday from his aircraft after holding talks in Mexico.

“We all have a sense of urgency about this,” he said.

During his meetings with the country’s military leadership, Mullen said he discussed how Washington could help in the battle against the powerful cartels, citing intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) as a crucial element.

“ISR, that kind of capability is certainly a big part of it,” Mullen said, using a term that can refer to unmanned drones.

He said the emphasis would be on sharing intelligence “but in recognition that there are additional assets that could be brought to bear across the full ISR spectrum.”

With last year’s death toll from drug-related violence at 5,300 as well-financed cartels orchestrate a campaign of intimidation and kidnappings, the crisis over the border has become a serious national security concern for the United States.

U.S. says Chinese vessels harassed Navy ship

The United States on Monday urged China to observe international maritime rules after the Pentagon said five Chinese ships, including a naval vessel, harassed a U.S. Navy ship in international waters.

The Chinese vessels “shadowed and aggressively maneuvered in dangerously close proximity” to the USNS Impeccable on Sunday, with one vessel coming within 25 feet of the U.S. ship, a Defense Department statement said.

The American ship, an unarmed ocean surveillance vessel with a crew of civilian contractors, was conducting routine operations in the South China Sea 75 miles south of Hainan Island, the Pentagon said.

“Our ships operate fairly regularly in international waters where these incidents took place,” White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told a news conference.

“We are going to continue to operate in those international waters and we expect the Chinese to observe international laws around them.”

The U.S. embassy in Beijing lodged a weekend protest with the Chinese government, State Department spokesman Robert Wood said. U.S. defense policy officials on Monday also reiterated the protest to China’s defense attache in Washington.

Russians push for global disarmament talks

Russia’s foreign minister called Saturday for an end to a decade of failure in global disarmament talks, seeking to build on an upbeat meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Sergey Lavrov said a stalemate at the Conference on Disarmament on issues from atomic bombs to space weapons can be broken now that the U.S. administration is “in favor of multilateral approaches to the maintenance of international security and disarmament.”

“The right moment has come today, for the first time after the end of the Cold War, for making real progress in resuming the global disarmament process on a broad agenda,” Lavrov told the 65-nation body.

The conference has failed to produce anything of substance since completing the nuclear weapons test-ban treaty in the mid-1990s. Confidence in the body was shattered in the early years of George W. Bush’s administration, when the United States withdrew from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and from six years of talks on a biological weapons ban.

Lavrov’s tone was markedly different from his last appearance here a year ago, when Russia joined China in challenging the U.S. to eliminate space arms, including defensive shields, and largely ignored Washington’s call for all countries to halt production on the fissile material needed for making atomic bombs.

Neither proposal gained much headway, with the diplomatic game largely reflecting the poor understanding between the two superpowers during the last years of the Bush administration.

The United States has labeled the space weapons offer a political ploy to gain a military advantage because it would prohibit an American missile interceptor system from being installed in the Czech Republic and Poland. Meanwhile, Chinese and Russian ground-based missiles that can fire into space would not be covered in the plan, which also says nothing of normal satellites that can be used as weapons against other satellites.

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Mullen on Iran: Nuke weapon capability exists

The top U.S. military official said Sunday that Iran has sufficient fissile material for a nuclear weapon, declaring it would be a “very, very bad outcome” should Tehran move forward with a bomb.

Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, offered the assessment when questioned in a broadcast interview about a recent report by the U.N. nuclear watchdog on the state of Iran’s uranium enrichment program, which can create nuclear fuel and may be sufficiently advanced to produce the core of warheads.

Mullen was asked if Iran now had enough fissile material to make a bomb. He responded, “We think they do, quite frankly. And Iran having a nuclear weapon I’ve believed for a long time is a very, very bad outcome for the region and for the world.”

State Department spokesman Robert A. Wood said Sunday that it was not possible say how much fissile material Iran has accumulated.

Mullen, Gates confident in pullout process

The top U.S. uniformed military official says he’s comfortable with the president’s decision on a troop pullout timetable from Iraq.

And Defense Secretary Robert Gates says he thinks it is “fairly remote” that conditions in Iraq will change enough to alter significantly President Barack Obama’s plan to withdraw U.S. troops.

Appearing on “Fox News Sunday” and CNN’s “State of the Union,” Adm. Mike Mullen says he was able to offer his best military advice to President Barack Obama. The Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman is reluctant to talk about “winning and losing” in Iraq. But he says the conditions are in place for the Baghdad government to successfully take control of the country.

Mullen says Obama listened extensively to the American military leadership and U.S. commanders in Iraq before announcing last week that the combat mission would end on Aug. 31, 2010.

JCS Chairman: North Korea watched closely

The U.S. is watching North Korea even more closely these days because of reports the North plans to test-fire a long-range missile.

The top U.S. military official says it’s an area of great concern. Adm. Mike Mullen says he would hope that North Korea would not be “provocative.”

The Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman notes that the North has launched missiles before. He says neither he nor Defense Secretary Robert Gates has made a recommendation about what to do if there is a launch. Mullen says any recommendations and policy decisions will come based on the timing and what the North does.

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Blunders created ‘bombs’ that killed sailors on nuclear submarine

A catalogue of blunders led to the deaths of two sailors after an explosion and fire aboard a nuclear-powered submarine as it dived beneath the Arctic ice cap.

Last night ministers apologised, admitting the Ministry of Defence ‘must accept responsibility for what happened’.

A board of inquiry found that chemical canisters used to generate oxygen on submerged submarines were so badly mishandled that they were damaged and contaminated – effectively turning them into deadly bombs.

Investigators uncovered systematic failings and senior commanders said they had not realised how dangerous they could be.

The inquiry also found paperwork was deliberately altered – possibly fraudulently – so that hundreds of canisters condemned as unsafe could be put back into the supply
chain. The blast took place aboard HMS Tireless during an exercise last March, killing Leading Operator Mechanic Paul McCann, 32, and his 20-year-old crewmate Operator Maintainer Anthony Huntrod.

Navy held firing tests near dolphin stranding

The Royal Navy carried out live-firing exercises off Cornwall just hours before 25 dolphins died by stranding themselves in a nearby river, the Ministry of Defence said on Wednesday.

As initial autopsies suggested the dolphins might have been scared or disorientated, MoD officials said training exercises with a submarine and survey ship using sonar had also been held in Falmouth Bay.

MoD officials said the exercises were “highly unlikely” to have been the cause of the deaths, Britain’s biggest mass stranding for nearly 30 years.

Campaigners called for an urgent inquiry into any possible connection.

Pirates attack Aussie-bound cattle ship

A CATTLE transport ship bound for Western Australia came under two hours of heavy fire from pirates just hours after sailing from Mindanao’s General Santos City, The Philippines coastguard says.

The 4600 tonne, 100m long MV Hereford Express, carrying 22 Filipino crew, was heading to Broome to pick up a shipment of cattle when it was attacked in Indonesian waters, south of Mindanao, on Saturday morning.

Lieutenant Armando Balilo, of the Philippines Coastguard, said no-one was injured when the ship was fired on for two hours by pirates in four speedboats.

“The vessel did not stop and tried to manoeuvre to escape the attack by changing course to the northwest, away from the island,” Lt Balilo said.

He said the vessel had returned to port at General Santos City to formally report the attack and undergo repairs to the ship’s bridge, which was badly damaged by the gunfire.

Lt Balilo said he understood the attack was the first by pirates in that area of Indonesian waters, and the first time that pirates had attacked a livestock transport ship.

Russian Navy Looks North

Russia plans to deploy its navy more frequently in the Pacific and Arctic, as well as the Atlantic, a high-ranking Defense Ministry official said Tuesday.

Lt. Gen. Vladimir Shamanov, who heads the combat training directorate, said the navy may be focused more on the north, the RIA Novosti news agency reported.

“We are also planning to increase the operational radius of the Northern

Fleet’s submarines,” he said.

Russia and other countries bordering the Arctic, including Canada, the United States, Norway and Denmark, have become more concerned with protecting their claims to the continental shelf there. If global warming melts the Arctic sea ice, exploration for oil and other resources is likely to become easier.

Navy helicopter in aid mission apparently shot at

A U.S. helicopter on a humanitarian mission in the Philippines apparently was shot at, prompting the Navy to temporarily halt the mission, a defense official said Monday.

An MH-60 helicopter operating from USNS Mercy hospital ship had gone to pick up 11 passengers about 50 miles inland, and two bullet holes were found when the aircraft returned to the ship with the passengers.

“The holes appear to be an entry and exit point from a single bullet,” said Cmdr. Jeff A. Davis, a Navy spokesman.

It is unclear if the bullet struck while the passengers were on the helicopter, he said. There were no injuries and the aircraft’s commander was unaware of any bullet striking the aircraft during the flight, Davis said.

The Mercy is anchored in Cotabatu, conducting Pacific Partnership 08, a humanitarian civic assistance mission between nations — and with non-governmental organizations — to provide medical, dental, construction and other services ashore and afloat.

5 Countries Agree to Talk Over the Arctic

Diplomats from the five countries bordering the Arctic Ocean adopted a declaration on Wednesday aimed at defusing tensions over the likelihood that global warming will open northern waters to shipping, energy extraction and other activities.

The agreement, reached after a daylong meeting in Ilulissat, Greenland, said the United States, Canada, Russia, Norway and Denmark saw no need for new accords on Arctic matters and would use existing international laws like the Law of the Sea Treaty to resolve disputes. Greenland belongs to Denmark.

The countries also agreed to work more cooperatively to limit environmental risks attending more Arctic shipping and commerce and to coordinate potential rescue operations given the rising number of tourists heading north as sea ice increasingly retreats in the summer.

The meeting capped a frenetic year of Arctic activity as countries vied to demonstrate their polar hegemony with a mix of rhetoric, military maneuvers and, in the case of Russia, a submarine voyage to the seabed at the North Pole.

Fuel prices halt 3 French naval missions

The French navy canceled three summer missions Monday because of soaring fuel prices _ including a counternarcotics exercise off the United States.

The ripple effects of spiraling fuel prices are also being felt in Spain, where truckers and fishermen are striking in protest.

“All of our missions are important, but we had to cut those that were least crucial,” said navy spokesman Pascal Subtil.

The most significant of the canceled missions involves a training exercise off the east coast and in the Gulf of Mexico. The French ship De Grasse was slated to sail alongside U.S. vessels in an exercise to train for preventing drug-trafficking.

Fuel Prices Hobbling Canadian Navy

A 50 percent rise in fuel costs kept many of Canada’s 34 naval vessels at port in 2007, the Sun Media group reported from Montreal Monday.

Under the Access to Information Act, the news group learned from defense documents the ships spent an average of 81 days at sea last year at a cost of more than $51 million. That’s a jump from $34.1 million in 2006, the report said.

A member of the Bloc Quebecois opposition party, Claude Bachand, told the agency the navy was facing another relatively dry year.

“The (fuel) bill will certainly rise by another 25 percent this year,” Bachand said. “Fuel consumption varies according to cruising speed and weather conditions, but in a visit on the frigate HMCS Winnipeg I was told it costs $25,000 in gas per day.”

HMS Defenceless: Two destroyers sail minus missiles to save cash

Two Royal Navy destroyers have been sent to sea virtually defenceless against air attack after their guided missiles were removed to save money.

The Sea Dart missiles, which have a range of 40 miles, used to protect HMS Exeter and HMS Southampton against enemy planes and missiles.

Now 4.5inch guns give them their main protection. At least half a dozen sailors – who operated the surface-to-air missiles – have been transferred to other ships because their roles became defunct.

Nine Nigerian navy members killed in fresh attack

Nine Nigerian navy members were killed and four civilians injured Tuesday in a second attack in as many days on a security vessel in the volatile oil-rich south, a military spokesman said.

“Another supply vessel working for Addax Petroleum, the Seacor Macor, was attacked early this morning,” Lieutenant Colonel Musa Sagir told AFP, adding: “Nine navy personnel were killed and four civilians injured.”

He said the incident happened at Addax’s Anthan oilfield near the High Island rig.

A spokesman for Addax Petroleum Nigeria could not immediately confirm the attack.

Tuesday’s attack came a day after a member of the Nigerian navy was killed and four other Nigerian seamen injured when gunmen travelling in two speedboats attacked an Addax security vessel some 40 kilometres from the Nigerian coast.

Baltic Sea Naval Exercises Underway

Russian military officials say a huge international naval exercise was under way Monday in the Baltic Sea, involving 35 vessels from 13 countries.

Called Baltops 2008 (short for Baltic Operations 2008), the effort was launched after a pre-exercise meeting in the Polish port city of Gdynia, Itar-Tass reported, saying Russia is represented by the Kaliningrad and the Neustrashimy.

The first phase of the exercise includes anti-submarine ship support and the use of helicopters in tracking submarines, the news agency said.

In addition to Russia, other nations taking part in the naval exercises include the United States, Great Britain, France, Germany, Netherlands, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.

Pirates hijack two freighters off coast of Somalia

Pirates have hijacked two freighters off Somalia, bringing to three the number of vessels seized in the same region this week, a Kenyan maritime official said on Thursday.

The MV Arean and the MV Lehmann Timber were seized in the Gulf of Aden on Wednesday, said Andrew Mwangura of the Kenyan branch of the Seafarers’ Assistance Program. “We have confirmed that the pirates are onboard the two vessels, but we have not received any demands for ransom,” he told AFP.

Sri Lanka Military Sinks 4 Tamil Rebel Boats

Sri Lanka’s military sank four Tamil Tiger rebel boats Thursday off the island’s northern coast after a battle that killed eight rebels and one soldier, while six civilians were killed in a rebel artillery attack, the military said.

A military official said the rebel boats were sunk when troops fired artillery at them as they attempted to attack army and naval positions in Sirutheevu off northern Jaffna.

UK Nuclear Submarines Understaffed

Britain’s nuclear deterrent submarines are starting to feel the manpower shortage that’s affecting the UK’s armed forces.

Sky News has learned that the boats including those carrying the country’s Trident missiles are putting to sea with as little as 85% of their intended crew complement.
…
Despite a recent pay bonus, making submariners Britain’s highest-earning sailors, a manning shortage means that across the undersea fleet more than one job in six is vacant.

Sky News’s defence correspondent Geoff Meade has been aboard HMS Trenchant, a nuclear-powered patrol boat where student captains were briefed that manpower levels were the main concern.

It’s particular acute among nuclear watch keepers who monitor the performance of the boat’s reactor. In the engine room, supervised trainees were being used to cover for qualified technicians.

The revival of Britain’s civil atom power programme is expected to worsen the scarcity as experienced operators are tempted by higher salaries and regular home life of jobs ashore.

In the week that it emerged that a British submarine had been forced to surface after colliding with a rock outcrop under the Red Sea, the Navy insists the shortages have not reached a level where they compromise operational safety.

Nigeria: Navy Not Well Funded – Minister

Ministry of Defence yesterday said it is making necessary arrangements to ensure that the Nigerian Navy was well funded by the Federal Government.

This latest move is aimed at enabling the Navy to meet up with its constitutional responsibility of protecting the nation’s territorial waters.
…
[Vice Admiral Ganiyu Adekeye] said some of the reasons for insurgency in the Niger Delta region was that the Nigerian Navy lacks enough boats to patrol the area.
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Towards this end, the Federal Government has approved acquisition of modern platforms and training for naval personnel, as part of efforts to modernise the Navy.

Navy ship Elrod to deploy to Mediterranean, eastern Atlantic

The Navy says the guided missile ship Elrod will deploy from Norfolk Naval Station next week.
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Officials say the ship will operate in the Mediterranean Sea and eastern Atlantic Ocean, participating in exercises, making diplomatic port calls and responding to emergencies.

Virginia governor seeks to preserve Hampton Roads fleet

Governor Tim Kaine is voicing his concerns over a Navy study that could lead to a shift of sailors and ships from Virginia’s Hampton Roads to Florida.

The study involves the possibility of moving warships to Mayport Naval Station in the Jacksonville area. The move would also involve the spending of $500 million to improve Mayport.

In a letter sent this week to the Navy, Kaine wrote that Virginia has “significant concerns” about any possible move of ships, sailors and their families south. He asked for more time for public comments and the study.

FRENCH NAVY SHIP UNLOADS MYANMAR CYCLONE AID IN PHUKET

The French navy ship Mistral docked Wednesday in Thailand to unload thousands of tonnes of supplies for cyclone victims in Myanmar, after the junta refused to let it enter the country.

“The unloading has begun and will finish this evening,” a French diplomat told AFP, praising “the excellent cooperation” with Thai authorities.

The cargo will be kept in a warehouse until a commercial vessel can carry the aid to Myanmar, a Thai naval officer said.

On Monday, the French army headquarters in Paris indicated that the supplies would be given to the UN’s World Food Programme, which would then distribute it to the worst-hit regions of Myanmar.

Myanmar’s regime refused to allow the French naval vessel to enter the country, even though it is equipped with three helicopters and carries enough food to sustain 100,000 people for two weeks.

Ten-country naval exercise

Several countries will be joining an Italian and Maltese air and naval exercise later this week focusing on maritime search and rescue and law enforcement.

Algeria, France, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Portugal, Spain and Tunisia have all accepted the invitation to participate in Canale, with various naval units, patrol boats, aircraft and personnel at the operations planning level.

The Armed Forces of Malta, which this year is organising and coordinating the annual exercise, said the aim is to promote cooperation and peace in the Mediterranean.

The exercise has been divided into a number of distinct phases, each designed to train participants in a number of different skills. “All assigned tasks will focus towards soft issues rather than more traditional combat skills,” the AFM said.

The exercise aims to improve cooperation and the operational capabilities of the participating air and naval forces.

Naval port is tension point between Kiev and Moscow

“There’s one,” says Gennady Basov, pointing to a Russian flag on a car aerial in the Black Sea naval port of Sevastopol. “There’s another, and another.”

It could be a children’s game. But Mr Basov is 37 and has an entirely adult agenda – he is a pro-Russia activist promoting a Russian sense of identity in a city that Moscow lost to Ukraine with the collapse of the Soviet Union. “Sevastopol really belongs to Russia, not Ukraine,” he says. “Documents prove it.”
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The war of words has escalated since Ukraine this year announced its bid for a Nato membership action plan, a formal step to joining the alliance. Nato rejected the application but has promised to reconsider later this year. Viktor Yushchenko, the pro-west president of Ukraine, has pledged to keep banging on the door.

Moscow opposes Nato enlargement and is determined to stop Kiev’s accession because of the deep links between Russia and Ukraine. It is flexing its muscles in the former Soviet Union by supporting Russia-oriented regions and populations in neighbouring states, notably in breakaway Abkhazia in Georgia.

Russia calls for international fight against pirates

Russia today urged international navies to launch joint operations against pirates who have recently stepped up attacks on ships off Africa’s coasts.

”Coordinating operations by naval forces in the zones of pirate attacks could help partly resolve the problem,” the spokesman for the Russian Navy Captain Igor Dygalo told reporters.
…
Mr Dygalo said Russia has actively participated in international exercises during which officers are trained how to cope with ”maritime pirates”.

He added the Russian Navy last year boosted its permanent presence in international waters, stressing that the increased naval patrols could protect shipping and cut the number of attacks on civilian vessels.

HMS Superb nuclear submarine damaged in Red Sea crash

HMS Superb hit an underwater rock on Monday and damaged its sonar equipment, forcing it to surface.

None of the crew was hurt and the submarine is watertight, an MoD spokesman said.

Superb, a Swiftsure-class attack submarine with a crew of 112, hit an underwater pinnacle 80 miles south of Suez.

The 272-foot vessel had passed through the canal and was in the northern Red Sea when she grounded. No other vessel was involved.

An MoD spokesman said the submarine’s nuclear reactor was “completely unaffected” and there was “no environmental impact” from the collision.

“There were no casualties and the submarine remains watertight, is safe on the surface and able to operate under her own power,” he said.

The vessel is in international waters but unable to dive because of the damage to sonar equipment.

US Navy’s oldest active ship leaves Japan for decommissioning

The oldest active ship in the U.S. Navy, the USS Kitty Hawk aircraft carrier, made its final departure from Japan on Wednesday to be decommissioned after nearly half a century of service.

The Kitty Hawk, with sailors lining its decks, pulled away from Yokosuka port just south of Tokyo to the cheers of hundreds of schoolchildren and the sounds of brass bands.

It flew the “Don’t Tread on Me” flag, which designates it as the oldest ship in the Navy.

The Kitty Hawk, the last conventionally powered aircraft carrier in the Navy, is to be replaced later this summer by the USS George Washington, a nuclear-powered carrier.

After leaving Japan, the Kitty Hawk will make a stop at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii and then travel on to the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton, Washington, to be decommissioned.

Royal Navy commanders let students crash nuclear submarine into seabed

A Royal Navy nuclear-powered submarine struck the bottom of the sea at more than 14 knots because of basic navigational errors made during a training exercise for three students on board.

Tracing paper over the submarine’s chart also covered vital information, including that the tidal rate at that point was 2.5 knots. The details are revealed in the official board of inquiry report into the grounding of HMS Trafalgarin October 2002, released under a freedom of information request.

Ninety seconds before the boat hit the seabed near the Isle of Skye, somebody realised what was about to happen and was recorded as saying: “We’re going to have to change course. This is too dangerous.”

The board of inquiry investigators failed to discover who had issued the warning, but it came too late and “at 0757 the submarine grounded, striking the bottom heavily on the port side forward . . . speed 14.7 knots.”

Navy seamanship found wanting

The Royal New Zealand Navy has been forced to take action after an independent review into their seamanship.

The review by the Royal Navy was sparked by the death of Byron Solomon last October when an inflatable boat on the HMNZS Canterbury capsized because of equipment failure.

The review criticised the safety awareness at all levels within the Navy and recommended urgent action.

It found flaws in the NZ Navy’s safety practices and training. Little thought was given for personal safety, it found. For the majority of tasks, there was poor preparation, execution and a lack of safety awareness at all levels and this was a major concern, the report said.

Now the Navy is planning on employing a seamanship safety officer and reviewing the training they give their new recruits.

A Chinese aircraft carrier paradox

While reading a superb book proposal about Chinese pirates and globalization by Emory University history professor Tonio Andrade, I was amused to learn that the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) has reportedly dubbed a Russian aircraft carrier purchased from Ukraine in 1998 with the moniker “Shi Lang.”

Shi Lang was a 17th century Chinese admiral who first served with the legendary pirate king Koxinga, conquerer of Taiwan from the Dutch and defender of the doomed Ming dynasty against the Manchu Qing invaders. But Shi Lang defected to the Qing dynasty in 1646, whereupon Koxinga executed his father, brother and son.

Shi Lang returned the favor by eventually conquering Taiwan for the Kangxi emperor in 1683.

Why would the PLAN name an aircraft carrier after an admiral who conquered Taiwan in the 17th century? Hmmmm…