Russian cruiser Moskva – The Optimistic Conservative

TOC Ready Room 6 May 2022: Intel superheroes of America

What’s wrong and right in the world.

Unfortunately, U.S. officials handed NBC a disclosure on Thursday that the U.S. had assisted Ukraine in targeting the Russian cruiser Moskva, which was sunk by a Ukrainian anti-ship missile attack on 14 April.

Touting such activities in the media is foolish and unnecessary. Providing assistance in locating and identifying Russian weapon systems that are then immediately targeted can be read as becoming a belligerent in the war.

Crowing over it, in the manner we saw Thursday, also looks like taking credit for superficial politics’ sake, and that always comes off as weak and undisciplined.

It’s one thing to announce without caveat that you attacked something, take full responsibility, and issue an unmistakable warning through your tone and your terse explanation of why.

But that’s not what U.S. officials did. Continue reading “TOC Ready Room 6 May 2022: Intel superheroes of America”

TOC Ready Room 28 April 2022: How do you solve a problem like the Navy? (and other naval musings)

What’s wrong and right, afloat.

Modern naval problems, it turns out, look pretty much like naval problems from any time. The parameters are resources, logistics, geography, and technology.

This will be a tweet-enriched lightning round. The big punch comes at the end. It’s a doozy (and yes, I know: if I were tediously pedantic I’d spell it Duesy. Life is short).

A number of negative things are happening in a concentrated burst. One is that the Navy brass – “Big Navy” – has just proposed to whack out a big chunk of the fleet for the foreseeable future. With a target over the last half-decade of 355 ships, the Navy would decline from its current 296 ships to 280 in Fiscal Year 2027 (FY27). In the best case among three options proposed by the Navy, the fleet would recover to 299 by FY32, 10 years from now. Continue reading “TOC Ready Room 28 April 2022: How do you solve a problem like the Navy? (and other naval musings)”

Russian navy promises “support” to Nicaragua; Multi-media UPDATE

Forget the Monroe Doctrine?

… and other news from the brave new world

In case you were wondering: no, the former-Soviet navy didn’t use to send warships to visit Nicaragua, back in the day. Although the Nicaragua of the 1980s under Daniel Ortega was a client of the Soviet Union, Moscow didn’t send naval task forces to visit back then. Soviet navy ships were in Cuba on a regular basis, but running the Russian navy around a Central American circuit is a new thing.

And what a thing it is. Russia and Nicaragua can’t do this quietly. They have to make headlines Continue reading “Russian navy promises “support” to Nicaragua; *Multi-media UPDATE*”