Seth Cropsey is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and a former U.S. naval officer and Defense Department official who served in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations. He contributed extensively to The Weekly Standard on naval power, maritime strategy, defense policy, and American foreign policy. His writing for the magazine frequently argued for maintaining robust U.S. naval capabilities and a strong American posture abroad.
In the middle of March, the Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard published a revised version of their 2007 paper, A Cooperative Strategy for the 21st Century. The 2007 edition reflected the strong influence of 9/11, U.S. operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, and the global campaign against Islamist…
The U.S. Navy’s latest shipbuilding plan would see its attack submarine fleet diminish from 55 to 41 boats in the next decade and a half. That decision, confirmed in August, was eclipsed by the advance of ISIL, war in Gaza, and sedition in Ukraine. But the Navy’s announcement—the single-largest…
Responding to mild U.S. sanctions on Russia, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin announced on May 13 that U.S. astronauts would no longer be welcome to ride to the International Space Station (ISS) aboard Russian rockets. “After analyzing the sanctions against our space industry, I suggest the…
Earlier in March, Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus revised how to count the size of the U.S.’s battle force inventory. The battle force inventory is important because it measures the size of the U.S. combat fleet. The new definition will make the U.S. combat fleet look larger than it really is. …
Vladimir Putin is aggressive, increasingly armed, and dangerous. Besides his recent attack against Ukraine, he invaded Georgia in 2008 and has been rearming since well before then. Like his Communist and czarist predecessors, Putin seeks to expand Moscow’s control. Russian military spending—for…
In 2007 the U.S. Navy published a new maritime strategy, “A Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower,” known as CS-21. The Navy had already shifted from its Cold War focus on defeating the Soviet fleet at sea to projecting power from sea to shore, as challenges in such places as Iraq, Bosnia,…
The British launched the opening attack of the 3rd battle of Ypres on July 31, 1917. The objective was to destroy a rail junction on which the German army depended for Western Front supplies. The plan included British naval as well as amphibious assaults on the nearby Belgian coast. The naval…
As he showed in the final presidential debate, President Obama’s understanding of the U.S. Navy—or for that matter, any navy—is suboptimal. His explanation about Navy carriers “where planes land on them,” and “ships that go underwater, nuclear submarines,” left out the largest single group of naval…
The details of Israel’s attempt on Monday to enforce the blockade of Gaza are less important than the consequences that will now begin to unfold. The Turkish passenger ship Mavi Marmara (Blue Marmara) was one of several that were attempting to run a blockade that Israel has been enforcing against…
In March, the Center for Naval Analysis, a federally funded research institute published a report called, “The Navy at a Tipping Point: Maritime Dominance at Stake.” (Full disclosure: I participate with the think tank on a part-time basis.) The title pretty much says it all.
The Obama administration chose an historic month to appease the Russians by reneging on the U.S. proposal to place ballistic missile defenses in Poland and the Czech Republic. September 1st of 2009 was the 70th anniversary of the Nazis' unprovoked attack on Poland. In the middle of the same month…
Muammar Qaddafi, who had become gratifyingly less belligerent since the Reagan administration's 1986 airstrikes, subsequent economic sanctions, and the U.S. invasion of Iraq, came out of his box during a visit to Italy on June 11. "What's the difference," he asked in an address to Italian…
Barack Obama's good luck holds steady. When, for the first time in more than two centuries, pirates seized an American-flagged ship on April 8th, the 20-man American crew recaptured their ship hours later a few hundred miles east of the Somali coast. Although the captain remained a hostage, the…
About a decade ago the foreign policy establishment was busy dismissing China's efforts to build a powerful, modern military. Writing in the Washington Post in 1997, Michael Swaine, a China specialist then at the RAND corporation, declared that the "enduring deficiencies in China's military…
The November 15 hijacking 450 miles east of Mombasa, Kenya, of a thousand-plus foot oil tanker carrying more than two million barrels of crude oil forced international recognition that the seas have been dramatically added to the world's list of outlaw space. According to the International Maritime…
Sunday's attack against the cruise ship, Nautica, owned by the American company, Oceania Cruises, took place as the luxury vessel sailed between Somalia and Yemen enroute Oman from Egypt. According to press reports, the attack occurred during daylight--which would have aided the ship's crew in…
The division of Europe into "old" and "new" parallels the blue and red state split of American electoral politics. In the Old Europe--synonymous with Western--defense and foreign policy thinkers and officials tend to see Barack Obama as a ray of hope for an America that reaches out in benevolent…
The war on terror is being fought almost entirely on land, and the public neither knows about nor appreciates the U.S. Navy's contribution to these conflicts. No terrorists have struck from the sea, and although China is seeking to transform its economic success into naval power the threat does not…
CHINA HAS BEEN expanding the size of its naval fleet for the same length of time--about 25 years--that the U.S. has been decreasing its Navy. A Congressional Quarterly article warned ominously that China will possess nearly twice as many submarines as the U.S. in 2010, and is likely to surpass the…
WHICH U.S.-LED MILITARY ACTION of the past decade will set the pattern for the current Balkan war? As the United States moves closer to committing ground troops, the choice is stark.