Legal Insurrection has a good rundown on the penetration of CRT training in the Service Academies. Here is the link to the USNA. We're basically screwed if the leading education facility for our officer corps has gone down the rabbit hole of CRT.
First, during my joint maritime operations class, I always show the 2006 Seapower video. I've never come across a more powerful and succinct visual advertisement for a powerful Navy. Nothing has come close since. My students from other services are always pretty impressed by it; and so are my Navy students who now mostly haven't seen it. We should update that video retaining the same message (and music!)
Second, you are a bit too hard on my institution, the Naval War College. Our audience really is the DoD community, not primarily the broad public. Even so, we generally have been refocusing our courses on maritime and naval capabilities and tactics.
Powerful and motivating. Outstanding articulation of the problematic advocates and their self governing speed limitations. A point of departure for the rest of us, for actually getting to work on messaging at very high warble.
I remember reading (but cannot find) a report from the Army War College about the loss of "war fighting" generals. I think this is a mirror of that. We don't have anyone invested the the long view beyond the bureaucratic "leaders"- wfo aren't invested at all.
Good piece. Thank you for making the argument so clearly and frankly. Not to detract from your argument, I commend to you attention USNI's American Sea Power Project (ASPP), now in its second year and going strong. Its purpose is to do exactly what you argue for: advocate for American sea power, from its "ends" to "ways" and "means". The project in no way is sufficient to convincing the American people and its leaders that we need to change course, but it is a start. All of the articles are outside the pay wall (non-members can access them). Happy to discuss if you are interested. Thanks again for a great piece.
I'm a former Army Tanker, and don't know much about the Navy beyond what I learned from my father, the CVE Bosun's mate.
" If you feel the Navy needs a larger share of the budget to meet the challenge of China,"
I agree in principle, but you swabbies need to demonstrate that you won't piss away the extra money on another few failed surface fleet designs. When was the last successful design? The Burke's?
Excellent summation. I recall chatting many years ago with a RN veteran of the Falklands War and he described the huge "paradigm shift" his ship went through during its first attack by Argentine aircraft. He noted that all the peacetime drills went out the porthole and they learned to fight and kill rather quickly. Nothing sharpens a cutlass better than war at sea. Given that absolutely no US Navy officer on active duty today has experienced this, it may be a reasonable conclusion that Hope is part of the Navy plan that our crews are tough enough to survive and thrive in the first shock of naval combat.
Well I'm a schlub, I never served but grew up in a Navy town at the height of the Vietnam War....Thus I have always appreciated the need for the fleet and so I am doing what I can. I've been teaching American History at a junior college since 2010. Since about 2014, I've made each class research and write a paper about Alfred Thayer Mahan and I make them graft his ideas on trade and power onto today's Pacific situation. My students are always stunned when they discover how dependent we are on foreign trade. Not once in those 10 years of introducing Mahan to my classes, has a single student ever claimed to have heard of him before. My goal is that they never forget him or our Navy afterwards.....
"With government entities, those organizations and institutions provide supporting fires for the uniformed and civilian leadership given a charter by the American people via the Constitution and the laws enacted by their elected representatives to take responsibility for a specific area."
This is a great article and informative...if....what is said above was a reality. Its sadly not a reality
from the common citizen/serf/tax donkey and has not been so for a decade at least. The US
Government and the Corporations/Oligarchs who own and run no more pay attention to what
the public wants then King George.. If the citizenry were REALLY influencing policy Southern
Boarders would be strictly guarded, there would not be troops in Syria or Iraq and we would
not be squandering the nations wealth in the fiasco that is Ukraine. I come from a family FILLED
with USN veterans and we are horrified by this but our voice means NOTHING in this matter,,,
How demoralized are the military academies relative to the Ivy League? https://yuribezmenov.substack.com/p/how-to-rank-the-top-npc-universities
Legal Insurrection has a good rundown on the penetration of CRT training in the Service Academies. Here is the link to the USNA. We're basically screwed if the leading education facility for our officer corps has gone down the rabbit hole of CRT.
https://criticalrace.org/service-academies/united-states-naval-academy/
Well ... I now have my THU post...
First, during my joint maritime operations class, I always show the 2006 Seapower video. I've never come across a more powerful and succinct visual advertisement for a powerful Navy. Nothing has come close since. My students from other services are always pretty impressed by it; and so are my Navy students who now mostly haven't seen it. We should update that video retaining the same message (and music!)
Second, you are a bit too hard on my institution, the Naval War College. Our audience really is the DoD community, not primarily the broad public. Even so, we generally have been refocusing our courses on maritime and naval capabilities and tactics.
Would you happen to have a link to that Seapower video?
Powerful and motivating. Outstanding articulation of the problematic advocates and their self governing speed limitations. A point of departure for the rest of us, for actually getting to work on messaging at very high warble.
So on point compared to my view and experience with the Army and the DoD writ large.
I remember reading (but cannot find) a report from the Army War College about the loss of "war fighting" generals. I think this is a mirror of that. We don't have anyone invested the the long view beyond the bureaucratic "leaders"- wfo aren't invested at all.
Wonderfully done, my friend. Wonderfully done.
Good piece. Thank you for making the argument so clearly and frankly. Not to detract from your argument, I commend to you attention USNI's American Sea Power Project (ASPP), now in its second year and going strong. Its purpose is to do exactly what you argue for: advocate for American sea power, from its "ends" to "ways" and "means". The project in no way is sufficient to convincing the American people and its leaders that we need to change course, but it is a start. All of the articles are outside the pay wall (non-members can access them). Happy to discuss if you are interested. Thanks again for a great piece.
Very well done!
Excellent! Superb! I will be posting to my Naval Intelligence Professionals (NIP) colleagues a s soon as I hit this "send" button.
Could not agree more.
Thanks EVER SO MUCH - Sid
Perfect exposition. Well done.
I'm a former Army Tanker, and don't know much about the Navy beyond what I learned from my father, the CVE Bosun's mate.
" If you feel the Navy needs a larger share of the budget to meet the challenge of China,"
I agree in principle, but you swabbies need to demonstrate that you won't piss away the extra money on another few failed surface fleet designs. When was the last successful design? The Burke's?
Excellent summation. I recall chatting many years ago with a RN veteran of the Falklands War and he described the huge "paradigm shift" his ship went through during its first attack by Argentine aircraft. He noted that all the peacetime drills went out the porthole and they learned to fight and kill rather quickly. Nothing sharpens a cutlass better than war at sea. Given that absolutely no US Navy officer on active duty today has experienced this, it may be a reasonable conclusion that Hope is part of the Navy plan that our crews are tough enough to survive and thrive in the first shock of naval combat.
Well I'm a schlub, I never served but grew up in a Navy town at the height of the Vietnam War....Thus I have always appreciated the need for the fleet and so I am doing what I can. I've been teaching American History at a junior college since 2010. Since about 2014, I've made each class research and write a paper about Alfred Thayer Mahan and I make them graft his ideas on trade and power onto today's Pacific situation. My students are always stunned when they discover how dependent we are on foreign trade. Not once in those 10 years of introducing Mahan to my classes, has a single student ever claimed to have heard of him before. My goal is that they never forget him or our Navy afterwards.....
You can find it on youtube. It is old.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffaPxrZFkkY
"With government entities, those organizations and institutions provide supporting fires for the uniformed and civilian leadership given a charter by the American people via the Constitution and the laws enacted by their elected representatives to take responsibility for a specific area."
This is a great article and informative...if....what is said above was a reality. Its sadly not a reality
from the common citizen/serf/tax donkey and has not been so for a decade at least. The US
Government and the Corporations/Oligarchs who own and run no more pay attention to what
the public wants then King George.. If the citizenry were REALLY influencing policy Southern
Boarders would be strictly guarded, there would not be troops in Syria or Iraq and we would
not be squandering the nations wealth in the fiasco that is Ukraine. I come from a family FILLED
with USN veterans and we are horrified by this but our voice means NOTHING in this matter,,,