U. S. Navy Office of Naval Intelligence Worldwide Threat to Shipping (WTS) Report 18 June - 18 July 2018 and HORN OF AFRICA/GULF OF GUINEA/ SOUTHEAST ASIA: Piracy Analysis and Warning Weekly (PAWW) Report for 12 - 18 July 2018

U. S. Navy Office of Naval Intelligence Worldwide Threat to Shipping (WTS) Report 18 June - 18 July 2018 by lawofsea on Scribd

U. S. Navy Office of Naval Intelligence HORN OF AFRICA/GULF OF GUINEA/ SOUTHEAST ASIA: Piracy Analysis and... by lawofsea on Scribd

On Midrats 22 July 2018 - Episode 446: July Maritime Natsec Melee

Please join at 5pm (EDT) on 22 July 2018 for Midrats Episode 446: July Maritime Natsec Melee:

NATO, Russia, the Chinese Navy, Australia's pocket fleet of the future and a potpourri of

other issues that come across the transom - it's Midrats Melee!

Open topic, open phones and we'll be trolling the chat room for ideas.

Come join us live.

Join us live if you can or pick the show up later by clicking here. Or you can also pick the show up later by visiting either our iTunes page or our Stitcher page.

Saturday Is Old Radio Day: Battle Stations: " The Navy's Air Arm" (1943)

Ely's First Flight Off Ship 1910 (U.S. Navy )

MH-53E  (U.S. Navy photo by MC2 Curtis D. Spencer)

F/A-18E (U.S. Navy photo by MC2 Class Kenneth Abbate)

H-60 (U.S. Navy photo by MC2 William McCann)

E-2D U.S. Navy photo byMC2 Kenneth Abbate)

Friday Film: Destroyer Escort (1944)

Less expensive and faster to build than a destroyer - but capable - the DE's helped win WWII.

U. S. Navy Office of Naval Intelligence Worldwide Threat to Shipping (WTS) Report 11 June - 11 July 2018 and HORN OF AFRICA/GULF OF GUINEA/ SOUTHEAST ASIA: Piracy Analysis and Warning Weekly (PAWW) Report for 5 - 11 July 2018

U. S. Navy Office of Naval Intelligence Worldwide Threat to Shipping (WTS) Report 11 June - 11 July 2018 by lawofsea on Scribd

U. S. Navy Office of Naval Intelligence HORN OF AFRICA/GULF OF GUINEA/ SOUTHEAST ASIA: Piracy Analysis and... by lawofsea on Scribd

On Midrats 15 July 2018 - Episode 445: How Small Ships Can Make a Big Navy Better

Please join us at 5pm EDT on 8 July 2018 for Midrats Episode 445: How Small Ships Can Make a Big Navy Better

Building off our discussions from last week's Midrats, our guest this  will be Lieutenant Joshua M. Roaf, USN to discuss part of the solution to improving the professional performance of our Surface Warfare Officers in what should be the core of their skillset; seamanship.
Using many of the issues he raised in a recent article co-authored with LT Adam Biggs, USN, Bring Back the Patrol Craft, we will explore the various advantages of returning balance to the fleet with an expansion of truly small surface combatants.

A native of Bennington, Vermont, LT Roaf graduated from Ithaca College, Ithaca NY in 2010 with a bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry and earned his commission from Officer Candidate School in 2010.

Afloat, Lieutenant Roaf completed his division officer tours aboard USS REUBEN JAMES (FFG57) where he served as the Main Propulsion Officer and Electrical Officer and then aboard USS ANZIO (CG-68) as the Navigator and Executive Department Head. During his sea tours, he participated in numerous Multi-National exercises (RIMPAC 2011/12, CANADIAN TGEX, BOLD ALLIGATOR, JOINT WARRIOR) and completed two Western Pacific deployments.

Ashore, Lieutenant Roaf taught navigation, naval operations and leadership development through the North Carolina Piedmont Region Consortium (NCPR) Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps (NROTC) at the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill (UNC). Additionally, he earned his Professional Science Master’s (PSM) in Toxicology degree from the UNC. In support of this degree, Lieutenant Roaf completed a joint internship at the Wright Paterson Air Force base in Dayton Ohio working with the Navy Medical Research Unit.

He is currently stationed at Surface Warfare Officer School in Newport RI, training to become a Department Head afloat.

Join us live if you can or pick the show up later by clicking here. Or you can also pick the show up later by visiting either our iTunes page or our Stitcher page.

Saturday Is Old Radio Day: Dragnet "Mother-in-Law Murder" (1949) and a Bonus Parody by Stan Freberg

Jack Webb's Dragnet was popular on radio and on television. It featured a classic opening later parodied by Stan Freberg.

A little history of Fatima cigarettes.

Friday Film: "U. S. Navy OPERATION AND MAINTENANCE OF COMBAT BOATS" (1971)

U. S. Navy Office of Naval Intelligence Worldwide Threat to Shipping (WTS) Report 4 June - 4 July 2018 and HORN OF AFRICA/GULF OF GUINEA/ SOUTHEAST ASIA: Piracy Analysis and Warning Weekly (PAWW) Report for 28 June - 4 July 2018

U. S. Navy Office of Naval Intelligence Worldwide Threat to Shipping (WTS) Report 4 June - 4 July 2018 by lawofsea on Scribd

U. S. Navy Office of Naval Intelligence HORN OF AFRICA/GULF OF GUINEA/ SOUTHEAST ASIA: Piracy Analysis and... by lawofsea on Scribd

Saturday Is Old Radio Day: Stan Freberg "Great Moments in History - Paul Revere" (1957)

Stan Freberg was way ahead of his time and too far out for sponsors to sign on - a combination that left him without a show after only a few episodes. But those

episodes were fun!

On Midrats 8 July 2018 - Episode 444: The Slow March to FITZGERALD & MCCAIN, with J. C. Harvey, Jr

Please join us at 5pm EDT on 8 July 2018 for Midrats Episode 444: The Slow March to FITZGERALD & MCCAIN, with J. C. Harvey, Jr

The condition that brought us to the series of events in WESTPAC in 2017 did not happen overnight. They did not happen in one PCS cycle, or under one command climate. Layer by layer from many sources, it took time to get to where we found it.

Our guest for the full hour to discuss his views of the latent causes of

what is now generally accepted as a systemic failure of a "new normal" will be J.C. Harvey, Jr., Admiral USN (Ret.).

Admiral Harvey retired from the Navy in November, 2012 after serving as the Commander, U.S. Fleet Forces Command, in Norfolk, Virginia.

In his 39 year Navy career, he specialized in naval nuclear propulsion, surface ship & Carrier strike-group operations & Navy-wide manpower management/personnel policy development. He served in a variety of operational command positions at sea, as the Navy’s Chief of Naval Personnel (the senior uniformed human resources official in the Navy) & as the Director, Navy Staff immediately prior to commanding U.S. Fleet Forces.

Since his retirement, Admiral Harvey has joined the Board of Directors of the Navy Memorial Foundation, where he currently serves as Chairman of the Board, & serves as an Outside Director of AT Kearney, PSDS.

On 12 January, 2014, he was sworn in as a member of Governor McAuliffe’s cabinet where he served as the Commonwealth’s Secretary of Veteran & Defense Affairs until 31 August, 2017.

A few months later, he joined the Institute of Defense Analyses as the Director, Strategy, Forces & Resources Division.

Born and raised in Baltimore, MD, Admiral Harvey is a graduate of the Phillips Exeter Academy, the US Naval Academy & the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.

Admiral Harvey & his wife, Mary Ellen, now reside in Vienna, Virginia & have two grown children, Sarah & David.

Join us live if you can or pick the show up later by clicking here. Or you can also pick the show up later by visiting either our iTunes page or our Stitcher page.

Friday Film: Navy "Major Caliber Guns and Turrets" (1955)

Fun With Iran: Iran Threatens Closure of Strait of Hormuz Unless Demands Met (Again)

Reuters report Iran's Rouhani hints at threat to neighbors' exports if oil sales halted

President Hassan Rouhani appeared on Tuesday to threaten to disrupt oil shipments from

neighboring countries if Washington presses ahead with its goal of forcing all countries to stop buying Iranian oil.
***
Iranian officials in the past have threatened to block the Strait of Hormuz, a major oil shipping route, in retaliation for any hostile U.S. action against Iran.

“The Americans have claimed they want to completely stop Iran’s oil exports. They don’t understand the meaning of this statement, because it has no meaning for Iranian oil not to be exported, while the region’s oil is exported,” the website, president.ir, quoted him as saying.

Let's see now, major oil producers who might benefit if Iran cuts off its nose to spite its face include Russia, Saudi Arabia, Canada, the U.S. - I would add Venezuela, but its oil production capabilities are in shambles. The U.S is now the world's leading producer, thanks to fracking, so Iran's threats are less meaningful than they were once upon a time.

Oh, yes, there is also this U.S. Navy says will protect commerce in face of Iran oil threat:

The U.S. Navy stands ready to ensure free navigation and the flow of commerce, the U.S. military’s Central Command said on Thursday, as Iran’s Revolutionary Guards warned they would block oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz if necessary.
***
If Iran cannot sell its oil under U.S. pressure, then no other regional country will be allowed to either, said Mohammad Ali Jafari, who commands the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Iran’s most powerful military force.

“We are hopeful that this plan expressed by our president will be implemented if needed ... We will make the enemy understand that either all can use the Strait of Hormuz or no one,” Jafari was quoted as saying by Tasnim news agency.

The Strait of Hormuz is the most important oil transit channel in the world with about one-fifth of global oil consumption passing through each day.

“The U.S. and its partners provide, and promote security and stability in the region,” Central Command spokesman Navy Captain Bill Urban said in an email to Reuters.

Asked what would be the U.S. Naval Forces’ reaction if Iran blocks the strait, he said: “Together, we stand ready to ensure the freedom of navigation and the free flow of commerce wherever international law allows.”

USN photo- those aren't toys on the racks

The Guards’ naval arm lacks a strong conventional fleet. However, it has many speed boats and portable anti-ship missile launchers, and can lay

,U mines.

A senior U.S. military leader said in 2012 the Guards have the ability to block the strait “for a period of time” but the United States would take action to reopen it in such an event.

Well, that's why we have a Navy. And an Air Force.

USAF photo

I would think clearing the air space above the Arabian Gulf would be priority one, followed by using air power to smite the "many speed boats and portable anti-ship missile launchers" probably while they sortie to lay mines or line up for swarm attacks. Air power including Navy and AF assets, of course, along with allies in the area who would probably not look kindly on Iran attempts to cut off the oil flow through the Strait or movement in the Gulf.

One might ask the question, "How much of a IRGC swarm can an AC-130 chop up if an Ac-130J was called upon to sweep the sea of IRGC swarms?" Unlike a similar question about woodchucks, I think the answer to this one would be "lots and lots."

Iran's leadership is failing the people of Iran more than ever as they try to hang on to their perks and power. Being stupid in this situation would put them squarely on the back of an already very restless tiger.

Declaration of Independence - read by John F. Kennedy July 4, 1960

Happy 4th!


U.S. Navy photo by Journalist Seaman Ryan C. McGinley, 4 July 2004

Acts of War? Weaponizing Mass Migration

In these modern times, the definition of what constitutes an "act of war" is evolving to meet new threats. For example, when does a "cyber intrusion" into the governmental and private networks of a nation reach the level where it a virtual act of war, akin to an invasion albeit with electrons and not bodies? This is a hot topic.

Currently less discussed but of rising interest involves a foreign government actively encouraging and abetting segments of its own population and those of other countries to migrate to another sovereign state. When does this "soft invasion" reach the level that the target state would be justified in declaring war on the encouraging state?

In her book Weapons of Mass Migration: Forced Displacement, Coercion and Foreign Policy, Kelly M. Greenhill quotes Samar Sen, India Ambassador to the UN

If aggression against another foreign country means that it strains its social structure, that it ruins its finances, that it has to give up territory for sheltering refugees . . . what is the difference between that type of aggression and the other type, the more classical type, when someone declares war, or something of that sort?

Ms. Greenhill describes her book focus,

. . . on a very particular non-military method of applying coercive pressure -the use of migration and refugee crises as instruments of persuasion.

While "non-military" this sort of coercion is, according to Ms. Greenhill's research, widely used. She cites 56 instances since 1951. This list of 56 does not include the mass influx of refugees spawned by the Syrian civil war, Venezuela's collapse, nor things like the large flow of immigrants from nations into the U.S. from nations of Mexico, Central and South America.

Why include Mexico?

Because the president-elect of Mexico has raised the issue as set out in here The then Mexican presidential candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) stated

“And soon, very soon, to the victory of our movement — we will defend all the migrants in the American continent and all the migrants in the world, who by necessity, must leave their towns and find a life in the United States, it is a human right we will defend.” (Google translation) (see Spanish language article from which the Google translation came)

I fully support legal immigration. The U.S. is a better country for the millions of immigrants who have arrived legally in this country and contributed to our society. However, the intentional effort to offload a country's poor or problems onto another country is something more. Some of you may remember Castro's cynical Mariel Boatlift:

On April 20, 1980, the Castro regime announces that all Cubans wishing to emigrate to the U.S. are free to board boats at the port of Mariel west of Havana, launching the Mariel Boatlift. The first of 125,000 Cuban refugees from Mariel reached Florida the next day.
***
In all, 125,000 Cubans fled to U.S. shores in about 1,700 boats, creating large waves of people that overwhelmed the U.S. Coast guard. Cuban guards had packed boat after boat, without considering safety, making some of the overcrowded boats barely seaworthy. Twenty-seven migrants died, including 14 on an overloaded boat that capsized on May 17.

The boatlift also began to have negative political implications for U.S.President Jimmy Carter.When it was discovered that a number of the exiles had been released from Cuban jails and mental health facilities, many were placed in refugee camps while others were held in federal prisons to undergo deportation hearings. Of the 125,000 “Marielitos,” as the refugees came to be known, who landed in Florida, more than 1,700 were jailed and another 587 were detained until they could find sponsors.

But let's go back to Ambassador Sen's quote for a second and ask, "When does a foreign government's complicity in encouraging its own people and/or those of other nations to violate the borders of another state become "aggressive" enough to be the "act of war?"

Let's see what Liam says in Warfare Today has to say in Weaponized Migration is the New Battlespace:

We have already heard much talk about weaponized narrative and seen the results of cyber warfare from the Ukraine to the US Elections, allegedly. We can now add to the hybrid warfare arsenal a new strategy concept, the weaponization of mass migration, or, to coin a phrase, sociological warfare. Simply shifting a large mass of people into the enemy’s territory produces chaos, conflict and economic erosion without the aggressor having to fire a single shot, or even appearing to have done anything.
***
Air Force Gen. Philip M. Breedlove, the Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, and commander of US European Command, suggested to the US Senate Armed Services Committee in 2016 that “Russia and the Assad regime are deliberately weaponizing migration from Syria in an attempt to overwhelm European structures and break European resolve.” Russia denied this, but the New York Times reported that, "The one group that needs no convincing about Russia’s manipulation of the migrant issue is the migrants themselves."

Back to the Greenhill book, in which she offers several definitions of the migrations she is interested in, including,

... coercive engineered migrations (or migration-driven coercion) as those cross-border population movements that are deliberately created or manipulated in order to induce political, military and/or economic concesssions from a target state or states.
****
After intentionally generating crises, weak actors can offer to make them disappear in exchange for financial or politcal payoffs.

The effect on the engineered migration target state is accentuated by the domestic political divisions of that target. More Greenhill:

Like immigration and refugee policy more generally, real and threatened migration crises tend to split societies into (at least) two mutually antagonistic and often highly mobilized groups: the pro-refugee/migrant camp and the anti-refugee/migrant camp.

The domestic political environment is important because,

...coercive engineered migration can be usefully conceived as a two-level, generally asymmetric, coercion by punishment strategy, in which challengers on the international level seek to influence the behavior of their targets by exploiting the existence of of competing domestic interests within the target state(s) and by manipulating the costs or risks imposed on their civilian population(s).
***
... a key (norms-based mechanism that can enhance the coercive power ... is the imposition of ... hypocrisy costs - defined as those symbolic political costs that can be imposed when there exists a real or perceived disparity between a professed commitment to liberal values and norms and demonstrated actions that contravene such a commitment.
****
Hypocrisy costs are not necessary for coercion to succeed; however, they can serve as effective force multipliers for weak challengers, allowing them to punch above their weight and to influence the behavior of actors normally outside their ambit.

That being stated, let's look at the most recent immigration crisis facing the U.S. - the process in which children may be separated from their families - a situation that, it must be understood by now, that did not suddenly arrive in 2018, but which is now being exploited by both domestic and foreign nations to coerce the current administration to change a long-standing policy and as a political lever by the party not in power to keep protests going against the current administration in hopes of influencing voters in upcoming elections.

One of Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals pushed exploitation of something akin the Ms. Greenhill's "hypocrisy costs" -

"Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules"

If the administration is "pro-family" - attack the enforcement of this policy as being "anti-family" and therefore hypocritical, regardless of history or facts. We see the opponents of this policy employing another Alinsky rule when they go after administration members personally. That rule

"Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.” Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions. (This is cruel, but very effective. Direct, personalized criticism and ridicule works.)" (source

Bottom line - when watching the news reports of immigration issues, be mindful that behind the protests, behinds the sad pictures (whether or not they were taken during this administration) there is a political agenda being played out - partially domestic, but most certainly also driven by foreign governments to attempt to coerce the U.S. by the asymmetric weapon of both the threat and reality of mass migration, which may "engineered" to force concessions by our government.

U. S. Navy Office of Naval Intelligence Worldwide Threat to Shipping (WTS) Report 28 May - 27 June 2018 and HORN OF AFRICA/GULF OF GUINEA/ SOUTHEAST ASIA: Piracy Analysis and Warning Weekly (PAWW) Report for 21 - 27 June 2018

U. S. Navy Office of Naval Intelligence Worldwide Threat to Shipping (WTS) Report 28 May - 27 June 2018 by lawofsea on Scribd

U. S. Navy Office of Naval Intelligence HORN OF AFRICA/GULF OF GUINEA/ SOUTHEAST ASIA: Piracy Analysis and... by lawofsea on Scribd

On Midrats 1 July 2018 - Episode 443: Marines in the Offensive Against ISIS

Please join us at 5pm EDT on 1 July 2018 for Episode 443: Marines in the Offensive Against ISIS

In the last few months a lot has been written about learning how to

fight a conventional land battle again after years of a focus on counterinsurgency. Fighting against an enemy who is holding territory, has a capital, armor, artillery and a proven record in the battlefield.

While some are writing it, others have been living it, fighting side by side with traditional allies and new ones in a complicated joint and combined environment that is the latest chapter in the Long War; the war against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

Our guest is returning to Midrats after just returning from leading Marines in the fight, Colonel Seth Folsom, USMC.

Colonel Folsom is a Marine Corps infantry officer with 24 years of commissioned service. He currently works on the staff of I Marine Expeditionary Force, and he has commanded Marines in Iraq and Afghanistan at the company, battalion, and task force level. He is a graduate of the University of Virginia, the Naval Postgraduate School, and the Marine Corps War College, and he is the author of three books about his Marines fighting The Long War. He and his family live in Oceanside, California.

Join us live if you can or pick the show up later by clicking here. Or you can also pick the show up later by visiting either our iTunes page or our Stitcher page.

Saturday Is Old Radio Day: You Are There at the "Battle of Gettysburg" (1948)

Pickett's Charge by Thulstrup

President Seeks Control of the Supreme Court: The "Court-Packing" Plan

Perhaps better known as FDR's "Court-Packing" Plan:

After winning the 1936 presidential election in a landslide, Franklin D. Roosevelt proposed a bill to expand the membership of the Supreme Court. The law would have

added one justice to the Court for each justice over the age of 70, with a maximum of six additional justices. Roosevelt’s motive was clear – to shape the ideological balance of the Court so that it would cease striking down his New Deal legislation. As a result, the plan

was widely and vehemently criticized. The law was never enacted by Congress, and Roosevelt lost a great deal of political support for having proposed it. Shortly after the president made the plan public, however, the Court upheld several government regulations of the type it had formerly found unconstitutional. In National Labor Relations Board v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corporation, for example, the Court upheld the right of the federal government to regulate labor-management relations pursuant to the National Labor Relations Act of 1935. Many have attributed this and similar decisions to a politically motivated change of heart on the part of Justice Owen Roberts, often referred to as “the switch in time that saved nine.” Some legal scholars have rejected this narrative, however, asserting that Roberts' 1937 decisions were not motivated by Roosevelt's proposal and can instead be reconciled with his prior jurisprudence.

Some of you might recall that Mr. Roosevelt was not a Republican.

More at  FDR's Losing Battle To Pack The Supreme Court,

"Some suggested that Congress ought to be able to overrule the Supreme Court," he explains. "By a two-thirds vote, Congress should be able to overturn any ruling of the Supreme Court, essentially making Congress the last word on the Constitution and not the Supreme Court."

"He didn't think it was practical," says Shesol. "It takes a very long time, usually, to amend the Constitution ... enough to change the reality in the country. But secondly, and this is really important in understanding why Roosevelt packed the court, [is that] he didn't see any kind of contradiction between the Constitution and the New Deal. He didn't think there was anything in the Constitution that prevented him from doing what he needed to do. The problem as he saw it was not the Constitution; it was the conservatives on that particular Supreme Court. So what could you possibly do about them? So that's how he came to the idea of packing it."
****
"Age does not define ideology," he says. "Even though Roosevelt looked at what he called the 'nine old men of the Supreme Court' and suggested that the older justices were falling out of touch with reality, the oldest justice on that court in the 1930s was [Louis] Brandeis, the great liberal justice. And this was pointed out with glee with many of Roosevelt's opponents. ... So, you don't hear anything like that today. You hear concern on the part of progressives in this country that Justice Stevens and the other liberals are more likely to leave the court soon than any of the conservatives are, but I think we've come a long way since the 1930s, when that argument was made so forcefully by Franklin Roosevelt."

When the "progressive agenda" has been thwarted by the Supreme Court, some folks have suggested that court-packing might be a swell idea. Recently, for example, one Todd N. Tucker writes In Defense of Court-Packing with the delightful sub-title of "We shouldn't let a handful of reactionary judges get in the way of progressive change. It's time to pack the Supreme Court." -

With Tuesday’s Supreme Court ruling upholding Trump’s Muslim ban, Wednesday’s decision attacking public sector unions, and Justice Anthony Kennedy’s announcement that he’s retiring, it is time to push a once-marginal idea to the top of the agenda: pack the Supreme Court. The conservative majority’s support of Trumpism and opposition to progressive objectives means it will pose a barrier to the agenda of even the most left-leaning president and Congress. This barrier must be confronted head on.
***
From the time the justices unilaterally asserted their power to strike down legislation in 1802, a democracy-eroding judicial supremacy has been an ever-present danger. One of the most significant confrontations came in 1937, when the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration decided to pick a fight with the Court.
***
That’s not to say court-packing is easy. Historians have documented how FDR badly managed public and congressional opinion, and would have had difficulty actually getting a favorable vote on his bill. His ultimate triumph came from being able to wait out the Court by serving more than two terms — something not available to politicians today, despite having relatively young conservative justices like Neil Gorsuch that will be around for decades to come.

Nonetheless, this shouldn’t dissuade us. Political scientist David Faris makes a compelling case that court-packing — along with statehood for D.C. and Puerto Rico and other reforms — amounts to a prerequisite for lasting progressive change. In his new book, It’s Time to Fight Dirty, Faris proposes to expand the roster of the Court to eleven or thirteen immediately, and then pass a law allowing presidents to appoint a new justice every two years. Meanwhile, the most senior justices would be shuffled into a type of emeritus position with lesser responsibilities. The nine most junior cases would do most of the judging, with more senior justices momentarily pulled into duty in the case of a justice’s death.
***
A thoughtful court-packing proposal would ensure that the Court more carefully reflects the mores of the time, rather than shackling democracy to the weight of the past. With inequality and human rights abuses spiraling upward and justices making it all worse, the time to begin mainstreaming an enlarged Court is now.

I wonder if Mr. Tucker has considered that a conservative president might accept his argument for court-packing but in a manner Mr. Tucker would most definitely not approve? Wouldn't this scheme just lead to an endless shuffling of justices by succeeding administrations that differ in political viewpoints?

And, hey, what about the fact that the "most senior justices" might be the ones "progressives" would like to keep (Justices Stevens and Ginsberg, e.g.), while this idea would allow Mr. Trump to keep rolling in "conservatives." Indeed, that was one of flaws of Mr. Roosevelt's original court-packing plan - his successors could invoke the same concept to achieve their agendas - which may have differed greatly or completely reversed his.

Further, I wonder how Mr. Tucker views the Supreme Court decisions which he might like - say on abortion - are they examples of "democracy-eroding judicial supremacy?"

But, of course, the general rule in cards and politics is "winners always crack jokes, and losers say "deal." or, as Willie Nelson, that great legal scholar put it:

The winners tell jokes and the losers say deal
Lady Luck rides a stallion tonight
And she smiles at the winners and she laughs at the losers
And the losers say now that just ain't right

So, first, Mr. Tucker and Mr. Faris, you need to win . . . which didn't happen.

UPDATE: Idiocy runs amok with an opinion piece in the NYT on court packing Stacking the Court. Really, do these folks think that somehow the other side won't do exactly what they are suggesting except by loading the court with conservative justices?

Friday Film: "Attack on the Marshalls"

Fighting WWII in the Pacific. Interesting look at the strategy of the "island" campaign.

U. S. Navy Office of Naval Intelligence Worldwide Threat to Shipping (WTS) Report 21 May - 20 June 2018 and HORN OF AFRICA/GULF OF GUINEA/ SOUTHEAST ASIA: Piracy Analysis and Warning Weekly (PAWW) Report for 14 - 20 June 2018

U. S. Navy Office of Naval Intelligence Worldwide Threat to Shipping (WTS) Report 21 May - 20 June 2018 by lawofsea on Scribd

U. S. Navy Office of Naval Intelligence HORN OF AFRICA/GULF OF GUINEA/ SOUTHEAST ASIA: Piracy Analysis and... by lawofsea on Scribd

Saturday Is Old Radio Day: Flash Gordon - 3 Episodes from 1935

About Flash Gordon 26 show serial. Short shows, so I put up three.

On the Planet Mongo:

Battling a Planet and an Earthman



The Prison Ship:


The remainder of the series can be found here.

On Midrats 24 June 2018 - Episode 442: Midrats Mid-Summer Free For All

Please join us at 5pm EDT on 24 June 2018 for Episode 442: Midrats Mid-Summer Free For All

We're back live to catch up on all your maritime and natsec issues

bubbling to the surface this summer. From the migrant crisis in the Med, Russians in the high north, to the infrastructure crunch in the Pacific - we'll cover it all.

This is also your time to have us address the topics you find of interest. We're taking calls and questions in the chat room. It's a live show ... so now's your chance.

Open phone, open topic, all you need to bring is an open mind.

Join us live if you can or pick the show up later by clicking here. Or you can also pick the show up later by visiting either our iTunes page or our Stitcher page.

Friday Film: Mark 7, Mark 5 Barricades (1957)

A Modest Proposal - Helping Prevent Refugees - Time for more "Humanitarian Intervention?"

So, we have this crisis on our borders in that many people seem to want to skip the formalities of legally entering the U.S. and just walk on in, because whatever hell-hole they have traveled from is too awful to bear any longer. Naturally, humanitarian impulses suggest that our sympathies ought to lie with these folks. After all some suggest that the writing on the Statue of Liberty says we simply have to take in such people, regardless of their status as "undocumented" or "trespassers" on U.S. soil. The holy writ of Emma Lazarus reading in part:

"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

First of all, I have not now nor have I ever been involved in tossing either "wretched refuse" or "the homeless," despite my last name. Heck, I am pretty certain all my ancestors came from foreign shores, some arriving earlier than others. Indeed, some were here and participated in severing "repressive" British rule over the U.S.

The overthrow of a repressive regime brings me to one of those once fashionable ideas, about which I have written before in The Drumbeat of "Humanitarian Intervention?" in which Susan Rice suggested that it was okay for some nations to intervene in the internal affairs of other countries who fail to take care of or actually abuse their least-favored residents. Here, discussing "doing something" in Darfur in 2009, Ms. Rice was quoted by the WaPo,

Regarding the "ongoing genocide" in Darfur, Sudan, Rice said the U.S. priority for the moment is reinforcing a U.N.-backed peacekeeping mission to protect civilians. She expressed concern that Sudan's government may retaliate against international peacekeepers and aid workers if the International Criminal Court issues an arrest warrant on genocide charges for Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir. (emphasis mine)

So, it appears to be okay to send in troops "to protect citizens" of a foreign country.  Of course, as I noted in that earlier post, Humanitarian Intervention (HI) is not a new thing

In the last decade of the 20th Century such "invasions to save lives" include Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo, East Timor, and Sierra Leone. In the world of the people who support such interventions, the U.S. led invasion of Iraq was not a humanitarian intervention because. . . well, because. In fact, Human Rights Watch asserted that the saving of thousands of Iraqis from Saddam's terror "gives humanitarian intervention a bad name."

So, if it was good enough for Darfur, Somalia, Bosnia, Kosovo, etc, why are we not setting up to do some HI in those third-world places the refugees lining up to violate our borders come from to get away from the terror of their native lands? Surely such an HI would solve our border issues. It would keep families together in their own homes and, I am sure, win us near universal acclaim as protectors of the innocent and saviors of thousands if not millions of people.

Well, current info seems hard to come by, but here is a 2014 chart of nations of origin of (gasp!) illegal immigrants:

I guess we should start with the biggest source first and perform an HI in Mexico. Then El Salvador, Guatemala, and so on down the list until we have made the world safe for people to stay in their homes. I suppose China, India, Korea, and Canada might be a little surprised to find a flotilla of Humanitarian Interventionists off their coasts, but once you start on this mission, you just can't call it quits, .

Of course, if the intervention gets ugly, we might just generate more refugees, but it's okay if our motives are pure.


Apologies to Dean Swift, though my suggestion is less extreme than his.

But, wait, perhaps we could just set up some organized process through people could apply for admission to the U.S. and have some sort of sanction for those who try to jump the line. Let me think that over.

U. S. Navy Office of Naval Intelligence Worldwide Threat to Shipping (WTS) Report 14 May - 13 June 2018 and HORN OF AFRICA/GULF OF GUINEA/ SOUTHEAST ASIA: Piracy Analysis and Warning Weekly (PAWW) Report for 7 - 13 June 2018

U. S. Navy Office of Naval Intelligence Worldwide Threat to Shipping (WTS) Report 14 May - 13 June 2018 by lawofsea on Scribd

U. S. Navy Office of Naval Intelligence HORN OF AFRICA/GULF OF GUINEA/ SOUTHEAST ASIA: Piracy Analysis and... by lawofsea on Scribd

Father's Day

Thanks, Dad!

I've never met a better man.

Saturday Is Old Radio Day: CBS Radio Workshop "Roughing It" (1956)

Mark Twain's Roughing It re-imagined for the radio

Friday Film: "Electronics Technicians of the Navy"

U. S. Navy Office of Naval Intelligence Worldwide Threat to Shipping (WTS) Report 7 May - 6 June2018 and HORN OF AFRICA/GULF OF GUINEA/ SOUTHEAST ASIA: Piracy Analysis and Warning Weekly (PAWW) Report for 31 May - 6 June 2018

U. S. Navy Office of Naval Intelligence Worldwide Threat to Shipping (WTS) Report 7 May - 6 June 2018 by lawofsea on Scribd

U. S. Navy Office of Naval Intelligence HORN OF AFRICA/GULF OF GUINEA/ SOUTHEAST ASIA: Piracy Analysis and... by lawofsea on Scribd

Saturday Is Old Radio Day: Philip Marlowe "The Headless Peacock" (1949)

Friday Film: Preparations for D-Day

Newsreel coverage of the effort leading up to the June 6, 1944 landings in France. Since the film was released well after the landings, I have delayed the posting of this video until today.

Navy June History: Capture of U-505

June 4, 1944.



Now in a nice display in Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry

MSI photo

U. S. Navy Office of Naval Intelligence Worldwide Threat to Shipping (WTS) Report 30 April - 30 May 2018 and HORN OF AFRICA/GULF OF GUINEA/ SOUTHEAST ASIA: Piracy Analysis and Warning Weekly (PAWW) Report for 24 - 30 May 2018

U. S. Navy Office of Naval Intelligence Worldwide Threat to Shipping (WTS) Report 30 April - 30 May 2018 by lawofsea on Scribd

U. S. Navy Office of Naval Intelligence HORN OF AFRICA/GULF OF GUINEA/ SOUTHEAST ASIA: Piracy Analysis and... by lawofsea on Scribd

Battle of Midway June 3 - 6, 1942

Though the dates of the battle are as set out above, the groundwork was laid out long before, as set out in Mark Munson's THE BATTLE OF MIDWAY: THE COMPLETE INTELLIGENCE STORY:

At the root of the American victory at Midway was U.S. Navy intelligence successfully breaking Japanese codes and discovering the Japanese Navy’s plans to attack Midway Atoll.

Station Hypo was the team of U.S. signals intelligence (SIGINT) analysts led by then-Commander Joseph “Joe” Rochefort. Immediately after Pearl Harbor, Station Hypo began attempting to decode messages transmitted using the JN-25 code. By late April, Rochefort’s team assessed that the Japanese were planning major operations against the central Pacific and Aleutians. In a famous trick, Pacific Fleet Commander Admiral Chester Nimitz approved a ruse proposed by Rochefort that saw the American garrison at Midway send a fake message “in the clear” (on open channels) regarding broken water evaporator units on the island. Almost immediately afterward, American listening posts intercepted Japanese transmissions mentioning the water shortage and the need to bring along extra water to support the operation. The identity of the Japanese objective was conclusively determined as Midway.

Then it became a matter of positioning the remaining U.S. Pacific forces in a position to engage the enemy.





Much more on the battle at the Navy History and Heritage Command here.

Source

More here, apparently written when the breaking of the Japanese codes was still highly classified, th

fter leaving Pearl Harbor, these two task forces refueled at sea and effected their rendezvous northeast of Midway on June 2d. The combined force then proceeded under the command of Admiral Fletcher to an area of operation north of Midway.

On full consideration, it had been decided not to employ the battleships on the West Coast in defense of Midway. To strike at long range at the enemy carrier force was deemed imperative, and it was therefore thought unwise to divert from the forces supporting our carriers the ships which would be necessary to screen battleships.

Admiral Ernest J. King, Commander in Chief, United States Fleet, believed that the Japanese plans were designed to trap a portion of our fleet. For that reason he directed that only strong attrition tactics be employed, and that our carriers and cruisers not be unduly risked. To understand the Midway Battle, one should remember that our naval forces operated under a conservative policy necessitated by the superiority of the enemy's force, and under the restraint imposed by the defense of a fixed point.

Saturday is Old Radio Day: D-Day as it was heard on 6 June 1944

NBC coverage:

Art from the U.S. Navy History and Heritage Command's D-Day Normandy, this piece by Mitchell Jamieson, 1944.

Radio broadcasts are from Internet Archive and consist of several hours of actual NBC broadcasts. The show will automatically move to the next segment.

Re-posted from 2015.

On Midrats 3 June 2018 -Episode 439: American Strategic Myths Through the Lens of Star Wars

Please join us at 5pm EDT on 3 June 2018 for Midrats Episode 439: American Strategic Myths Through the Lens of Star Wars

There is a long and successful record of fiction, especially science fiction, being

instructive about history, human nature, and the eternal course of events.

Fiction, of course, gets its inspiration from reality - a two way road.

What do the Star Wars movies have to tell us about some of the comfortable myths we may see in American military and strategic thought?

Using his latest article at the Modern War Institute, our guest for the full hour returning to Midrats will be Maj. ML Cavanaugh is a non-resident fellow with the Modern War Institute at West Point, and co-edited the book, with author Max Brooks, Strategy Strikes Back: How Star Wars Explains Modern Military Conflict, from Potomac Books.

Join us live if you can or pick the show up later by clicking here. Or you can also pick the show up later by visiting either our iTunes page or our Stitcher page.

Friday Film: "Security Through Seapower" (1957)