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For days, nearly every news media outlet has been consumed with the Ferguson fallout. From coast to coast, pundits and populations have been debating the efficacy of justice and demonstrations. But maybe a true solution for Ferguson -- and every other social skirmish like it -- can only be found in changing the narrative. I think I found it -- or him -- at Pearl Harbor, and just in time for its 73rd anniversary. You know the history. On a quiet Sunday morning, Dec. 7, 1941, Japan launched a surprise attack on U.S. military bases on the Hawaiian island of...

Australia has officially welcomed its largest ever warship to the Naval fleet in a ceremony at Sydney's Garden Island. Before a cheering crowd of more than 1500 on Friday, NUSHIP Canberra became the HMAS Canberra, entitled to fly the historical white ensign in the name of the nation. Prime Minister Tony Abbott, Governor-General Sir Peter Cosgrove and Navy Chief Vice-Admiral Tim Barrett attended the ceremony, together with family members of the ship's 400-strong crew. PM Tony Abbott said it marked a proud day for the Navy and for Australia. 'We are a nation girt by sea. So it is the...

The Russian Navy on Friday successfully test-fired a new intercontinental ballistic missile for a second time in as many months, proving its reliability following a troublesome development. The Defense Ministry said the Alexander Nevsky nuclear submarine test-fired a Bulava missile from an underwater position in the Barents Sea. The missile's warheads reached designated targets at a testing range in Russia's far eastern Kamchatka Peninsula. The Bulava suffered many failures during a decade of tests, raising doubts about the fate of Russia's most expensive and ambitious weapons program since the Soviet collapse. But a series of recent launches has been successful...

'The Royal Navy may ask US squadrons to fly off its new aircraft carrier following delays to its new F35B fighters, BBC Newsnight has learned. MoD insiders said the US Marine Corps would be offered the use of HMS Queen Elizabeth II for flight operations. The UK plans to have its first F35 squadron operational by 2018, but Newsnight has learned that there may be further delays.'

One of the many new weapons shown for the first time Airshow China this year was the China Aerospace Science Industrial Corporation (CASIC) CX-1 Mach 3 cruise missile. The PRC’s defense industrial complex has a number of cruise missiles that can be either ship- or air-launched, and each successive show at Zhuhai seems to generate new models. So this missile is not a major breakthrough in Chinese defense technology. What makes the CX-1 unusual is its close resemblance to another missile that is well-known to the rest of the world: the joint Indian-Russian project, the BrahMos. The uncanny similarity of...

ABOARD HDMS NILS JUEL IN THE CHESAPEAKE BAY — It is striking how the now-familiar smooth, angled architecture of today’s warships, intended to reduce visual, heat and other signatures, is also somehow inherently Danish-modern. And the first thing one notices after boarding this ship is how clean and spotless everything is — almost relentlessly clean. “We clean the ship every day,” said Lt. Cmdr. Kenneth Jensen, the ship’s operations officer. “It’s easier to keep a clean ship clean than to clean a dirty ship.” The Nils Juel is the Danish Navy’s newest warship, handed over only in August. It’s the...

ARLINGTON, Va. — The Navy’s surface fleet is in need of some short-term payload adjustments to regain an advantage in offensive surface strike capabilities. “The surface fleet today really can’t do offensive sea control,” said Bryan Clark, senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA), a Washington think tank, and a former special assistant to the chief of naval operations, speaking to reporters Nov. 17. Clark, author of the new CSBA assessment, “Commanding the Seas: A Plan to Reinvigorate U.S. Navy Surface Warfare,” said the Navy needs a short-term — meaning by 2025 — adjustment in its...

GROTON, Conn. — Authorities say two Navy civilian police officers have been wounded while confronting a knife-wielding man at a Connecticut base. Navy officials say an officer guarding the submarine base in Groton Thursday night fired shots at the man who allegedly had tried to enter through a pedestrian gate. Authorities say one officer was injured by the ricochet of bullets. The second officer suffered a minor stab wound to the leg. Both have been treated and released from a local hospital.

A senior Navy intelligence officer has been removed from his position due to comments made regarding aggressive Chinese military movements that ran counter to the Pentagon’s talking points on the issue, according to the Navy Times. Capt. James Fanell was removed from his position as the director of intelligence and information operations at U.S. Pacific Fleet. Fanell was reassigned within the command. Though neither the Navy nor Fanell commented on the reason for the personnel change, it is widely believed to be due to an internal investigation of his comments on China, according to the report. Fanell warned during a...

Protesters yelling “Yankee go home!” attacked three U.S. sailors in Istanbul, Turkey, on Wednesday, while the warship USS Ross was in port. The sailors were not injured and all returned to the ship, said Capt. Greg Hicks, a spokesman for U.S. European Command.

WASHINGTON – Worried about collateral damage to whales, dolphins and other marine life, environmentalists are fighting the U.S. Navy in court in a bid to protect the creatures of the sea from war games in the Pacific Ocean. "The worst harm comes from the explosives going off," said David Henkin, an attorney for EarthJustice. U.S. Navy testing and war games are underway in American waters off the coasts of California and Hawaii. The drills amount to critical practice for the military and last through 2018, but environmental groups like EarthJustice say hundreds of marine mammals will die or get injured...

A Fremont native is playing a key role in a historical transition taking place in the U.S. Navy. Capt. Paul D. Young on Friday became the first commodore of LCS Squadron 2, a new unit created by the Navy to launch a class of ships that is still under construction. Young assumed his leadership post during a command establishment ceremony at the Mayport Naval Station in Florida. The task before him is nothing less than building the new squadron from the ground up, and then overseeing six new Littoral Combat Ships as they are put to sea. His first two...

The commander of US Navy SEALs has issued a stinging rebuke to troops who have broken the elite force's hallowed tradition of secrecy and humility by publishing memoirs and speaking to the media. Days after the Fox News network announced it would broadcast a documentary with a commando who claims to have shot Osama bin Laden, Rear Admiral Brian Losey, the head of Naval Special Warfare Command, wrote to his troops denouncing anyone who seeks fame or fortune by revealing details of secret missions. "A critical tenet of our Ethos is 'I do not advertise the nature of my work,...

Air Independent Propulsion equipped diesel electric submarines offer incredibly stealthy and long diving capabilities, but they have remained somewhat diminutive in size and limited in capabilities compared to their larger nuclear counterparts. Now, renowned French naval ship builder DCNS is looking to change that with their super-sized SMX-Ocean sub concept. The SMX-Ocean's size is telling — 328 feet long and displacing 4,750 tons while surfaced (more while submerged). That makes her roughly three times the size of the innovative AIP capable Swedish Gotland Class AIP diesel electric subs (diesel electric subs are also known as SSKs) that largely introduced the...

<p>WASHINGTON (AP) — Shocked and offended by explicit questions, some U.S. servicemen and women are complaining about a new sexual-assault survey that hundreds of thousands have been asked to complete.</p> <p>The survey is conducted every two years. But this year's version, developed by the Rand Corp., is unusually detailed, including graphically personal questions on sexual acts.</p>

A U.S. federal judge has ruled that a class-action lawsuit filed by about 200 Navy sailors and Marines can proceed against Japanese utility TEPCO and other defendants who they blame for a variety of ailments from radiation exposure following a nuclear reactor meltdown 3½ years ago. In a decision released Tuesday, Southern District of California Judge Janis Sammartino ruled that the suit can be amended to add the builders of the Fukushima-Daichi Nuclear Power Plant reactors — General Electric, EBASCO, Toshiba and Hitachi — as defendants. Sammartino also denied a change of venue to Japan and dismissed several minor aspects...

The Navy said it will deploy enlisted female sailors in 2016 aboard submarines with female officers already assigned to them. In July, the Navy announced that enlisted female sailors will begin deploying on submarines in 2016. The enlisted women will be placed on ships with female officers where those naval officers can function as role-models and mentors, Connor said. "We will build upon the ships that have women officers to lead and bring in senior women at the chief petty officer level just like we did with the women supply officers," he explained. There are currently more than 100 female...

(English-language translation) San Juan - A group of residents of Vieques, which was used by the United States Navy for six decades, plans to convene a referendum to propose its independence from Puerto Rico, of which it is a municipality. "We don't need the government of Puerto Rico. What we want is our own constitution and government under the United States Constitution," said today Yashei Rosario, who is proposing this initiative along with her husband Julián García. Rosario and those who second this idea complain that the Puerto Rican authorities "have not promoted the economic development of Vieques" since the...

Witnesses, attorneys and even the judge took special care not to let the phrase "Navy SEALs" pass their lips during a federal criminal trial in Alexandria this week, further cloaking an already mysterious case involving the purchase of hundreds of unmarked rifle silencers for the military. Instead, people involved in the trial referred obliquely to "the program," "operators" and "other entities in the government" when discussing who might have wanted to use the silencers, which were acquired through a classified Navy contract. On Wednesday, a key defense witness was interrupted almost immediately after he introduced himself as the weapons accessory...

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