The invasion force
August 6th, 2010 | Blogs Maritime operations | Posted by Phil Ewing
The amphibious assault ship Makin Island is just one of the 46 American warships said to be bent on occupying poor Costa Rica. // Navy
Strikegroupsploitation! Only this time, it’s amphibious-ready-groupsploitation, aka ARGsploitation! A rumor that has apparently been simmering for weeks in the Patchouli-scented Baja hoodie corner of the Web burst into the mainstream this week: Huffington Post columnist Nikolas Kozloff warns that “a massive flotilla” of “46 warships” and “7,000 Marines” is bound for tiny Costa Rica, in the latest example of “the startling remilitarization” of South America. Those dastardly Yanquis!
(Do we even need to bother with any fact-checkery on this? OK, sample item: One of the Navy’s newest West Coast gators is apparently preparing for this huge assault by first stopping at SeaFair in Seattle.)
Like a lot of Navy-oriented Web rumor-mongering, this story has a kernel of truth: On July 1, the Costa Rican legislature authorized U.S. ships to come and go in its waters until Dec. 31, to “conduct anti-narcotic operations and humanitarian missions.” So, although fleet officials don’t publicly discuss deployments in advance, Costa Rica will, yes, likely get visits from gators and other warships. In the kookosphere, however, this translates to wars and atrocities.
There’s no question that the U.S. has a deeply checkered history with many of its southern neighbors, which seems to affect commentators’ capacity for logic. Who could forget 1992′s “The Panama Deception,” and its description of the American “directed-energy weapons” used against locals during the 1989 invasion — which, by the way, was conducted to “retake” the Panama Canal. And yet, 21 years later, those bumbling Americans somehow still haven’t recaptured it and, gee, for some reason, there isn’t a major U.S. Army garrison in Panama City.
Why does it seem like this year’s “invasion” and “remilitarization” of Costa Rica will end up the same way?
Check out our new hall of shame
July 29th, 2010 | Blogs | Posted by Phil Ewing
Our readers just can’t get enough stories about fakers — these guys you see nowadays who claim they received two Medals of Honor, three Silver Stars, eight Purple Hearts, Pink Hearts, Orange Stars, Yellow Moons, Green Clovers, Blue Diamonds, and Purple Horseshoes. One man claimed he survived the bombing of the destroyer Cole; another gave a speech pretending to be an admiral, even though he’d gotten out as an enlisted sailor.
You can find all these stories and much more online now in Military Times’ new Hall of Stolen Valor.
The cult of China’s carrier-killer
July 20th, 2010 | Blogs Carriers China | Posted by Phil Ewing
Another American "sitting dock," the Harry S. Truman, at sea. // MC2 Kilho Park / Navy
In the same way that disaster-flick auteur Roland Emmerich just cannot see enough world landmarks be destroyed, so too are there a few hard-core people out there who cannot purge their visions of an American aircraft carrier being sunk. Author Patrick Robinson vaporized his “USS Thomas Jefferson” in a nuclear strike; director Michael Bay had his Decepticons obliterate the Theodore Roosevelt; and Naval War College professor Cmdr. James Kraska blew up the George Washington with the pretend-carrier-sinker’s latest weapon of choice: China’s hyper-missile of death.
Although it’s highly classified, of course, we all know the characteristics of this super weapon by now, don’t we? It lances out of space like God’s terrible, swift sword and shatters America’s influence in the world Pacific, leaving America as geopolitically relevant as Andorra — or such are the fears. Analysts have assigned such power to China’s carrier killer, and treat its dominance as such a fait accompli, that you get stories like this:
As a portrayal of its military prowess, the United States has sent one of the bigger aircraft carriers called USS George Washington to the area. Cold War period warship could carry over 6000 crewmembers and dozens of aircrafts. These large pieces of floating metal used to be quiet effective during the Cold War era, but Short of charging their nuclear warheads at once, given today’s high-precision anti-warship cruise missiles, aircraft carriers such as the USS George Washington are considered ideal sitting docks for target practicing when they move too close to other countries’ borders.
Also, stories like this.
Well, that settles it — guess we’ll have to disband the Navy. You can’t fight fate. Just one quick question, though: How many ships has this missile actually hit?
‘SNOOZEPAC’ blow-back
July 20th, 2010 | Blogs | Posted by Phil Ewing
The heavy guns continue to sound over the 'SNOOZEPAC' scandal // Australian Defence Forces
This ‘SNOOZEPAC’ situation has erupted into a full-blown mil-blogging scandal, the biggest online tempest since Michael Yon revealed the location of the White House — or whatever that whole dust-up was about – now that my distinguished colleague Dan Lamothe of Marine Corps Times has gotten into the act. Media blogs Romenesko and Media Matters have also picked up the story.
Quick precis: Last week, we had a post here on the Deck linking to “Inside the Headquarters,” the blog of the Military Officers Association of America, in which blogger Gina DiNicolo excoriated the annual Rim of the Pacific exercise as a “snoozer,” more a venue for cucumber sandwiches and paper umbrella cocktails than serious training for combat. I don’t know DiNicolo personally, but we e-hacks definitely know her work: She was the first person to hint last year that Big Navy was itching to send the littoral combat ship Freedom on an early “trial deployment,” which, as we all know, it did.
Here’s the twist: Turns out that in her non-blogging life, DiNicolo is a Marine Corps civilian contractor, and was working as a civilian public affairs support person for RIMPAC even as she was writing about “SNOOZEPAC,” she told Dan. When the bosses out in Hawaii saw her “snoozer” post, it sounds like they blew a gasket and fired her.
This blogging-getting-people-fired thing has happened many times before, as Dan writes (it launched the career of megablogger Heather Armstrong) and he concludes that the whole thing is a little silly. No question about that, but in this era in which the Pentagon is fumbling to reach into the social networking spaces where tomorrow’s young recruits spend all their time, what kind of message does it send to fire bloggers for speaking their minds?
The Truman “armada:” Arglebargle or fooferaw?
June 21st, 2010 | Blogs Carriers | Posted by Phil Ewing
The Harry S. Truman carrier strike group has caused yet another web kerfuffle just by existing. // MC2 Kilho Park / Navy
Inside the family, we reporters have a shorthand to describe kinds of stories that tend to reoccur with the same basic features: An “on the one hand, on the other hand” analysis is a thumb-sucker; a minute-by-minute retelling is a tick-tock; a piece about the latest amazing technology is a gee-whiz story.
But here’s one I’ve seen many times that we don’t have a ready term for: The “ship-movements-mean-the-U.S.-must-be-getting-ready-to-attack-Iran-or-
otherwise-escalate-its-wars” piece, in which the normal rotation of carriers in the Middle East is blown into a full-scale invasion that the mainstream lapdog media isn’t telling you about. It’s a phenomenon that takes place on the periphery of the Web, on sites that don’t normally cover the Navy, and this week includes one of the biggest examples of this echo-chamber effect.
The Harry S. Truman carrier strike group is on its way to relieve the Dwight D. Eisenhower carrier strike group, on station contributing air power to Afghanistan. It’s a routine, scheduled change-over that happens all the time. But according to some reports, Egypt (that puppet!) “allowed” the “U.S. battleships” in the Truman strike group, which “were the largest in years,” to transit the Suez Canal, “following the same route U.S. ships used prior to the attack on Iraq,” in the “prelude to a face-off with Iran.”
What hogwash! And yet, like clockwork, this exact same non-story occurs every time an amateur rabble-rouser spots an item about U.S. warships, hoping to take advantage of Internet sea blindness and cause a stir. So we need a term for this. Strikegroupsploitation? Fleet alarmism? Navy Chicken Littletry?
What do you think? What would you call the predictable carrier rumor boomlet?
Scoop Deck’s birthday BOOKEX
June 1st, 2010 | Blogs | Posted by Phil Ewing
MC2 Michael Russell / Navy
Just a reminder: June marks Scoop Deck’s first birthday, and to mark the event we’re giving away books all month. To get a chance to win, all you have to do is post an approved comment. Click here for the full details. This sticky post will stay at the top of the page for awhile; keep scrolling to see new entries.
Now hear this: Read Scoop Deck, win free books
June 1st, 2010 | Blogs Books | Posted by Phil Ewing
Comic: Scoop Deck. All art: NavHistHerCom
That’s good gouge. Find out more after the jump.
iCommandant disappears…
May 28th, 2010 | Blogs Coast Guard | Posted by Susan Schept
The new Coast Guard blog.//Coast Guard
If you didn’t notice as you were busily preparing for the long Memorial Day weekend, the Coast Guard website underwent a makeover after Adm. Robert Papp became the commandant May 25.
Papp immediately set about making changes, including upending the social media blogs. There will be no more iCommandant blog or commandant’s Facebook page — both pioneered by Papp’s predecessor Adm. Thad Allen. The All Hands blog also will disappear in favor of one centralized Coast Guard Compass blog.
Hangin’ with Dr. Hooper
May 17th, 2010 | Blogs Washington | Posted by Phil Ewing
Navy blogger Craig Hooper has called for a new plan to save the battleship Iowa -- and made many other points -- on both his old and new sites. // NavHistHerCom
After years of blogging anonymously at Defense Springboard, San Francisco national security strategist Craig Hooper broke cover last winter and launched a new site with his real name and smiling photo right at the top. Scoop Deck caught up with Hooper for a discussion about the mil-blogosphere, dropping cover, and why the left needs to learn how to talk about defense stuff.
Scoop Deck: Why unmask yourself after so many years of blogging at Springboard?
Hooper: I think the Springboard was a good training experience. It let me dip my foot in the water a little bit; it was a learning experience. It wasn’t perfect. As time went on and as I became more widely known, I figured I’d put my name out there and stand for what I say.
Navy leadership’s official blog cleared to engage
April 22nd, 2010 | Blogs Liberty Washington | Posted by Phil Ewing
"General quarters, general quarters, all hands man your blogging stations! The release of blog posts has been authorized. This is not a drill!" // MC3 Walter Wayman / Navy
Sometimes things happen that you never thought you’d see in your lifetime — Deep Throat’s identity revealed; Fidel Castro out of power (effectively) and now, an official, no-foolin’, Big Navy blog. Longtime Scoop Deck readers may remember that we told you about Navy Live, as it’s called, not long after the Deck itself was first stood up, back when the Navy’s official blog was just a shell and had a single post that said “test.” Well, it’s back, with a debut post by Navy Secretary Ray Mabus and pix and links and everything.
Discussion of … important matters confronting the Navy and Marine Corps is the purpose behind creation of this blog. It will provide an opportunity for the senior leadership of the secretariat and the Navy to communicate directly with both the Navy and the public at large, without having to resort to the formality of a naval message or press release. Through the blog, we have the opportunity to begin a conversation in plain language about issues of the day and what the Navy and Marine Corps are doing about them, as well as solicit constructive feedback on our thoughts and policies. I look forward to our conversations!
There’s a comments page and everything, so you’ll be able to fire right back at SecNav and his top lieutenants as they add more posts. We have a comments page, too, which you should use to say how you think Navy leadership should use Navy Live. We’re through the looking glass here, people!