Robbin Laird
Stories by Robbin Laird
We have heard much about the anti-access/area denial threat China poses to American and allied forces in the Pacific. We have read much about new Chinese missiles such as the DF-21, which supposedly can destroy maneuvering ships at sea — especially US aircraft carriers. We have read that Pacific allies wish to deploy substantial fleets…
By Robbin Laird
We attended the christening last week of the newest US Navy ship, an 80,000 ton (fully laden) vessel that is not an aircraft carrier. Instead, the USNS Montford Point is the first of a new class of Navy ships, a Mobile Landing Platform, in essence a deployed port at sea. The ship, built at General…
By Robbin Laird
If the US fails to innovate in its re-shaping of its forces in the Pacific, it cannot effectively play the crucial role which is essential to a strategy focused on our allies. Without innovation, the US cannot protect its interests in the Pacific, ranging from the Arctic to Australia, and will lose the significant economic…
By Robbin Laird
Pundits tend to forget that the 21st century is not the 20th repeated. As much as the US competition with a rising China is framed as a reprise of the Cold War with the Soviets or of the Pacific war with Japan, the game has changed. The rise of China changes the opposing player. The…
By Robbin Laird
Technology is not enough. What’s equally essential is ideas for how to use it. Wielding new weapons in the same old way is a recipe for defeat. As the US military today invests in innovative programs, none larger than the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, it must also invent innovative concepts of operation. The Air Force’s…
By Robbin Laird
The pivot to the Pacific started more than a century ago. The United States first became a Pacific power in 1898, the year the US first annexed Hawaii and then gained Guam and the Philippines (as well as Puerto Rico) from Spain after a “short, victorious war.” The United States is at a turning point…
By Robbin Laird
Energy security is a key element of national security. The missing piece of America’s energy security policy, in turn, is the glaring absence of a strategy to coordinate and secure the enormous energy resources of the Western hemisphere. Today, America is over-dependent on the increasingly volatile Middle East, China is increasingly aggressive in its quest…
By Robbin Laird
In an exclusive interview in advance of Wednesday’s new US-Canadian agreement on Artic cooperation, Gen. Charles Jacoby — the Army four-star who leads both the US-Canadian NORAD and US Northern Command — spoke to AOL regulars Robbin Laird and Ed Timperlake about the national security aspects of US policy at the top of the world,…
By Robbin Laird
Since President Obama has declared Syrian use of chemical weapons a “red line” that line should mean something when it has been crossed. And the president better have a clear view of what his options are to change the situation when the “red line” is crossed. But do we? Having spent many years looking at…
By Robbin Laird
YUMA: The first F-35 Bravos are arriving at Marine Corps Air Station (MCAS) Yuma later this month. By early next year, the full complement of 16 F-35 Bs will have arrived to replace Yuma’s four existing squadrons consisting of 56 AV-8B Harriers. This is the beginning of the next 100 years of naval aviation for…
By Robbin Laird
A christening of a ship of the line is rare. When it happens, thoughts of how that ship might be used, where it might operate and how it might make new naval history are part of the excitement. This was clearly evident at the Oct. 20 christening of the USS America, the fourth ship of…
By Robbin Laird
Libya has become the Obama administration’s Iraq. Enthusiasm for intervention without clarity of strategy after intervention is common to both the Bush and Obama administrations. What is different is that George W. Bush took ownership of the Iraq crisis; Barack Obama has not. In the Libyan case, the dynamics are occurring in the background of…
By Robbin Laird
At last year’s Geoint conference, Director of National Intelligence Jim Clapper made it clear that a significant amount of the savings needed by the intelligence community over the next five years would come from cutting the budget to buy commercial space imagery. Despite opposition within the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency and quiet panic on the…
By Robbin Laird
We have heard much about the anti-access/area denial threat China poses to American and allied forces in the Pacific. We have read much about new Chinese missiles such as the DF-21, which supposedly can destroy maneuvering ships at sea — especially US aircraft carriers. We have read that Pacific allies wish to deploy substantial fleets…
By Robbin LairdWe attended the christening last week of the newest US Navy ship, an 80,000 ton (fully laden) vessel that is not an aircraft carrier. Instead, the USNS Montford Point is the first of a new class of Navy ships, a Mobile Landing Platform, in essence a deployed port at sea. The ship, built at General…
By Robbin LairdIf the US fails to innovate in its re-shaping of its forces in the Pacific, it cannot effectively play the crucial role which is essential to a strategy focused on our allies. Without innovation, the US cannot protect its interests in the Pacific, ranging from the Arctic to Australia, and will lose the significant economic…
By Robbin LairdPundits tend to forget that the 21st century is not the 20th repeated. As much as the US competition with a rising China is framed as a reprise of the Cold War with the Soviets or of the Pacific war with Japan, the game has changed. The rise of China changes the opposing player. The…
By Robbin LairdTechnology is not enough. What’s equally essential is ideas for how to use it. Wielding new weapons in the same old way is a recipe for defeat. As the US military today invests in innovative programs, none larger than the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, it must also invent innovative concepts of operation. The Air Force’s…
By Robbin LairdThe pivot to the Pacific started more than a century ago. The United States first became a Pacific power in 1898, the year the US first annexed Hawaii and then gained Guam and the Philippines (as well as Puerto Rico) from Spain after a “short, victorious war.” The United States is at a turning point…
By Robbin LairdEnergy security is a key element of national security. The missing piece of America’s energy security policy, in turn, is the glaring absence of a strategy to coordinate and secure the enormous energy resources of the Western hemisphere. Today, America is over-dependent on the increasingly volatile Middle East, China is increasingly aggressive in its quest…
By Robbin LairdIn an exclusive interview in advance of Wednesday’s new US-Canadian agreement on Artic cooperation, Gen. Charles Jacoby — the Army four-star who leads both the US-Canadian NORAD and US Northern Command — spoke to AOL regulars Robbin Laird and Ed Timperlake about the national security aspects of US policy at the top of the world,…
By Robbin LairdSince President Obama has declared Syrian use of chemical weapons a “red line” that line should mean something when it has been crossed. And the president better have a clear view of what his options are to change the situation when the “red line” is crossed. But do we? Having spent many years looking at…
By Robbin LairdYUMA: The first F-35 Bravos are arriving at Marine Corps Air Station (MCAS) Yuma later this month. By early next year, the full complement of 16 F-35 Bs will have arrived to replace Yuma’s four existing squadrons consisting of 56 AV-8B Harriers. This is the beginning of the next 100 years of naval aviation for…
By Robbin LairdA christening of a ship of the line is rare. When it happens, thoughts of how that ship might be used, where it might operate and how it might make new naval history are part of the excitement. This was clearly evident at the Oct. 20 christening of the USS America, the fourth ship of…
By Robbin LairdLibya has become the Obama administration’s Iraq. Enthusiasm for intervention without clarity of strategy after intervention is common to both the Bush and Obama administrations. What is different is that George W. Bush took ownership of the Iraq crisis; Barack Obama has not. In the Libyan case, the dynamics are occurring in the background of…
By Robbin LairdAt last year’s Geoint conference, Director of National Intelligence Jim Clapper made it clear that a significant amount of the savings needed by the intelligence community over the next five years would come from cutting the budget to buy commercial space imagery. Despite opposition within the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency and quiet panic on the…
By Robbin Laird
Chuck Hagel’s First Test: North Korea and the Second Nuclear Age
How do you deter a nuclear power like North Korea when it looks as if they just won’t play by the rules of conventional deterrence? What is the U.S. and allied nuclear and conventional responses to the threat of war on the Korean peninsula? In a world of dynamic learning, the North Koreans watched the…
By Robbin Laird