Future maritime security
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After three generations of converting surplus/obsolete SSBN hull forms to commando carriers, it’s time to start planning for a Columbia Class commando-carrying variant. Despite a lot of classification, open records suggest undersea commando carriers have accumulated a record of success that stretches back to World War II. And with the Marine Corps already organizing their […]
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It has been great to see Virginia Class sub builders race each other to drive down cost and schedule. But when these competitive pressures start to impact crew safety, we all need to step back, take a few deep breaths, and re-evaluate. For the PCU North Dakota, the pressure to make schedule–and improve upon the […]
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Submarines rely on stealth. And American Virginia Class submarines are considered the quietest, safest subs on the planet–it’s how the U.S. Navy justifies spending about $2 billion dollars for each of the two boats the nation wants to build every year. So…who would expect that the pricey subs–the foundation of America’s dominance under the seas–would […]
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With the Navy’s stunning elimination of the DDG-1000 composite deckhouse and the subsequent handoff of all Huntington-Ingalls DDG-1000 work to Bath Ironworks, a bigger story has gone un-discussed–what makes the Navy’s preference for shipyard work-share–a model that helped the Virginia Class Submarine become a major procurement success–actually work? For the uninitiated, the Navy’s work-share concept […]
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Daily Press reporter Peter Frost broke the news yesterday that the Navy has put the Virginia-class submarines’ sloughing hull-coating problem “behind” them. Here’s parts of the interview (full story here): “Clearly we had problems on the early ships,” said Vice Adm. Kevin M. McCoy, commander of Naval Sea Systems Command, the Navy’s ship-buying and maintenance […]
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I had a chance to sit down with Paul McLeary to discuss SSBN(X) in this month’s Defense Technology International, reprising an Ares entry from early November. Here’s the quote–which shows that I do not hate Virginia-class submarines as my prior work has led folks to believe: Craig Hooper, a San Francisco-based national security expert who […]
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The Virginia Program Office (PMS-450) has been lying for months and nobody–not anybody–is holding the program managers accountable. Want to know how bad it is? Take this “correction” from the current–October 22–issue of Inside the Navy (behind a subscription wall, sorry). The Program manager cannot bring himself to tell the public–even his own sailors–just how […]
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The indefatigable Peter Frost from the Newport News Daily Press sunk his teeth into the Virginia Class sub-skin failures (which we have been covering here, here and here), leading to a nice article that, earlier this week, bounced the ball down-field a good bit. Sharing a story with the grand-old-man of naval observation, Norman Polmar, […]
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UPDATE: Interested news media can contact Craig Hooper at craig.hooper@nextnavy.com. Earlier this week, the Virginia Class Program Office indulged in some nimble footwork to minimize the scope of their emergent hull treatment debonding problem. First, they told observers that only three of the first four Virginia-class subs suffered the most serious hull treatment failures–the USS […]
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Contact Craig Hooper:
Email Contact: craig.hooper@nextnavy.com
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RECENT REVIEWS:
A stakeholder on "Running on empty":Recent Publications
"The U.S. Needs a New Public Shipyard," DefenseOne, January 16, 2019.
"It took Comfort 39 Days to Get Pierside in Puerto Rico: That's a National Security Problem," DefenseOne, November 6, 2017.
"Marine National Monuments are Defense Assets," DefenseOne, September 19, 2017.
"Restoring American Seapower: A New Fleet Architecture for the U.S. Navy," Center For Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, 2017.
"The real game-changers of the Pacific Basin," Proceedings of the U.S. Naval Institute, April 2011; 137
"China at sea," Hoover Digest, March 2011; 2.
"Running on empty,"Proceedings of the U.S. Naval Institute, October 2010; 136: 60-65.
"Nobody asked me, but...the Olympia needs our help," Proceedings of the U.S. Naval Institute, July 2010; 136: 10-11.
"'Get off the fainting couch': Stop worrying and start managing the Chinese ASBM threat," Proceedings of the U.S. Naval Institute, April 2010; 136: 42-47.
"Ospreys mean less at home," The North County Times/The Californian, January 3, 2010.
"America’s fading legacy in the Pacific," The Los Angeles Times, June 5, 2009.
"Preparing for the next big quake," The Berkeley Daily Planet, April 30-May 6, 2009; 11(5); Page 13.
"The Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle: A poster child for next-war-it is?," Proceedings of the U.S. Naval Institute, November 2008; 134: 22-26.
"To win hearts and minds, give Coast Guard new hospital ships," National Defense Magazine, November 2008; 93: 28. With James Doblow
"Don’t hate San Francisco! Engage, don’t estrange," Proceedings of the U.S. Naval Institute. October 2007; 133: 64-68.
"Going down with the ships," The Washington Post, March 5, 2007.
""LCS: A step, not an end - correspondence," Proceedings of the U.S. Naval Institute. February 2007; 133: 6-7.
"Communicable Disease Control in California," White Paper for 2007 California Health Strategy Summit. With R.J. Melton and G. Rutherford.
"The peril of power: Navigating natural gas infrastructure," Proceedings of the U.S. Naval Institute. June 2006; 132: 40-44.
"Emerging issues in natural gas security: Does perception management mask reality?," In Proceedings of Environment Canada’s 29th Arctic and Marine Oilspill (AMOP) Technical Seminar, Environment Canada, Ottawa 2006: 517-524.
"Protein engineering: Security implications: The increasing ability to manipulate protein toxins for hostile purposes has prompted calls for regulation," EMBO Reports June 2006; 7: S14-17. With J. Tucker.
"A Gunboat Navy for the 21st Century—correspondence," Proceedings of the U.S. Naval Institute December 2005; 131: 64-65.
"Biology on the battlefield: Rethinking the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention," The Yale Politic. December 29, 2005.
"The mosquito can be more dangerous than the mortar round: The obligations of command," Naval War College Review, Winter 2005: LVIII, Vol. 1. 77-87. With Arthur M. Smith.
"Building a fleet for coastal rescue," The Boston Globe, January 4, 2005.
"Harbor Safety," The Boston Globe Sunday Magazine, October 12, 2003.
"Projecting biomedical security," Proceedings of the U.S. Naval Institute July 2003; 129: 63-66.
"Strategic biodefense: A call to reinvent the hospital ship," Navy Medicine March-April 2002; 93: 31-35.
"Poxvirus Dilemmas—correspondence," New England Journal of Medicine 1998; 339: 2027-2028.
"Think Small," Foreign Affairs 1998; 77 (3): 158. Letter.