On April 9, 2025, President Donald Trump issued perhaps his most important executive order to date. It is titled “Restoring America’s Maritime Dominance,” and it seeks, in the words of Naval War College chair of maritime strategy James Holmes, to…
In a previous article in The American Spectator, I asked: “Are we at the end of American maritime hegemony?” The article noted the concern expressed by two naval experts that our diminished shipbuilding capacity was endangering our maritime supremacy. I…
Navy Capt. Richard Stratton, who survived six brutal years as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam, was quietly laid to rest last month in his hometown of Quincy, MA. He was 93. He was an authentic American hero right…
On Saturday, Dec. 21, a ballistic missile fired from the Iranian-backed Houthis rebels in Yemen landed between two high-rise apartment buildings in southern Tel Aviv. The explosion blew out windows in surrounding apartments, resulting in glass shard injuries to 16…
In the featured article on the U.S. Naval Institute’s flagship Proceedings website, Lt. Commander Aaron Marchant of the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) warns that while we rightly focus today on deterring a Chinese blockade, attack, or…
This was supposed to be a column on President-elect Trump’s cabinet and other nominations, but that’s too limited a subject this week. (For those just joining us, the term “SGO,” an acronym for “s**t goin’ on,” was invented by my…
A new Congressional Research Service report brings harsh scrutiny to the Marine Corps’ Force Design 2030, with many in Congress and the Department of Defense reportedly having buyer’s remorse. What they thought was a modernization effort has rapidly become an…
We know war is filled with sorrow and loss. And yet, we turn to books, films, and relics of war to remind ourselves of the human potential for heroism. Homer’s Iliad, a myth, is among the most unforgettable tales of…
Under President Biden and his woeful national security team the Marine Corps has fallen from the nation’s premier 911 force to a regional coastal artillery force concentrated on China and a light infantry force of marginal use in a conflict…
