Reagan News

"The Columbia River and its tributaries, wetlands, and estuaries are the lifeblood of the Pacific Northwest, providing abundant water, power, recreation, agriculture, transportation and natural resources that have supported livelihoods, cultural and spiritual practices, commerce and economic growth.” - President Biden, Memorandum of September 27, 2023.Those abundant benefits directly impact about 13 million people in the Pacific Northwest. Hydropower extends that plentitude to millions more, powering cities and industry from Idaho to California.

While Greg Trauthwein never assigns me column subjects, each time the Great Ships issue comes around I go with the theme. However, I try to take a view askew on that subject and have found that these are the rare columns where I am criticized for my views. Greg must enjoy that, and this year he asked me to write a column on the worst ship designs. That was the entire assignment, and it was unclear if he asked me to discuss the worst ship designs for 2023, or in the history of ship design.

Taiwan was keeping a close watch on a Chinese aircraft carrier and threats to inspect ships in the Taiwan Strait on Thursday after Beijing condemned a meeting between Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen and U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.McCarthy - the third highest ranking official in the U.S. leadership hierarchy - and other Republican and Democratic lawmakers met Tsai on Wednesday at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California.The meeting took place at a low ebb of U.S.-China relations and despite threats of retaliation from Beijing…

In an era of great power competition, navies – by virtue of their ability to span the globe and effectively deliver combat power – are likely to be the sine qua non of military power. This leads, naturally, to the tendency to count numbers of ship hulls when comparing the strength of navies. Lost on no one is the fact that the size of China’s Navy now exceeds that of the U.S. Navy, and the gap in ship numbers is growing.During the Cold War, while the quality of their ships might not have been equal to that of the U.S.

A U.S. aircraft carrier arrived in South Korea on Friday for the first time in about four years, set to join other military vessels in a show of force intended to send a message to North Korea.USS Ronald Reagan and ships from its accompanying strike group docked at a naval base in the southern port city of Busan ahead of joint drills with South Korean forces.Its arrival marks the most significant deployment yet under a new push to have more U.S. "strategic assets" operate in the…

The USS Abraham Lincoln strike group is operating in waters off the Korean peninsula, the U.S. Navy said on Tuesday, amid tensions over North Korea's missile launches and concerns that it could soon resume testing nuclear weapons."The Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group is conducting bilateral operations with the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force in the Sea of Japan," Commander Hayley Sims, a spokesperson for the Japan-based U.S. Seventh Fleet, said in a statement.This is the first time since 2017 that a carrier group has deployed to the waters between South Korea and Japan, and comes as U.S.

My brother, who is the executive editor of my favorite boating magazine (Soundings), and I occasionally send strange tidbits to each other by email. For some reason he sent me an email about the 17th Century ship Vasa and focused on one of the causes of the vessel’s failure to float properly.This is the Wikipedia paragraph he focused on:"The use of different measuring systems on either side of the vessel caused its mass to be distributed asymmetrically, heavier to port. During construction both Swedish feet and Amsterdam feet were in use by different teams.

Iran on Saturday rejected as psychological warfare accusations that it was behind a deadly attack on a tanker off Oman's coast, and said Tehran sought to enhance the security of the strategic Gulf waterway.Foreign ministers from the Group of Seven wealthy economies said on Friday Iran was threatening international peace and security and that all available evidence showed it was behind the attack on the Mercer Street tanker last week."If we were to confront enemies...we would declare it openly, so the recent storytelling by the enemies is a psychological operation," state media quoted Abolfazl Shekarchi, Iran's senior armed forces spokesman…

Iran will respond promptly to any threat against its security, the foreign ministry said on Monday, after the United States, Israel and Britain blamed Tehran for an attack on an Israeli-managed tanker off the coast of Oman.Tehran has denied any involvement in the attack on Thursday in which two crew members—a Briton and a Romanian—were killed.The United States and Britain said on Sunday they would work with their allies to respond to the attack on the Mercer Street, a Liberian-flagged, Japanese-owned petroleum product tanker managed by Israeli-owned Zodiac Maritime.British Prime Minister Boris Johnson described the incident as "clearly an unacceptable and outrageous attack on commercial shipping"."Iran should face up to the consequences of what they've done…

Britain said on Tuesday it would permanently deploy two warships in Asian waters after its Queen Elizabeth aircraft carrier and escort ships sail to Japan in September through seas where China is vying for influence with the United States and Japan.Plans for the high-profile visit by the carrier strike group come as London deepens security ties with Tokyo, which has expressed growing alarm in recent months over China's territorial ambitions in the region, including Taiwan."Following on from the strike group's inaugural deployment…

In the United States, it is a frustrating time to be in the government shipbuilding business. Even though America depends upon maritime commerce and faces growing security risks at sea, shipbuilding is just not a major national focus.Up to now, shipbuilders have had it pretty good. For the past several years, big naval shipbuilders have enjoyed steady growth and strong performance. In 2020, Huntington Ingalls Industries enjoyed record revenue of $9.4 billion, an 8.5% margin and gave a quarter billion back to shareholders in dividends and stock buybacks.

Britain’s HMS Queen Elizabeth aircraft carrier will lead a flotilla of Royal Navy ships through Asian waters on port visits to Japan and South Korea on its maiden deployment, the British embassy in Tokyo said on Monday.The high-profile visits, aimed at bolstering security ties in East Asia, come amid tensions in the region as concern grows in Japan over any threat posed to neighboring Taiwan by China.Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga and U.S. President Joe Biden issued a…

Australia will join three-way naval exercises involving the United States, Japan and India, in a move that could provoke concern from China, which has criticized similar joint drills in the past.Here are some of the most common questions on the Malabar exercise:What is the Malabar exercise?The Malabar naval exercise began in 1992 as a training event between the United States and India. Japan joined it in 2015, but Australia has not participated since 2007.The exercise was conducted…

The United States is conducting two military exercises in Asian waters this week involving allies Japan, Australia and India, the U.S. navy said on Tuesday.The exercises come as military rivalry between the United States and China is intensifying and days after the United States said China’s claims of sovereignty in the disputed South China Sea were illegal.The United States has long opposed China’s expansive territorial claims on the South China Sea, sending warships regularly through the strategic waterway to demonstrate freedom of navigation.China opposes such exercises and said the U.S.

For the second time in two weeks, the United States has deployed two aircraft carriers to the South China Sea, the U.S. Navy said on Friday, as China and the United States accuse each other of stoking tensions in the region.The USS Nimitz and USS Ronald Reagan carried out operations and military exercises in the contested waterway between July 4 and July 6, and returned to the region on Friday, according to a U.S. Navy statement."Nimitz and Reagan Carrier Strike Groups are operating in the South China Sea…

Two U.S. Navy aircraft carriers are conducting exercises in the contested South China Sea within sight of Chinese naval vessels spotted near the flotilla, the commander of one of the carriers, the USS Nimitz, told Reuters on Monday.“They have seen us and we have seen them,” Rear Admiral James Kirk said in a telephone interview from the Nimitz, which has been conducting flight drills in the waterway with the Seventh Fleet carrier, the USS Ronald Reagan, that began on the U.S. Independence Day holiday of July 4.The U.S.

Japan's military prepared a chartered ferry on Wednesday to use as a quarantine ship that could house hundreds of suspected coronavirus cases as the number of infected people in the country rises.The 17,000 ton Hakuou was docked at the Yokosuka naval base near Tokyo, which is also the home port of the U.S. Navy's Ronald Reagan carrier. If put into service, the ship will initially take up to 94 people, but can accommodate more."Around 300 people could comfortably live on the ship and it has a maximum capacity for 500, although that would mean queues for the baths and other facilities," a Japan Self Defense Force official told Reuters.Preparations aboard the Hakuou come as health authorities placed more than 3…

Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII) has announced this week the appointment of Herman Shelanski as vice president of business development at its Newport News Shipbuilding division.Shelanski has more than 38 years of experience with the U.S. Navy, achieving the rank of vice admiral before he retired earlier this year. Shelanski most recently served as the Navy’s inspector general.In his new role, Shelanski will report to Jennifer Boykin, president of Newport Shipbuilding.Shelanski served as director of the Navy’s Environmental Readiness Division…

The Ronald Reagan Strike Group and Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force, Escort Flotilla 4 Battle Group, participated in bilateral training Aug. 31 while underway in the South China Sea.During the training, units from the two maritime forces sailed in formation, participated in replenishment-at-sea training, exchanged Naval Liaison Officers and practiced maneuvering procedures.Additionally, Rear Adm. Karl O. Thomas, Commander, Task Force 70, and CTF 70 personnel visited JS Kaga to speak with JMSDF Rear Adm. Tatsuya Fukuda, Commander, Escort Flotilla 4, about JMSDF and U.S. Navy interoperability and maritime unit cohesion."The teamwork and…

The Trump administration this week will unveil the list of Chinese imports targeted for U.S. tariffs to punish Beijing over technology transfer policies, a move expected to intensify trade tensions between the world's two largest economies. The list of $50 billion to $60 billion worth of annual imports is expected to target "largely high-technology" products and it may be more than two months before tariffs take effect, administration officials have said. The U.S. Trade Representative's office needs to unveil the list of products by Friday under President Donald Trump's China tariff proclamation signed on March 22. The tariffs are aimed at forcing changes to Chinese government policies that USTR says results in the "uneconomic" transfer of U.S. intellectual property to Chinese companies.

The Chamber of Shipping of America (CSA) this week announced the 2017 Environmewntal Achievement Award Winners. At a dinner ceremony in the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington, DC on November 8, 2017, CSA awarded Certificates of Environmental Achievement to 1,810 ships owned by seventy-two companies with a total of 15,307 years of environmental excellence. The average number of years operating without incident for ships and vessels that received awards is 8.1 years. Two hundred and eighty-six of the vessels have logged sixteen or more years of environmental excellence. RADM Linda Fagan, Deputy Commandant for Operations, Policy, and Capabilities…

The USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76), USS Nimitz (CVN 68) and USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71) strike groups will commence a three-carrier strike force exercise in the Western Pacific, Nov. 11-14. Units assigned to the strike force will conduct coordinated operations in international waters in order to demonstrate the U.S. Navy's unique capability to operate multiple carrier strike groups as a coordinated strike force effort. "It is a rare opportunity to train with two aircraft carriers together, and even rarer to be able to train with three," said U.S. Pacific Fleet Commander, Adm. Scott Swift. "Multiple carrier strike force operations are very complex, and this exercise in the Western Pacific is a strong testament to the U.S.

Speaking in front of the Senate, U.S. Senator Roger Wicker, R-Miss., Chairman of the Senate Seapower Subcommittee, said the requirement for a 355-ship Navy is clear, especially in light of the recent, fatal accidents involving the USS Fitzgerald and USS John S. McCain. In response to these incidents, the Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral John Richardson, directed that a comprehensive review take place. On Tuesday, Wicker and other members of the Senate Armed Services Committee have been briefed on those findings. The Navy is scheduled to make the review public later this week.