IMPORTANT COMPLIANCE INFORMATION
QUESTIONS? CALL COMPLIANCE 410-293-8936

July 2011
Dear Season Ticket Holders and Blue & Gold Members,

The Naval Academy Athletic Association (NAAA) has an excellent tradition of success in academics and athletics. As many of you know the NAAA is responsible for the conduct of its athletics programs and actions of all organizations and individuals engaged in promoting the athletics interest of the Academy.

Our success is in large part due to you – our loyal supporters. As a member of the NCAA and Patriot League Conference, the Naval Academy is obligated to abide by NCAA rules and regulations governing the eligibility, amateur status and recruitment of student-athletes. Under these rules, alumni and friends of the Academy are just as responsible for rules compliance as our coaches and staff. Thus, the NAAA must take every effort to educate those supporting our programs.
Our best Advice: If you have to think twice about the propriety of any action, please ask before you do!!! Contact the coach, athletic director or compliance office (410.293.8936). In general, you may not provide anything or make special arrangements for student-athletes AND past student-athletes that are not available to the general student population. This list is intended as a guide and is not exhaustive:

Rules Governing Currently Enrolled Student-Athletes:
DO NOT give money to any student-athletes, even if it’s for the purpose of paying expenses to amateur competitions. For instance, alumni cannot sponsor a golfer or tennis player who competes in a pro-am competition over the summer.
DO NOT provide ‘extra benefits’ to student-athletes. The NCAA considers extra benefits to be: taking a student-athlete out to dinner, providing any gift of material value (including cash loans, free use of an automobile, Birthday/Christmas presents/cards or co-signing a loan), not charging or providing special discounts for professional services that other students have to pay full price for (haircuts, dental work, rent, etc).
DO NOT buy athletic event tickets from student-athletes. The NCAA prohibits a student-athlete from receiving and selling tickets.
DO call a NAAA coach, athletic director or compliance office to ask questions about permissibility of activities.
DO invite a team to meet with alumni or friends when in a city where they play. Always make arrangements through our head coach or athletics department administrator.
Rules Governing the Attendance of High School Athletes at Alumni Events:
DO NOT invite select high school student-athletes to alumni events whether on or off-campus. NCAA rules PROHIBIT contact. Alumni and friends of the Academy can entertain high school students under certain conditions that do not involve singling out student-athletes for special treatment such as inviting all high school seniors to a Blue & Gold Admissions Event.
DO tell athletic department personnel invited to speak at alumni functions if high school student-athletes will be in attendance. There are certain time periods when coaches are prohibited from any contact with a student-athlete off-campus.
Rules Governing Contact with Recruitable High School Students-Athletes (9th Grade through 12th Grade / 7th Grade for men’s basketball)
DO NOT provide transportation to USNA for a local high school or junior college athlete who wants to visit our campus.
DO NOT entertain in any way or give gifts, benefits, special treatments or free services to any high school or junior college student-athlete or his/her parents/guardians/relatives or high school, prep school or community college coaches.
DO NOT arrange face-to-face meetings with or go talk to a prospect, his/her parents/guardians/relatives, but you can attend a high school and two year college athletic event.
DO NOT provide a free ticket or transport a high school or junior college athlete to any NAAA athletic event in Annapolis or any other city.
DO NOT bring any prospect to an alumni gathering or NAAA Booster event. Your own son/daughter would be an exception.
DO NOT telephone, write or e-mail to high school or junior college athletes about attending the Academy.
DO call or write a NAAA coach if you know a talented prospective student-athlete who might benefit our program.
Do give prospects the NAAA website (http://pacmail.em.marketinghq.net/c.html?rtr=on&s=x7ier2,3siq,1c,52i5,7tic,7igh,i645&MLM_MID=176930&MLM_UNIQUEID=55931cef75) information so they can learn more about our programs.
DO feel free to offer your assistance to a NAAA coach who is recruiting in your city.
DO continue existing friendships with families of prospects, but please do not attempt to recruit the prospect for any sport.





USNA CLASS OF 1951 DISCUSSION BLOG

IT'S THE ELDERLY, STUPID

Why are we in this debt fix? It’s the elderly, stupid.
By Robert J. Samuelson, Published: July 28
If leadership is the capacity to take people where they need to go — whether or not they realize it or want it — then we’ve had almost no leadership in these weeks of frustrating and maddening debate over the budget and debt ceiling. There’s been an unspoken consensus among President Obama, congressional Democrats and Republicans not to discuss the central issue underlying the standoff. We’ve heard lots about “compromise” or its absence. We’ve had dueling budgets with differing mixes of spending cuts and tax increases. But we’ve heard almost nothing of the main problem that makes the budget so intractable.
It’s the elderly, stupid.
By now, it’s obvious that we need to rewrite the social contract that, over the past half-century, has transformed the federal government’s main task into transferring income from workers to retirees. In 1960, national defense was the government’s main job; it constituted 52 percent of federal outlays. In 2011 — even with two wars — it is 20 percent and falling. Meanwhile, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and other retiree programs constitute roughly half of non-interest federal spending.
These transfers have become so huge that, unless checked, they will sabotage America’s future. The facts are known: By 2035, the 65-and-over population will nearly double, and health costs remain uncontrolled; the combination automatically expands federal spending (as a share of the economy) by about one-third from 2005 levels. This tidal wave of spending means one or all of the following: (a) much higher taxes; (b) the gutting of other government services, from the Weather Service to medical research; (c) a partial and dangerous disarmament; (d) large and unstable deficits.
Older Americans do not intend to ruin America, but as a group, that’s what they’re about. On average, the federal government supports each American 65 and over by about $26,000 a year (about $14,000 through Social Security, $12,000 through Medicare). At 65, the average American will live almost 20 more years. Should these sizable annual subsidies begin later and be less for some? It’s hard to discuss the budget realistically if you ignore most of what the budget does.
That’s been our course. Obama poses as one brave guy for even broaching “entitlement reform” with fellow Democrats. What he hasn’t done is to ask — in language that is clear and comprehensible to ordinary people — whether many healthy, reasonably well-off seniors deserve all the subsidies they receive. That would be leadership. Obama is having none of it. But the shunning is bipartisan. Tea Party advocates broadly deplore government spending without acknowledging that most of it goes for popular Social Security and Medicare.
I have written about these issues for years. But facts are no match for the self-interest of about 50 million Social Security and Medicare recipients and a natural sympathy for older people and for people who eagerly look forward to retirement. Public opinion becomes contradictory. While 70 percent of respondents in a Pew Research Center poll judged budget deficits a “major problem,” 64 percent rejected higher Medicare premiums and 58 percent opposed gradual increases in Social Security’s retirement age.
What sustains these contradictions is a mythology holding that, once people hit 65, most become poor. This justifies political dogma among Democrats that resists Social Security or Medicare cuts of even one dollar.
But the premise is wrong. True, some elderly live hand-to-mouth; many more are comfortable, and some are wealthy. The Kaiser Family Foundation reports the following for Medicare beneficiaries in 2010: 25 percent had savings and retirement accounts averaging $207,000 or more; among homeowners (four-fifths of those 65 and older), three-quarters had equity in their houses averaging $132,000; about 25 percent had incomes exceeding $47,000 (that’s for individuals, and couples would be higher).
The essential budget question is how much we allow federal spending on the elderly to crowd out other national priorities. All else is subordinate. Yet, our “leaders” don’t debate this question with candor or intelligence. We have a generation of politicians cowed and controlled by AARP. We need to ask how much today’s programs constitute a genuine “safety net” to protect the vulnerable (which is good) and how much they simply subsidize retirees’ private pleasures.
Our politicians make perfunctory bows to entitlement reform and consider that they’ve discharged their duty, even if nothing changes. We need to recognize that federal retiree programs often represent middle-class welfare. Past taxes were never “saved” to pay future benefits. We need to ask the hard questions: Who deserves help and who doesn’t? Because Social Security and Medicare are so intertwined in our social fabric, changing them could never be easy. But the fact that we’ve evaded the choices for so long is why the present budget impasse has been so tortuous and why, if we continue our avoidance, there will be others.USNA CLASS OF 1951 DISCUSSION BLOG

THOUGHTS ON AFGHANISTAN

AFGHANISTAN: CAN WE WIN?

C.D. (Mac) McIntosh submits the following thoughts about Afghanistan for discussion. Please give him some feedback and let us know what your thoughts are on this important subject.

Dear Salty Sam,
I've wondered what the majority of our surviving classmates, now long retired from the military profession, think about our continuing campaign in Afghanistan. Unlike in Iraq, even a faltering framework of reform and governmental control of the country has not taken root and started to grow.
The history of the country provides a pretty clear look at the reasons for our lack of success thus far. Numerous invaders over past centuries have tried to conquer but ended up departing in defeat. Britain and the former USSR are only the latest to fail, even using their large, well armed and trained armies.
In each case what defeated the invaders were at least five immutable factors. First is that Afghanistan has never been a nation. It is a collection of individual tribes, fiercely independent and led by war lords. Connected to this situation is the second factor, that the highly variegated populace have not, and never have had any slightest wish to, be united under some sort of collective government (our preferred kind being called democracy).
Third is the topography, high, rugged mountains providing superb defensive positions for them, but terrible attack positions for any invading troops.
Fourth is the economy. The country is best suited for the cultivation of poppies, not corn or wheat or spinach or even pastures for cattle. Were there to be a strong central government that forbade the cultivation and processing of 90% of the world's heroin, the people would starve and the tribal leaders would topple. So, that's not going to happen. Just look at the U.S.- backed government. It "governs" only one city. The billions we give that government cannot be traced to results, so a major percentage goes to maintaining individuals in comfort and pleasure.
Fifth, though our annual expenditure of many, many tens of billions in cash (and possibly even more in troop support, arms, and munitions), our campaign is essentially at a standstill. The stream of American deaths, cripplings, and blindings continues steadily. Osama Bin Laden remains in some secure mountain cave. We do not have the hearts and minds of the people, but quite the opposite. Not only the Afghans hate us, but most of the middle east view us as capitalist demagogues and heathens who consider them inferior and fodder for exploitation and control.
Now I come to my first question. Can we leave aside for the moment our pride in invincibility (as we were forced to do in Vietnam)? Can we also admit that, regardless of why we are there or what we hope to accomplish both for the Afghan people and world security, that we are . . . not succeeding? Further, does there appear any path, either simple or complex, in which as a practical manner we can with some assurance "win" the stated political and diplomatic goals?
The second and final question is: if by some final rationality the military decided (to their immense embarrassment) to announce that the war in Afghanistan is in fact a lost cause, then how on earth would it be possible to obtain the backing of the American people, now that such gigantic sums have been spent, and so many battlefield casualties incurred? The Afghans will not overrun us, as the North Vietnamese did, and physically chase us out of the country.
I am not a defeatist, but I do claim to be, perhaps only at long last, a practical man. By my reckoning, those of the Class of 1951 left alive, apparently about half of us, must be between the ages of 79 and 83. At our age, passions have mostly faded, life's experiences have seasoned and calmed us, and now we enjoy the invaluable capability to consider the realities of our modern existence without fever or temper, or the blinders of youthful education and orientation.
I am curious as to what my classmates, my peers, think about this Afghanistan morass, and whether any of you have further ideas-even ideas contrary to mine-as to what course we should and could take from here on to rid ourselves of this dangerous and mind-sapping situation.
Charles McIntosh, USNA Class of Yore

CHINA'S SUBMARINE THREAT

OMINOUS SEAPOWER TRENDS IN THE PACIFIC OCEAN

The following article by John J. Takcik, Jr. of The Heritage is a discussion of ominous seapower trends in the Pacific Ocean. This article appeared in 2007, but things remain the same. We should all pay attention to this important issue and be prepared to enter into the discussion with our elected officials and our friends now serving on active duty in today's Navy. Let me know what you think each of us can do to ensure that our country acts responsibly in meeting this challenge. Our leadership today is so focused on the war on terrorism that we are in danger of being unprepared for tomorrow's challenge. Do you think you personally have a responsibility here? What are you going to do about it?

The Threat

By 2025, China’s navy could rule the waves of the Pacific. By some estimates, Chinese attack submarines will outnumber U.S. submarines in the Pacific by five to one and Chinese nuclear ballistic missile submarines will prowl America’s Western littoral, each closely tailed by two U.S. attack submarines that have better things to do. The United States, meanwhile, will likely struggle to build enough submarines to meet this challenge.

A misplaced diplomacy leaves some U.S. Navy commanders reluctant to admit publicly that China’s rapidly expanding submarine force in the Pacific is a threat, but if the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) and the latest Pentagon Report on the Military Power of the People’s Republic of China (MPPRC Report) are any indication, they are undoubtedly thinking it. In a speech sponsored by the Asia Society in Washington earlier this month, for example, Admiral Gary Roughead, commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, commented: "I’m always asked about the Chinese threat and I say, it’s not a threat, because you have to have two things to have a threat, and that’s capability and intent. There is no question that the PLA navy is modernizing and building its capability and is moving very quickly, but what is the intent?"

The Pentagon has already begun to answer this question, but it has yet to do so in a way that it takes this threat seriously.

China’s Intent
The QDR addresses the question of China’s intent: Chinese military modernization has accelerated since the mid-to-late 1990s in response to central leadership demands to develop military options against Taiwan scenarios. The pace and scope of China’s military build-up already puts regional military balances at risk. China is likely to continue making large investments in high-end, asymmetric military capabilities, emphasizing electronic and cyber-warfare; counter-space operations; ballistic and cruise missiles; advanced integrated air defense systems; next generation torpedoes; advanced submarines; strategic nuclear strike from modern, sophisticated land and sea-based systems; and theater unmanned aerial vehicles.

According to the MPPRC Report’s executive summary, China’s specific intent is to build counters to third-party, including potential U.S., intervention in [Taiwan] Strait crises. The report continues, “Deterring, defeating, or delaying foreign intervention ahead of Taiwan’s capitulation is integral to Beijing’s strategy.” To this end, China is expanding its force of ballistic missiles (long-range and short-range), cruise missiles, submarines, advanced aircraft, and other modern systems.

China’s Sea-Power Goals
If they are curious about China’s intent, Pentagon planners might look to comments by General Wen Zongren, Political Commissar of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s elite Academy of Military Science. The MPPRC Report quotes General Wen as asserting that, “China must break the blockade [by] international forces against China’s maritime security. Only when we break this blockade shall we be able to talk about China’s rise. [T]o rise suddenly, China must pass through oceans and go out of the oceans in its future development. In fact, it is the explicit goal of the Chinese Communist Party to increase the comprehensive strength of the nation.”

The Chinese navy and its submarine fleet in particular, is a key tool in achieving that goal. The September 2004 promotion of Admiral Zhang Dingfa, a career submariner, to Chief of Staff of the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) and a full seat on the Central Military Commission was a clear signal of the primacy of submarine warfare in China’s strategy for the Asia-Pacific region.

Growing Submarine Force
Admiral Zhang led PLAN’s submarine modernization program and oversaw the acquisition of four modern Russian-built KILO subs, including the stealthy Type-636. Orders for eight more are on the books, with the first new boats to be delivered this month. That three Russian shipyards are at work to fill China’s orders for new submarines betrays this build-up’s urgency.

Admiral Zhang isn’t relying solely on the Russians. He has also increased production to 2.5 boats per year of China’s new, formidable Song-class diesel-electric submarine. China is also testing a new diesel-electric that the defense intelligence community has designated the “Yuan.” The Yuan is heavily inspired by Russian designs, including anechoic tile coatings and a super-quiet seven-blade screw. The addition of air-independent propulsion, which permits a submarine to operate underwater for up to 30 days on battery power, will make the Song and Yuan submarines virtually inaudible to existing U.S. surveillance networks and even to U.S. subs.

These new submarines will be more lethal when armed with Russian SKVAL (Squall) torpedoes, which can reach 200 knots. There are reports that the SKVAL is already operational on some Chinese subs. As well, Russia has also transferred the Novator 3M-54E three-stage anti-ship cruise missile to China’s submarine fleet for use against aircraft carriers. Each Chinese KILO is armed with four of these missiles.

America’s Endangered Submarine Supremacy
In February 2005, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld commented that the size of the Chinese fleet could surpass the United States Navy’s within a decade. “It is an issue that the department thinks about and is concerned about and is attentive to.” Indeed, the U.S. Navy will hold a series of major naval exercises in the Pacific this summer that will involve four aircraft carrier battle groups, including a carrier normally based on the U.S. East Coast. This will be the first time the Navy has deployed an Atlantic Fleet carrier to a Pacific exercise since the Vietnam War.

However, there is little indication that the Pentagon is taking the Chinese submarine challenge seriously. If it were, the QDR issued earlier this month would have recommended that the erosion of the U.S. submarine fleet come to an end.

But the QDR envisions a “return to a steady-state production rate of two attack submarines per year not later than 2012 while achieving an average per-hull procurement cost objective of $2.0 billion.” This means that the U.S. sub fleet will continue to decline for another six years, during which time America’s industrial base for constructing subs will further diminish and the per-unit cost of submarines will jump past $2 billion, impelling further cuts in the fleet.

Of the U.S. Pacific Fleet’s 35 submarines (including three nuclear attack submarines based in Guam during 2006), about a dozen are underway at sea on operational duties at any one time. Under the QDR's most optimistic estimates, Pacific Command’s sub fleet will diminish to about 30 by 2025.

Electric Boat (EB), the nation’s preeminent submarine contractor, has announced plans to lay off 900 of its 1,700 designers and marine draftsmen engineers over the next three years. This is a crisis. It will mark the first time in 50 years that the U.S. has not had a new submarine design on the drawing board. EB laid off nearly 200 submarine engineers and machinists in early February, and EB is the only shipbuilder in the nation that maintains submarine designers. As the build-rate for subs collapsed, EB used maintenance and repair work to pay designer’s salaries and maintain its staff of highly-skilled steelworkers. But without new orders, EB will lay off almost half of its workforce of over 5,000 over the next three years

U.S. Navy combatant commanders already require 150 percent of the attack submarine days currently available, and these requirements will only increase as the submarine force dwindles. If the United States allows production to dwindle further, expertise will be lost and costs will skyrocket for any new classes of submarines contemplated for the post-2012 period.

Meanwhile, China’s fleet of modern attack submarines is growing: China already has ten Song/Yuan/Kilo submarines in the Pacific today, over 50 older Ming-class and Romeo boats, five Han class nuclear attack submarines, and one Xia-class ballistic missile submarine. In addition, China has 25 new boats under contract now; 16 are under construction today, including a new class of nuclear attack submarine designated the Type-093 and a new nuclear ballistic missile sub, the Type-094.

The U.S. has three submarines under construction today. Although the Navy’s new 30-year shipbuilding plan calls for 48 nuclear attack submarines in the fleet by 2035, the Navy’s top submarine commander, Vice Admiral Charles L. Munns, has testified before Congress that the Navy needs at least 54 boats to fulfill current critical missions. This number will rise as China’s navy expands.

If the Navy does not start launching new subs at the rate of two per year until several years after 2012, the force would dip to a low of 40 in 2028, or 17 percent below the Navy’s stated needs. And that rate will not even permit the Navy to reach its sub-minimal target of 48 attack submarines until 2034. All of this assumes that the Navy does not decommission ships faster than expected due to expanded operations in coming years.

Recommendations for the Administration and Congress
The United States must return to building at least two, and preferably two-and-a-half, new attack submarines per year beginning in FY 2009. The U.S. must begin procurement for long lead-time components, such as nuclear reactors, in FY 2007 and 2008. These steps are necessary just to hold U.S. subsurface strength steady.

The Administration should also work with key strategic partners in Asia to bolster their fleets. Japan and India are potential submarine warfare partners. Japan must also be encouraged to upgrade its anti-submarine warfare (ASW) and surveillance systems.

Congress should hold hearings into reports on the editorial pages of Defense News (February 13, 2006) and Jane’s Defence Weekly (February 15, 2006) that the U.S. Navy has sabotaged Taiwan’s efforts to procure modern diesel-electric boats from U.S. shipyards by hyper-inflating prices in order to keep US yards from building anything but nuclear boats. A robust Taiwanese fleet would be a welcome relief as the U.S. Navy attempts to counter increasing Chinese sub-surface fleet pressures in Asian littoral waters. The United States and Japan also need an enhanced partnership with Taiwan in airborne and subsurface ASW reconnaissance and surveillance in waters under Taiwanese administration.

John J. Tkacik, Jr., is Senior Research Fellow
in China Policy in the Asian Studies Center at
The Heritage

F-35 FIFTH GENERATION FIGHTER

The F-35 Fifth Generation Fighter has a remarkable, unbelievable is a better word, avionics system. Its Electro-Optical Distributed Aperature System is a suite of IR sensors that provide complete spherical coverage around the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter aircraft for defensive surveillance and weapons launch and control. Look at the video by clicking on the Northrop-Grumman URL link that follows. Be prepared to be amazed http://www.es.northropgrumman.com/solutions/f35targeting/assets/eodasvideo.html

For all you Old Salts who find talk of fifth generation fighter planes too far out to think about when all you want to do is pine for your youth and those wonderful days in the Fleet, here is a bit of nostalgia for you. Click on IN THE NAVY then sit back and enjoy.