MILNET: Major MILNET Sections

MILNET has grown dramatically since its inception in 1985, and today, June 9, 1998, we celebrate its Web introduction some three years ago. In looking over the site we have discovered we have a number of major sections over and above those visible at the home page, and a quick look through the What's News page, we find our research has resulted in some pretty diverse subject matter relating to the Military, Intelligence, Terrorism, and Conflicts. We also find that the last category, Conflicts, is the least interesting to our visitors at least in terms of historical information. The fact that we can't keep up with that topic area without becoming a news reporting organization, implies we probably need to drop it from our areas of attention. For instance, just covering Iraq has been a major effort at times, and fully engages our miniscule staff. By adding in various other day-to-day Pentagon activities, and updating ships and aircraft databases to be more readable, we have had little time for news gathering.

In any case, here is a glimpse of the physical sections (actually directories of information on our site). Some of the information spans multiple directories, in which case we have tried to ensure we compile the topic area into a single reference point from the table below. We will improve this as time goes on.

  - The Editors of MILNET

Major MILNET Sections

Section

Description
Alan Simpson's Political Intelligence
 Alan Simpson brings his sharp wit and acid tongue to the job with no small amount of enthusiasm.  Excellent reading to balance our usual conservative fare.
Beres on the Mideast
 Dr. Louis Beres offers his well educated view on the mideast with an emphasis on the Israeli point of view.
Clearwater An excerpt and data from Dr. Clearwater's work on identifying the Canadian Nuclear Weapons program, a classic example of a U.S. allie playing in the nuclear game.
Executive Orders An Executive Order is an action order from the President of the United States. Actions can range from financial transactions to movement of troops in preparation of war. This section lists some examples that relate to the miltary, terrorism, and intelligence.
Intelligence Explores the World's Intelligence organizations, where data is avaiable. Includes some links to online web sites discussing national intelligence assets for the U.S., Canada, and the U.K., as well as a chart of the different agencies worldwide.
Iraq A collection of documents, tables, overview, and detailed analysis of Iraq from various sources, including some nearly minute by minute documentation of the Inspection Crisis in the Fall/Winter of 1997-1998.
Korea A small section on troublesome North Korea
Mideast News
 Dr. Mohamad Ibn Guadi brings us his educated look at the Mideast with guest writers and his own extremely appropriate commentary.
Military A look at the world's military, this section explores the structure, force makeup and weaponry of the world's military organizations.
NASA NASA has an interesting relationship with the miltary, from acting as the chief large payload carrier on the Shuttle, to providing for research projects which are beneficial to both the commercial sector as well as the military.
Nuclear Weapons We have an excellent nuclear section, filled with Carey Sublette's Nuclear FAQ, and embellished with our own simplistic overviews and encompassing analysis of peripheral considerations when dealing with these "special materials".
Those In The Know
 Interviews with the working folks in intelligence, the world stage, or journalism.  Get real viewpoints without the spin.
The Pentagon A huge section which encompasses the Country Studies as conducted by the DoD for purposes of understanding Area of Responsibilities for geographical Commands. CENTCOM is especially well represented, with the unfortuante events in Iraq making the Middle East of paramount interest to the military as well as Congress. We provide analysis, charts, tables, and some important mirrored documents such as descriptions of future weapons systems, strategies, as well as major strategic programs such as the verification of nucler test bans and nonproliferation. For instance we mirror both the 1996 and 1997 annual reports, Proliferation: Threat and Response.

This section has the following subsections:

Sub-Section Description
Airborne Laser Program The USAF Program ot build a chemical laser anti-ballistic missile defense system using a 747 class aircraft and multi-megawatt laser, aiming system, and command and control personall all aboard the aircraft.
Armor A look at some of the world's armored vehicles.
CENTCOM Details of this specific command's Area of Responsibility which includes such fun countries as Iraq and Iran, as well as allies such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and others.
Decorations No military discussion can be complete without looking at how we recognize our heros, this section takes a peek at the medlas, ribbons and awards made to our military.
FA 'Field of Fire" Written by the U.S. Artillery community, this section details how the task of artillery support has changed since World War II as well as changes in process as a result of both the end of the Cold War as well as lesson learned durin ghte Gulf War.
Hypersonic Ever hear the rumors of "Aurora", the hypersonic replacement for the SR-71 Blackbird? This real world blue sky weapons system description from the War Colleges will take you into the 21st Century. Eye opening and thought provoking.
India The Pentagon's material on this South Asian country, combined with links to the State Department's info, providng a well rounded and up-to-date look at this provocative nation and region of the World.
Lasers and Beam Weapons This section details out current efforts to produce weapons based upon particle and light weapons such as the Airborne Laser program, MIRACL, and a future program perhaps for inclusion on the X-33 production space vehicle which may replace the Shuttle.
Launch Vehicles Yep, you gotta get em up there first...this section talks about the current U.S.'s launch vehicles as well as efforts to develop an next generation "Expendable Launch Vehicle" capable of delivering large payloads such as recon platforms into all orbit profiles.
MidEast Okay, so CENTCOM's AOR does not extend to all the countries of the Middle East, so we at MILNET decided, what the hey, we can go outside the boundaries and profile all the countris in and surrounding the CENTCOM area. Includes Afghanistan, Turkey, Israel, and others.
Navy In 1997, a retired Admiral, who is a great admirer of our project, complained that there just wasn't enough material on Navy personnel and the ships that take these brave men and woman to sea. As a former CAG (Once a CAG always a CAG?) he also wanted to see more on Navy Aircraft. Well we began an update to our 1985 data, and about the time we finished, the Navy's Fact Files got a face lift and we were REALLY IMPRESSED. So we took our info, and added links to the Official Navy versions and wholla', one of the best Navy collections on the web, or so says the Admiral. Thank you Sir!
Non-Proliferation Not only a timely topic, but one we have been concerned with since begining the MILNET project in the mid 1980s. One of our best and most accurate predictions was in this area, and we continue to watch with interest and growing concern. Too bad we were so close to being right on. Scary. Only more scary is the unrealized prediction based upon our research into Terrorism, and that has been well publicized (the topic anyway) by the movie Peacemaker starring Nichole Kidman and George Clooney. Brrr!
Responsibility Sharing Hey, Let's get Europe to start carrying more of the load...and what about the Japanese? A Great whit paper from the War College.
Russian Military What challenges face the Russians as they continue their slow progress as a democratic nation? A War College White Paper.
Russian Weapons Who in their right mind would sell the Chinese Mach 3, semi-low observable aircraft technology? The Russinas, thats who. How could this happen? This War College White Paper lays the whys and financial woes that make Russia one of the most dangerous weapons manufacturers in the World.
Satellites The High Ground is supreme. Anyone with a little knowlege of reconnaissance will tell you that the unseeable recon platform reigns supreme over any other. The original stealth recon platform, the satellite is and will be the greatest military weapons system ever. Even if they never fire a shot.
SOUTHCOM A look at this specific commands Area of Responsibility covering the region South of the Continental U.S.
SPACECOM Okay, look South, look North, look East, look West. What have we forgot. Oh yeah, look up. If satellites are important (and who doesn't think so?), then how about the people tasked with military space assets? Covers missions, responsibilities, and facilities.
UAVs Think this is a yawn? Look again. Second generation UAVs are damned smart, ranging from RPVs (Remotely Piloted Vehicles) to semi-autonomous beaties that get airborne by a remote pilot and then go about their business with no further operator input required. Soon fully auto UAVs will be fielded that are fully stealthy and so fast and smart, one will wonder why don't mount weapons on 'em. Oh yeah, that is being thought of too.
USAF MILNET's Air Force Advisor is alos the father of the Chief Editor. So we got lots of good Air Force Data. Uncle Bob's, Brother Bob's, and Holly's input is their too. Little wonder we grew up knowing the specs for anything that flys.
Ryan Mauro's Geopolitical Analysis
 Ryan brings us his no-spin analysis of the geo-political arena.  You won't want to miss his comments.
Russian Policy Failure in Asia Why is the Russian policy in Asia failing? Why is it important to us and what do we need to emphasize to the Russian leadership to ensure their mistakes don't cause continued problems for the U.S. in this region?
State Department Well diplomats try very hard, and in recognition of some informative data gathering on Terrorism and non-proliferation topics, we have provided a small section mirroring what can be found on the Official U.S. State Department Site.
Strains on the Alliance As part of our Iraqi research, we stumbled upon an interesting white paper from the Air Forces War College, spelling out the strains being put on the Gulf Alliance, once a solid coalition against Iraq, and now fraying as the political and finanical burdens of keeping up the pressure is beginning to take its toll.
Terrorist Act Text and analysis of  SR735: Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996
Terrorism The MILNET section on Terrorism, featuring analysis, lists of terrorist groups, International and U.S. Laws dealing with terrorism, chronologies of events both domestic and foreign, and some of the folks who fight the terrorist as their main mission
Terrorist Group Profiles A mirror of the most excellent work done by the Naval Post Graduate School (taken in 1997...to be updated at the end of each year hence) in detailing the various worldwide terrorist groups...with material compiled from the State Department's Annual Report on the State Of Terrorism, Patterns of Global Terrorism.
Threats This section summarize the various worldwide threats posed by the Post Cold War nations with a particualr focus on Sino-China relations.
US Intelligence This section thoroughly analyzes the U.S. Intelligence Communities using such resources as Richelson's well respected references, our own research of public records as well as public links provided by various individuals involved in and around the World's Intelligence Communities, from Special Operations types and Open Source Professionals, to members of civilian communities. Includes the Congressional report on intelligence community changes needed for the next century, U.S. Intelligence in the 21st Century
Weapons Excellent coverage of the World's military weapons, including small arms to tanks, aircraft, missiles, satellites, and strategic weapons.


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