Credible Defense
An unofficial counterpart to the subreddit r/CredibleDefense, intended to be a supplementary resource and potential fallback point. If you are an active moderator over there, please don't hesitate to contact me to be given a moderation position.
Wiki Glossary of Common Terms and Abbreviations. (Request an addition)
General Rules
Strive to be informative, professional, gracious, and encouraging in your communications with other members here. Imagine writing to a superior in the Armed Forces, or a colleague in a think tank or major investigative journal.
This is not at all intended to be US-centric; posts relating to other countries are highly encouraged.
No blind partisanship. We aim to study defense, not wage wars behind keyboards. Defense views from or about all countries are welcome so long as they are credible.
If you have experience in relevant fields, understand your limitations. Just because you work in the defense arena does not mean you are always correct.
Please refrain from linking the sub outside of here and a small number of other subs (LCD, NCD, War College, IR_Studies, NCDiplomacy, AskHistorians). This helps control site growth (especially limiting surges) and filters people toward those with a stronger interest.
No denial of war crimes or genocide.
Comments
Should be substantive and contribute to discussion.
No image macros, GIFs, emojis or memes.
No AI-generated content.
Don’t be abrasive/insulting.
No one-liners, jokes, insults, shorthand, etc. Avoid excessive sarcasm or snark.
Sources are highly encouraged, but please do not link to low-quality sources such as RT, New York Post, The National Interest, CGTN, etc. unless they serve a useful purpose.
Be polite and informative to others here, and remember that we should be able to disagree without being disagreeable.
Do not accuse or personally challenge others, rather ask them for sources and why they have their opinions.
Do not ask others about their background as it is rude and not encouraging of others to have an open discussion.
Please do no not make irrelevant jokes, offtopic pun threads, use sarcasm, respond to a title of a piece without reading it, or in general make comments that add nothing to the discussion. Please refrain from top-level jokes. Humor is appreciated, but it should be infrequent and safe for a professional environment.
Please do not blindly advocate for a side in a conflict or a country in general. Surely there are many patriots here, but this is not the arena to fight those battles.
Asking questions in the comment section of a submission, or in a megathread, is a great way to start a conversation and learn.
Submissions
Posts should include a substantial text component. This does not mean links are banned, instead, they should be submitted as part of the text post. Posts should not be quick updates or short-term. They should hold up and be readable over time, so you will be glad that you read them months or years from now.
Links should go to credible, high-quality sources (academia, government, think tanks), and the body should be a brief summary plus some comments on what makes it good or insightful.
Essays/Effortposts are encouraged. Essays/Effortposts are text posts you make that have an underlying thesis or attempt to synthesize information. They should cite sources, be well-written, and be relatively long. An example of an excellent effort post is this.
Please use the original title of the work (or a descriptive title; de-editorializing/de-clickbaiting is acceptable), and possibly a sub-headline.
Refrain from submissions that are quick updates in title form, troop movements, ship deployments, terrorist attacks, announcements, or the crisis du jour.
Discussions of opinion pieces by distinguished authors, historical research, and research on warfare relating to national security issues are encouraged.
We are primarily a reading forum, so please no image macros, gifs, emojis, or memes.
~~Moderators will manually approve all posts.~~ Posting is unrestricted for the moment, but posts without a submission statement or that do not meet the standards above will be removed.
No Leaked Material
Please do not submit or otherwise link to classified material. And please take discussions of classified material to a more secure location.
In general, avoid any information that will endanger anyone.
#Please report items that violate these rules. We don’t know about it unless you point it out.
We maintain lists of sources so that anyone can help to find interesting open-source material to share. As outlets wax and wane in quality, please help us keep the list updated:
https://reddit.com/r/CredibleDefense/wiki/credibleoutlets
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Is the Navy looking for more combatants? It seems like ESBs and ESDs are a good fit for current operations, though I wouldn't think they needed dozens of them.
Yeah, the bulk of the gap is probably surface combatants and submarines. The Navy is pretty seriously hamstrung by the continued decline of American shipbuilding and failing recruitment/retention efforts. It’s quite clear that they would like many more vessels to prep for China as a “pacing challenge” but can’t do it with current budgets and staff levels. ESBs have a part to play by freeing up others for peer warfare roles, but what is really needed are more combatants in the water.