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The Lighter Side

Survivor: Nikumaroro Island

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International Maritime Satire Week Warning: The following is a piece of fiction intended to elicit insight through the use of satire and written by those who do not make a living being funny – so it’s not serious and very well might not be funny. See the rest of our IntMarSatWeek offerings here.

Producers and financial backers for the 60th edition of the enduring “Survivor” series have high hopes for this season. Today, the two competing teams of survivors disembarked from the luxury yacht Neptune’s Refuge on to one of the most remote and desolate locations on the planet. “Survivor: Phoenix Islands” is likely to be the most taxing and potentially violent edition of the long-running television series and the third iteration since the purchase of all rights to the show by the Sino-Russian (and possibly North Korean) Yakov-Liaoning Financial (YLF) Group. Russian billionaire and YLF founder Yakov Rozhestvensky bade personal farewell to the competitors while his staff ensured their non-disclosure agreements and personal wills were in order before each contestant left the yacht.

Only today Roszhestvensky’s company revealed that this edition of Survivor would take place on the famous Nikumaroro island, a one-time failed British colonial possession believed by many to have been the final resting place of lost aviatrix Amelia Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan. Rozhestvensky and his chief financial officer Victor Shu brushed off journalists’ questions about how much they paid the Kiribati Provisional Govt. for use of Nikumaroro, an island that had been a protected wildlife refuge until just March of this year. There had been speculation that YLF had financed the Kiribati coup that last year ousted the previous peaceful government of the island chain.

Rozhestvensky has high hopes that this season will duplicate and even exceed his previous two Survivor efforts, which were noted for their exotic and dangerous locations. Believing audiences bored by the standard “tropical paradise” environment of the long-running series, “Survivor 58: Viking Island” shifted to a polar location on the Greenland coast. There contestants battled cold weather, ate fish and whale blubber for 30 days, and competed in “Viking-like” challenges such as open-boat whaling, tug of war over a fiery pit, and extreme cold-weather swimming. Ratings were mixed until soaring in the latter half of the game when 10 contestants were medevaced for hypothermia or injuries sustained in the challenges.

This perhaps prompting Rozhestvenski’s next effort, “Survivor 59; The Poseidon Adventure.” During this latest installment the Russian entrepreneur purchased the laid-up cruise liner Dolphin Voyager and conducted challenges reminiscent of the 1972 disaster movie with the ship moored in the middle of the Sea of Okhotsk. Contestants were divided into two groups and forced to move about the ship in darkness while navigating hazards, re-rigging electrical power to dark sections of the ship, and swimming through flooded compartments.

Rozhestvensky had planned to actually sink the ship with the contestants aboard (and have them attempt to escape) as the season finale, but the Russian govt. intervened. Apparently this stunt was too dangerous for even President-for-Life Vladimir Putin to countenance and instead the ship was beached and “survivors” forced to move by lifeboats to a gravel-covered, cold, windswept beach. One of the lifeboats overturned and two contestants went missing for a day before they turned up with serious hypothermia further down the coast from the landing site. The “abandon ship” episode had an even higher viewership than “Viking Island.” With iTunes purchases of these episodes filling his coffers, Rozhestvensky is planning the next installment to be even more of a thrill-ride.

This season’s contestants could also be more colorful than any in the past. Distinctly themed teams will compete against one another for the top prize, with representatives of the Sea Shepherd Conservation society squaring off against a mysterious and shadowy group of former Somali pirate whalers personally recruited by Rozhestvensky for this season’s effort. The Sea Shepherds are motivated by a legal agreement with Rozhestvensky stipulating that he will shut down his whaling company and donate the proceeds of its liquidation to the activist conservation group. Sea Shepherd vessels had attempted to halt the whaling part of the “Viking Island” season but were intercepted and seriously damaged by Rozhestvensky’s security craft. For their part, the Sea Shepherds agreed to forgo their lawsuit in a Dutch court against Rozhestvensky in return for his acceptance of their conditions for participation in this season of “Survivor.” These provisions demand that no whale products will be used in any aspect of this season, or any further season.

Russian President-for-Life Vladimir Putin is rumored to make several guest appearances in this season's Survivor.
Russian President-for-Life Vladimir Putin is rumored to make several guest appearances in this season’s Survivor.

While the addition of Somali pirate whalers to the contestant pool may be an ironic protest of these prerequisites, this season’s location of Nikumaroro Island meets the requirement that it be nowhere near any whaling activity, although a statement by the Sea Shephards denounces their “forced trespassing on an unspoiled refuge” as a “trick.” While there is edible food on Nikumaroro, YLF will provide all water supplies via helicopter air-drop. Multiple fixed and unmanned aerial vehicle-mounted cameras will record the game play. Rozhestvensky himself will play the role of host and “tribal council” moderator via hologram. This provision alone has caused concern as some sources indicate Rozhestvensky was a one-time KGB apprentice interrogator and worked directly for Putin – a combination of factors that has worried some that Rozhestvensky plans to turn this season into his own edition of “Lord of the Flies.”

While the Sea Shepherds are a familiar group for many viewers, the Somali pirate whalers are an unknown quantity and potential source of violence on the show. Rozhestvensky brushed off such concerns and stated that the men and women he recruited in Somalia were “honest fishermen.” He further stated that if he really wanted to “mess with the Sea Shepherds’ minds,” he would have hired “ex-Japanese Coast Guardsmen and members of the Institute for Cetacean Research security” as the opposing team. Nonetheless, this volatile combination of teams, remote location, and few if any safeguards will likely draw the large international viewership Rozhestvensky craves and could be the highest-rated edition of Survivor yet unveiled.

Steve Wills is a retired surface warfare officer and a PhD student in military history at Ohio University. His focus areas are modern U.S. naval and military reorganization efforts and British naval strategy and policy from 1889-1941. He posts here at CIMSEC, sailorbob.com, and at informationdissemination.org under the pen name “Lazarus.”

The Lighter Side

China Signs 10-year Contract to “Ignore” LCS

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International Maritime Satire Week Warning: The following is a piece of fiction intended to elicit insight through the use of satire and written by those who do not make a living being funny – so it’s not serious and very well might not be funny. See the rest of our IntMarSatWeek offerings here. 

BEIJING – The U.S. Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) and the Commander-in-Chief of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) signed a ten-year fixed-price contract Monday that bars China from attacking the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) in the event of hostilities.

“This contract makes enormous sense operationally and fiscally,” stated the CNO in a press conference following the signing. “We’ll be procuring at least 24-32 LCS, yet it’s well known that LCS isn’t survivable in a shooting war. The challenge was how to address this gap in our CONOPS in an affordable manner.”

“The contracting department at Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) came up with an innovative and cost-effective solution: rather than trying to ‘fix’ LCS, we pay the Chinese a flat $50 million per hull through 2024 to just kind of ignore the LCS for the first week of a war [between the US and China],” said the CNO. “That should be enough time for a forward-deployed LCS to steam back to San Diego – assuming the typical breakdown rates we’ve seen on recent deployments,” he added.

“I look at it as an insurance policy. If we keep five LCS forward-deployed in the Pacific, the contract will cost the taxpayer about $250 million—a fraction of what we’ve spent developing and acquiring LCS to date, let alone what we’ll spend on hull modifications and yet-to-be-delivered mission modules. It’s a win-win scenario for everyone: industry can keep building new LCS hulls; Congress garners support from the shipbuilders; Navy keeps overall fleet numbers up; and NAVSEA gets another decade to try to make LCS into a warship,” stated the CNO.

Support for this contract among the LCS community has been strong.  “Whew! Not having to worry about Phase 2 military operations is a big relief,” wrote Cmdr. John Hansen, the commanding officer of USS Freedom (LCS-1) Gold Crew in an email. 

“Most of my crew are only getting four hours of sleep per night,” said Hansen. “We spend all our time plugging leaks, fixing engine malfunctions, logging casualty reports, removing rust and repainting, and arranging emergency port visits. It’s nice to know that if a swarm of Chinese Houbei missile boats comes bearing down on me, I’ve got a legally-binding contract which stops them from firing their C-802 [missiles.]”

China also stands to benefit from the contract—and not just financially. “Destroying an LCS would not have been much of a challenge,” said the PLAN Commander-in-Chief. “I mean just look at the thing. In fact, it’s such a lop-sided match-up that my ship captains were starting to feel a bit puzzled and insecure. I’d get emails from them saying ‘What are the Americans up to with LCS? Don’t they respect our capabilities?'” he sighed. “But with this contract in place, I can tell my captains that you Americans do respect our capabilities – which does wonders for our self-esteem.”

The Navy is expected to propose similar contracts to Iran and North Korea.

Matt Cosner is a former P-3 naval flight officer now flying a non-descript cubicle deep in the heart of southern Maryland.  The opinions expressed in this article do not reflect those of the Department of Defense or Department of Navy and probably shouldn’t be taken seriously by anybody…except on LCS.

The Lighter Side

U.S. Navy Releases New Maritime Strategy: Swivel to Africa

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International Maritime Satire Week Warning: The following is a piece of fiction intended to elicit insight through the use of satire and written by those who do not make a living being funny – so it’s not serious and very well might not be funny. See the rest of our IntMarSatWeek offerings here. 

WASHINGTON—The U.S. Navy today unveiled its new maritime strategy, which some have already dubbed the “Swivel to Africa.”
Navy spokesman Lieutenant Meghan Jorg explained the shift, “We spent several years trying to devise a strategy to support the President’s ‘Rebalance to the Pacific.’ Frankly China’s anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) capabilities are making the Asia-Pacific region too challenging an operational environment to operate in, so we’re going to focus somewhere else.”

Sources say that rumors of a pending cut to the number of Littoral Combat Ships (LCS), feared by some as unable to support the Pacific strategy, also played a role in gaining Congressional approval for changing that strategy.

In prepared remarks Jorg added, “In this age of shrinking budgets we need to focus on what we can do, not what we’d like to be able to do. We need to focus on the feel-good piece, and expanded celebrity charity visits. Vital issues like children’s smiles and elephant tusks demand our immediate attention. To address these vital security threats, we will leverage core Navy-centric force multipliers such as Seabees, civil affairs teams, and expeditionary postal clerks to achieve theater affects; none of the other services offer these capabilities.”

U.S. Navy musicians executing The Swivel in Tanzania.
U.S. Navy musicians executing The Swivel in Tanzania.

While Navy officials insist the core capabilities detailed in the previous maritime strategy, A Cooperative Strategy for 21st-Century Seapower, are still required—supported by high-end kit including aircraft carriers and ballistic missile submarines—the Swivel brings with it a new set of missions. Among those listed as crucial are candy distribution, anti-poaching operations, and anti-smuggling operations. According to Jorg, “We want to begin deploying DDG-1000s, big-deck amphibious assault ships, and Ford-class carriers to the coasts of Africa as soon as possible.”

Sources confirmed that in order to win support for the new maritime strategy from key Congressional Republicans the Navy will be required to fly combat air patrols over U.S. embassies and consulates on the continent, regardless of overflight agreements from the host nations.

That most-traditional naval African mission, counter-piracy, also received its due: “We heard that someone, somewhere, reported a possible act of piracy, or fistfight, or surly bridge-to-bridge exchange, on a ship just outside African territorial waters somewhere other than Somalia,” Jorg stated. “Did you know that 90 percent of the world’s commerce travels by sea?”

The Swivel is not without its critics, however, and several African counterparts expressed their concerns – not only for fear of enlarged American footprint. Nigeria’s Chief of Naval Staff Vice Adm. Dele Ezeoba said, “We welcome a strengthening of our already close friendship with the Americans, but this seems like overkill – I mean just yesterday we got a call about a skiff involved in oil bunkering, and when several of the individuals jumped overboard the Americans moved in submarines and started dropping sonobuoys from aircraft to find the culprits.”

A U.S. Navy carrier strike group deploys off the coast off Benin. Just in case.
A U.S. Navy carrier strike group deploys off the coast off Benin. Just in case.

Shortly after the Navy statement, the U.S. Air Force Staff confirmed that the Navy and Air Force had formed an Air-Sea Safari [acronym redacted] office for coordination. Air Force representatives also confirmed that the Swivel would justify its retirement of the A-10 fleet, and that the F-35, F-22 and new Long Range Strike Bomber (LRSB) would make perfect platforms for counter-smuggling patrols and long-range “show-of-force” missions deep within the African continent.

The Army responded to the new maritime strategy with a statement that “only credible armored land forces can pose a significant deterrent to the growing security problems in Africa. You need agile, rapidly deployable armored and artillery task forces to successfully deter ivory smuggling.” The Army has since unilaterally announced plans to base advanced expeditionary brigade combat teams—including Stryker armored vehicles and Apache attack helicopters—on Navy ships; Navy officials were unaware of any such plans.

When contacted for comment on the Army’s plans, a Marine Corps spokesman shrugged and said, “Meh, sounds a lot like a [Marine Expeditionary Unit] to me.”

Jay Boyles and Scott Cheney-Peters work in windowless offices in the Pentagon. Thank goodness their views do not reflect those of the Department of the Navy or Department of Defense.

The Lighter Side

No Deadliest Catch 10th Season: Returns as Somali Spin-Off

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International Maritime Satire Week Warning: The following is a piece of fiction intended to elicit insight through the use of satire and written by those who do not make a living being funny – so it’s not serious and very well might not be funny. See the rest of our IntMarSatWeek offerings here. 

 

DeadliestSILVER SPRING, MD—After a series of logistical challenges filming Deadliest Catch in the South China Sea, the Discovery Channel announced a new spin-off series set off the Somali coast to replace the show for 2014 in what would have been the show’s 10th season.

Sources say that Bill Goodwyn, Discovery’s President of Domestic Distribution and Enterprises labeled the most recent season of Deadliest Catch a “goddamn shipwreck” after the series filmed the 9th season in the South China Sea. Despite Discovery’s vision, Deadliest Catch faced a series of hurdles including clashes with Japanese nationalists near the Senkaku Islands, and most recently, the loss of an aerial camera drone in China’s Air Defense Identification Zone or ADIZ.

Discovery hopes to rejuvenate the successful ten-year-old franchise with a new spin-off series set in Somalia. Tentatively titled “Deadliest Catch: Somali Waters,” renowned producer Todd Stanley is attached to serve as the showrunner for this new series, slated to air in early 2014. Richard Phillips and Abduwali Muse are also named as associate producers.

After announcing the series on Twitter, Stanley explained “Look, there’s been a lot of maritime activity off the coast of Somalia for years and frankly the clan dynamics stimulate an enormous amount of competition between Somali fishermen—wait till you see the Habar Gidirs take on the Mijurtinis. While the piracy business hasn’t been the cash cow for these guys it once was, with our backing you’ll see some of these guys go out for two or three weeks and come back with a load of Yellowfin Tuna, a dry-bulk carrier, or even a handful of Indian hostages.” Officials at the Discovery quickly pointed out that the show abides by all Somali laws and maritime regulations.

Members of the Digil Coast Guard on patrol
Members of the Digil Coast Guard on patrol

Bilal Eggeh, an elder affiliated with the Saleban clan, expressed his excitement for the show: “This will not only be a great opportunity for the Saleban to glorify their ancestors against the Duduble filth, but will also provide better programming than Al Shabab behadings and Duck Dynasty.” An Al Shabab spokesperson rejected these comments on Twitter and explained that his organization serves as the main maritime law enforcement organization in Kismayo, a coastal town, and that Nielson ratings show the beheadings do well in the coveted 18-34 demographic.

Stanley intends to replicate the filming and production methodology utilized in the Deadliest Catch. Three separate camera crews will follow nominal “fishing” motherships piloted by the Eidagalla, Ajuran, and Ogadeni clans. Additional crews will follow the USS Farragut, on patrol in the Recommended Transit Corridor; the Puntland Maritime Police Force, conducting shore-based operations; and the local coast guard operated by the Digil clan. An additional crew will cover mundane business affairs in the cities of Eyl and Kismayo. Thom Beers will also narrate segments of the series—a staple of the Deadliest Catch franchise.

Despite Discovery’s optimism, the show already faces opposition. The move to the South China Sea triggered a wave of controversy from loyal fans, with one fan claiming that “It sounds un-American.” Captain Brad Cooper of the USS Gettysburg (CG-64) said “At first I thought this was b******t – we finally had this Somali piracy thing mostly licked and now they’re helping get some of these guys back up and running? But anytime I can tell my kids I got to fight pirates they actually know what I’m talking about, unlike forward naval presence ops.’” Khaled Hiyani, a member of Hizbul Islam, issued a statement condemning the show and labeling the producers as infidels. Roelf van Heerden, a South African security consultant with Sterling Corporate Services, briefly said, “These guys are idiots.”

Yet, Discovery remains determined in the spin-off to experiment with the successful formula that other reality shows have used.

Deadliest Catch: Somali Waters is scheduled to premiere on April 15 at 9:00 EST on Discovery.