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Newsletter:
Joe Buff's
"Vision 2005"
Briefing & Update

***** JOE BUFF'S "VISION 2004" BRIEFING AND UPDATE *****

October, 2004 Library of Congress ISSN number: 1545-7761

GREETINGS, FRIENDS AND READERS! I hope the autumn season has started off well for all of you. This issue of my e-Newsletter will bring you up to date on the upcoming releases of the TIDAL RIP paperback and the STRAITS OF POWER hardcover; it will also provide what I hope you find to be other useful and interesting items on naval affairs, national defense, and homeland security. I want to thank each of you personally for your feedback and support, which as always helps make the hard work of full-time writing be so gratifying, and so very much fun!

A very special welcome, in particular, to the many Navy Seabees who have begun to receive my Newsletter! FYI, I am planning soon a Military.com essay titled "Seabee Shadow Warriors," featuring the SERTs (Seabee Engineering Recon Teams), as a year-later revisit to my prior essay "Seabees... Special Forces?" This new essay should appear in my November Newsletter, too.

Best regards and warmest wishes, Joe.

PS: Please remember to tell me if your e-mail address changes!!! (Contact info is at the very bottom of this Newsletter.)

USEFUL AND VALUABLE WEBSITES, HIGHLY RECOMMENDED --

http://www.joebuff.com/newsletter/news14.htm

JOE BUFF A SPEAKER AT SUB VETS 2004 CONVENTION

I was very honored to be one of the luncheon speakers at the 2004 National Convention, in Saratoga Springs, NY, of the United States Submarine Veterans, Inc., (USSVI). The lunch at which I spoke on Friday, Sept. 17 specifically recognized the fiftieth anniversary of U.S. Navy Nuclear Propulsion. (The USS Nautilus, SSN-571, the first ever nuclear-powered submarine in the world, was commissioned in September 1954.) My remarks emphasized two themes: First, the traditions and achievements of the men in the Silent Service during World War II and the Cold War are strongly relevant to today and tomorrow. Second, technical and tactical innovation have been going on constantly for decades, culminating in submarines now being true capital ships of the twenty-first century. Almost 2,000 members (plus many spouses) attended the 2004 SubVets convention, and a wonderful time was had by all!

JOE BUFF JOINS SOCIETY FOR RISK ANALYSIS

I recently joined the Society for Risk Analysis, a non-partisan and international body headquartered in McLean, Virginia. I have a lot of training and seasoning as a professional risk analyst through the 20 years I spent as an actuary, with an emphasis for much of that time on investment risk measurement and management for financial institutions. In my present full-time role as a novelist and non-fiction commentator on homeland security and defense preparedness for the past 7 years, I realized I was continuing to apply these key risk analysis skills diligently, just in a new subject area. The Society for Risk Analysis is a good fit to my work now, since its members address public policy issues related to everything from environmental damage to nuclear threats. Risk analysts, in general, construct and analyze chilling scenarios in order to challenge conventional thinking and help better prepare for a risky tomorrow. This is a main theme behind the war scenario depicted in my Captain Jeffrey Fuller series, as well as in my regular essay column for Military.com and my frequent, award-winning, technical articles in the Naval Submarine League's quarterly journal,THE SUBMARINE REVIEW.

JOE'S "STRAITS OF POWER" NEARS ITS NOVEMBER 23 RELEASE DATE --

My next submarine warfare novel, the fifth in the Captain Jeffrey Fuller series, titled STRAITS OF POWER, will go on sale in bookstores nationwide, both brick-and-mortar and on-line, on November 23, 2004. Since my last Newsletter, the plot summary "embargo" has been lifted by my publisher! (See the links right here below.) I would like to add one item not mentioned in that summary: that U.S. Navy Seabees play a role in the story this time, doing inventive and audacious things while under fire in the near-future saga of Captain Jeffrey Fuller and his crew and his friends and his enemies. There'll also be plenty of Navy SEAL action, and some of the freshest and most frightening sub-on-sub combat scenes in the Fuller saga yet!

See cover of STRAITS OF POWER:

http://www.joebuff.com/books.htm

Read more about TIDAL RIP:

http://www.joebuff.com/book04.htm

COME JOIN JOE'S "SUB PEN" VIRTUAL TALK AND CALL-IN SHOW --

The Sub Pen meets most Tuesdays, from 9pm to 11 or midnight East Coast time. The next few meetings are October 26, November 9, and November 16.

For details click on the button "Sub Pen Chat Room" on the top-left of

http://www.joebuff.com/index01.htm

"Sub Pen" Privacy Policy: No transcripts will be kept.

AND NOW, FOR SOME OF JOE'S RECENT PROFESSIONAL NON-FICTION WORK --

HOMELAND DEFENSE: PERSONAL READINESS MATTERS...

AN ESSAY, ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON MILITARY.COM:

"Lifestyles and Alerts"

The possibility is all too genuine that there will be more terrorist attacks against civilians. This hard fact confronts each of us every day, and will continue to do so for a long time -- regardless of how we vote on Election Day 2004, and regardless of which candidates win. Coping with terrorism is a non-partisan affair, and needs to be addressed non-politically. Adjusting our lifestyles proactively for the ongoing danger is far from simple. Doing so is an individual responsibility. But personal and family situations vary tremendously across the United States, and across the homelands of other nations. And the effect of terrorism is, in an important way, twofold. First is the immediate impact of any attack, when one actually takes place. Second is the complex set of behavioral adjustments called for in the awful "quieter time," the period during which we continue to recover from a previous major attack -- 9/11/01 -- while also being bombarded with reminders of the risk of another. A necessarily brief overview of some ways to help handle this prolonged "in-between phase" is the subject of this essay. These items, meant to be thought-provoking suggestions and challenges, come in part from ad hoc observations of what people in the Greater New York area (where I live) are doing or not yet doing.

http://www.joebuff.com/essay50.htm

WHAT WENT SO WRONG AFTER THE COLD WAR?...

AN ESSAY, ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON MILITARY.COM:

"What 'End of History'?"

Looking ahead a tad to beat the rush, 9 November of this year will mark the fifteenth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, in 1989. Two years after that, in late '91, the Soviet Union officially dissolved itself -- a mostly symbolic act, since the USSR had by then very obviously splintered apart from within. Amid the joy and relief at this sudden outburst of global freedom and peace, some commentators pronounced "the end of history." By that, so far as I could tell at the time, they meant the world would quickly become a sedate and stable place, and nothing particularly important would ever happen again.

http://www.joebuff.com/essay52.htm

JOE'S TALK AT SUB VETS '04 CONVENTION...

AN ESSAY, ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON MILITARY.COM:

"Nuclear Navy's Big 50th"

It was exactly fifty years ago this month that America's nuclear navy was born, with the commissioning of the world's first-ever nuclear powered fast-attack submarine, USS Nautilus. As time passed, U.S. Navy nuclear propulsion grew to include other fast-attacks (SSNs), fleet ballistic missile strategic deterrent subs (SSBNs), and surface ships ranging in size from destroyers to supercarriers (CVNs). The stealth, fighting power, and cruising endurance of all these vessels were key in wearing down the USSR to extinction. Today those same capabilities, the same types of platforms, now updated, play major roles in the War on Terror -- ranging from explosive direct action caught in real-time on camera, to top secret exploits lost in the shadows and depths around the globe.

http://www.joebuff.com/essay53.htm

JOE BUFF'S READERMAIL PRIVACY POLICY --

I consider all your messages to me to be confidential.

I respond to them individually, as time permits.

No readermails will be published in my Newsletter or posted to my website.

JOE BUFF'S NON-FICTION "BOOK PICKS" --

(Great ones I've read myself lately, that influenced my thinking):

http://www.joebuff.com/newsletter/news15.htm

If you like, please forward this e-Newsletter to interested friends, but please don't spam anybody!

How to Subscribe to JOE BUFF'S "VISION 2003" BRIEFING AND UPDATE:

You can request a new subscription by clicking the subscribe button at

http://www.joebuff.com/newsletr.htm

Alternately, just send me an E-mail at

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Ahead flank, aye! ...Joe.

*******************************
Joe Buff's books (with review excerpts):
TIDAL RIP --"White-knuckle, hair raising"
CRUSH DEPTH --"Far above the standard"
THUNDER IN THE DEEP --"Out-Clancys Clancy"
DEEP SOUND CHANNEL --"Superb"
http://www.joebuff.com
readermail@joebuff.com
*******************************
If you love peace, prepare for war. Why?
Because we don't need more dead heroes,
and appeasement just never works.
*******************************

JoeBuff.Com / Joe Buff Inc.
Joe Buff, President
Dutchess County, New York

E-Mail readermail@JoeBuff.Com