The U.S. military is shifting more emphasis and resources toward combating terrorism and helping civilian authorities, both at home and abroad, cope with man-made and natural disasters; institutions tend to overshoot, and the Pentagon should not forget that the United States must still prepare to fight and win conventional wars

The owners of the German cruise ship Columbus decided on a new way to deal with piracy off the coast of Somalia: The 246 passengers were flown to Dubai to await the ship — and the ship itself, with but a skeletal crew, sail at top speed through the dangerous waters of the Gulf of Aden, hoping to avoid being raided by pirates

The U.S. Department of Defense will have an increased role in domestic U.S. security; a Pentagon plan calls for up to 20,000 uniformed troops inside the United States by 2011 trained to help state and local officials respond to a nuclear terrorist attack or other domestic catastrophe

The commando-style attacks that killed some 200 people in Mumbai, India, last week began with a small-scale amphibious invasion that bears uncanny resemblance to recent pirate attacks off the African coast

Seventeen pro-democracy, anti-terror groups from South Africa, Britain, and the Middle East which have an online presence will gather in New York to exchange notes

The Strait of Malacca between Malaysia and Indonesia, and the Gulf of Aden, are among the most sensitive choke points in global commerce; trouble is, the stable, the comparatively wealthy Southeast Asian countries that line the Malacca Strait have committed their naval and coastal forces to stamping out hijackings and piracy, but the Gulf of Aden is bordered by poor or dysfunctional countries like Djibouti, Yemen, and particularly Somalia

Forget Captain Kidd, wooden legs, or treasure maps; modern pirates are equipped with supercharged speedboats, large-caliber weaponry, and all the radio intercept technology they need to identify and locate valuable ocean-going booty; on 9/11 we saw what damage a jumbo jet could do when used as a weapon; how about a supertanker as a weapon?

Ammonium nitrate mixed with fuel oil commonly is used as an explosive in mining and has been used by terrorists — such as Timothy McVeigh in Oklahoma; DHS proposes to regulate its use

One of the major problems in attacking the WMD facilities of rogue nations is the the destruction of these facilities may scatter the toxic materials over a wide area; a secret Pentagon weapon program aims to address this problem