NAVAL FORCES, FORUM FOR EMERGING NATIONS …
Another important part of the editorial concept had been to provide the new, emerging Navies with a forum to voice their perception and views, describing their future programmes. It was therefore not unintentional that the first edition of NAVAL FORCES was published on the occasion of the important international defence exhibition in Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. Establishing the intended international flavour was in the early days hampered by the need to overcome scepticism by some Navies concerning their participation in an ‘open dialogue’ – viable contacts and an atmosphere of trust had to be established. But such hesitance was quickly alleviated when the first ‘name articles’ were contributed by Chiefs of Navies in Latin America, South East Asia and the Middle East in particular, discussing maritime policies, aspects of the International Law of the Sea, military pacts, and bi- and multi­lateral cooperation and treaties. It soon became evident that such articles were also seen as valuable contributions towards the emerging dialogue on confidence build­ing and arms control measures in the eighties.
From the early days, articles in NAVAL FORCES were and still are characterised by factual discussion of the problems related to technical or technological points of view, including industrial aspects – and they gave answers to these problems. Soon also authors from well established Navies and industrial power nations used NAVAL FORCES to voice their views. I also remember well the complaint by a Central American Defence Minister about the intrusion into territorial waters by Asian trawlers, taking advantage of the inability of many Navies to effectively safeguard their territorial waters, resulting in drawbacks for the national economy of such countries. This showed that he was not only concerned about the notion of sovereignty and the lack of maritime measures to sanction such intruders. But this also led to an open discus­sion of operational questions concerning the deployment of maritime forces, the development of means for effective surveillance including the mutual use of satellites, and the sharing of knowledge and intelligence data with the political and military leadership of other nations, right through to proposing the exchange of operational concepts.
Such questions could only be answered in part by the Navies alone. Increasingly scientific organisations and industrial research and develop­ment sections tuned into these discussions, which greatly benefited from the expertise of researchers especially from technologically leading nations. Naturally, export-oriented national industrial complexes such as German naval industry, where highly motivated to participate in this open dialogue which often resulted in not only the sharing of information but also a common approach to solving the problem. The discussion by well reputed authors of topics cover­ing all such naval aspects, from building surface and subsur­face naval platforms and maritime aircraft as well as unmanned vehicles to take over some maritime operation­al tasks, through exchanging views on how to improve sensors and weapon systems, to novel approaches leading to more effective deployment of maritime forces under shrinking budgets and increasing manning problems, have become the trademark of NAVAL FORCES – you only have to scan this ‘Silver Jubilee’ edition under the headings of ‘Naval Technology” or ‘US Focus’, as this edition is targeted at Sea-Air-Space Navy League 2005 in Washington D.C., inter alia. We have there­fore always included authors from international research institutes like the Dutch TNO, procurement agencies like the Swedish FMV, headquarters responsible for the development of concepts like the Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR). But our readers also benefited from industrial contributions which were not simply geared towards promoting their products but prepared to mostly discussing objectively ways of solving the many common problems ahead of us.

… WHILE RECOGNISING THE PARTICULAR ROLE OF THE US NAVY
Apart from being available to the ‘Third World’ (a term that has widely lost its meaning during these past 25 years) as a forum to voice their opinions, NAVAL FORCES always paid due attention to providing a platform for the most powerful Navy of the world, the U.S. Navy and its leading industrial base, a maritime industry that greatly influenced developments in other Navies. This has led to many, often repeatedly published Special Issues portraying U.S. Navy organisations like its Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA), its Naval Surface Warfare Centre (NSWC) or Naval Underwater Warfare Centre (NUWC). And, NAVAL FORCES made use of having a North America Editor in-country, with close ties to the maritime services and naval industry. They provided insights with their editorials into budgetary, conceptual or policy developments inside the U.S. Department of Defense. With the growing importance of European maritime contributions it may be worth considering to establish a similar ‘anchor’ inside the EU, or?
The International Forum of Maritime Power – NAVAL FORCES benefited not only from the fact that the many naval programmes in the over 150 nations of the world with a Navy, involved a huge transfer of funds and know how in industry. We also benefited from the fact that increasingly such large programmes can only be realised in a mul­ti-national framework with international cooperation. On the other hand, preponderance of U.S. ships in some parts of the oceans of the world and dominance in others resulted in a ‘buy American’ policy. It was this ‘field of tension’ that provided the constant impetus for the publisher and editorial staff of NAVAL FORCES to look for interesting and, more importantly timely contributions to an international debate – and this still today dictates expectations by our readership.

DID WE MEET OUR READERSHIP’S EXPECTATIONS?
A word concern­ing our readership: NAVAL FORCES, in strict adherence to a principle of the Mönch Publishing Group, has aimed at highest standards regarding editorial content, lay­out and paper and printing quality – as expected by our readers. In our concept we followed the principle that reading the magazine must not only be satisfactory from an intellectual but also an esthetical point of view. The editorial staff of NAVAL FORCES has been granted generous space for analyses, trend articles, surveys as well as the all-important news in the dossier part.
Also, in commonality with other magazines of the Mönch Publish­ing Group, NAVAL FORCES has initiated and is expanding a series of Special Issues under the heading: ‘The [X]-Navy: Today and Tomorrow’, in closest cooperation with the respective Navy (for comprehensive list­ing see page 16), part­ly in its third iteration already. Further, in close cooperation with the first crew of the respective ships and their superior commands, NAVAL FORCES published a series of ‘Ship Profiles’ (for comprehensive listing see page 18). And finally, together with the shipyards or commands concerned, NAVAL FORCES published Shipyard or Command Special Issues, some of them also in their third iteration (for comprehensive listing see page 14). Always an important feature of NAVAL FORCES has been to report on main naval and Tri-service Defence Exhibitions around the world, and to interview top management representatives of naval indus­try.

WHAT THE FUTURE HOPE­FULLY HOLDS FOR OUR ‘GOLD­EN JUBILEE’
A look into the future, towards the next 25 years of NAVAL FORCES, is perhaps opportune. We always have understood, and treated accordingly our readership not only as consumers, but as partners in a dia­logue to satisfy readers’ expectations and to meet our aspiring goals. Together with you, our valued readers and customers, we have made NAVAL FORCES what it is today, a unique international forum for maritime power, as implied in its subtitle.
I hope that we will continue to enjoy the past and present atmosphere of mutual trust and respect that should be the fertilisation for a continued successful cover­age of what interests our readers most. That you will remain the critical benchmark for continued measuring of the performance of NAVAL FORCES, assisting us in our endeavour to meet your expectations. And that we will stay ‘ahead of the game’, always to the point, actual and informative. To this end we invite your advice, with constructive proposals on how we can best enhance our product and eliminate existing deficits – enabling us to improve NAVAL FORCES further so that it remains the indispensable source and valued tool, sought by the lead­ers of more than 150 Navies of the world, the leaders of procurement organisations and naval industry in these countries.