The Staff at Army-Navy Country Club turned in one of their customary elegant backdrops for a dramatic iteration of the NIP Red Tie award that featured award of the Red Tie to revered Marine Vince Stewart with keynote remarks by LT GEN Jerry Carter, ODNI Director’s Advisor for Military Affairs.

The tradition of the Red Tie goes back to 1988 as the Naval Intelligence Professionals sought to recognize ONI’s Soviet Naval Analysts were recognized with scarlet foulards decorated with embroidered Sverdlov-class Cruisers and Hammers and Sickles.

The woman on the lead graphic was our ICAF tour guide in the 1998 Moscow Space Symposium visit to Russia and is a symbol of a struggle that is by no means over.

Those days are long past, and the Red Tie presentation by VADM Bob Sharp highlighted just some of the changes in scale and the nature of warfare, and why the unique requirements of forces afloat and ashore in areas of secular and ideological conflict.

LT GEN Carter showed us some of the ways ahead for the contributions of maritime intelligence to the total force package required to conduct necessary military operations like Epic Fury. Events that will conclude that conflict could include specil operations against major economic targets like Kharg Island, and General Carter outlined just how intelligence support will make the plan work.

There is an information warfare component in play at the moment as well, as Iran attempts to buy time by playing domestic and international reporting against American military advantage. It was a Red Tie that recognized our times and the nature of our struggle in a world of technical change.

Copyright 2026 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com