Global Times – An official media report on Sunday disclosed multiple new developments regarding the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy’s Type 054B guided-missile frigate Qinzhou. The report highlighted one of its most distinctive features: a next-generation architecture powered by advanced AI algorithms, enabling near-zero blind spots in air defense. Experts say the Type 054B represents a major leap in integrated combat capability and positions the vessel among the most advanced frigates in service today.
The Navy’s ‘Fighting Instructions’ fails its own test
Breaking Defense – Adm. Daryl Caudle’s Fighting Instructions aims to guide the Navy’s future, but it does not make the tradeoffs or force-design decisions a true strategy requires.
Royal Navy accelerates shift to uncrewed ocean data gathering
Navy Lookout – The RN has signed a contract with Teledyne Marine for advanced uncrewed sensing systems. The move signals further momentum behind the transition from traditional survey ships to distributed, persistent data gathering across the North Atlantic and beyond.
The US Navy brought a ‘one-of-a-kind’ laser weapon back from the dead
Defense News – The U.S. Navy spent at least six months resurrecting a high-energy laser weapon that previously graced the bow of a warship for a new military exercise last year, the service recently revealed.
Chinese intelligence company tracking US military assets during Iran operations
Flight Global – Shanghai-based MizarVision has been publicly posting satellite imagery of American military movements throughout Operation Epic Fury, including locations of F-22 fighters, command and control aircraft, and aircraft carrier strike groups – with some sites subsequently targeted by Iranian retaliation.
USS George H.W. Bush Departs for Deployment, USS Gerald Ford Could Be Extended to 11 Months
USNI News – The sun peeked over the horizon tinting the haze gray hull of carrier USS George H.W. Bush (CVN-77) orange while sailors on Pier 14 busied themselves preparing for the carrier to shove off across the Atlantic.
Japan Deploys New Longer-Range Missiles, Formally Designates ‘Type 25’ Systems
Naval News – Japan has taken a major step in advancing its stand-off defense capabilities, with the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force (JGSDF) announcing on March 31 the first operational deployment of two domestically developed longer-range missile systems—alongside their formal redesignation as “Type 25” weapons.
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Japanese Destroyer Finalizes Tomahawk Missile Integration
Naval News – The Japanese Ministry of Defense has announced that the JS Chōkai (DDG-176) has completed crew training and ship modification, enabling the employment of RGM-109 Tomahawk land attack cruise missiles.
Russian vessels sought shelter in Norwegian fjords more than 230 times since 2022
Barents Observer – The manoeuvres of Russian fishing vessels in northern Norwegian waters are blurring the line between seeking shelter from bad weather and potential intelligence-gathering.
Italian Navy to fly TB3 drones from Cavour aircraft carrier
Naval News – The Italian Navy is preparing to acquire the Bayraktar TB3 unmanned combat aerial vehicle (UCAV), marking a new step in expanding its carrier-based unmanned aviation capabilities. The announcement was made by Chief of the Italian Navy, VAdm Berutti Bergotto, during his first parliamentary hearing since taking command on 6 November 2025.
Italian Navy: New programs and future developments
Naval News – The Italian Navy Chief of Staff, Vice Admiral Giuseppe Berutti Bergotto outlined the main lines of development the Marina Militare is pursuing in the medium and long term to guarantee security, effectiveness and operational relevance, during his first hearing at the helm of the service in front of the Italian Parliament Foreign Affairs and Defence committee at Senate on 25 March, after taken the command on 6 November 2025.
Royal Navy strengthens mine countermeasures posture for possible return to the Gulf
Navy Lookout – RFA Lyme Bay is to be equipped with autonomous and remotely-controlled mine hunting systems in Gibraltar. This will prepare the ship to support mine clearance operations in the Gulf region, if called upon.
China building more giant Zubr-class hovercraft
Naval News – Super-sized hovercraft provide a rare and specialized capability that only a handful of navies can afford. China is the only nation investing in these massive platforms, pursuing series production of the Zubr-class vessels for amphibious assault operations. These offer key operational advantages and may signal a growing level of preparedness for a potential invasion of Taiwan.
Defending Global Order Against China’s Maritime Insurgency – Part 1
CIMSEC – The international order has come under immense strain in recent years. Major wars have erupted between the great powers in Ukraine and the Middle East. The U.S.’s top geopolitical rivals have increasingly coalesced, with China and Russia both rapidly modernizing and expanding their arsenals of strategic weapons. Meanwhile, a Chinese invasion of Taiwan looms, possibly backed by Moscow. The current challenges make China’s years-old claims to the entirety of the South China Sea seem quaint and insignificant in comparison.
Hunter Stires, who served as the Maritime Strategist to the Secretary of the Navy during the tenure of Secretary Carlos Del Toro, views each of these challenges as interconnected parts of a global struggle for the Freedom of the Sea and the international order, with the central front in the South China Sea. Stires believes the future of global order rests on the extent to which China succeeds in claiming ownership to one of the world’s most important waterways and disrupting the centuries-old concept of the freedom of the seas upon which the modern global order was founded. Stires helped found the U.S. Navy’s Maritime Counterinsurgency (COIN) Project to better conceptualize and combat China’s battle to overturn the international order at sea. This interview captures Stires’ thoughts on the history of the Maritime COIN project and its ongoing relevance for intensifying strategic competition between the US and China.
The Unwitting Fleet
CIMSEC – The maritime sector’s cybersecurity gaps are typically framed as a defensive problem – vessels at risk of attack, operations vulnerable to disruption. This framing, while accurate, is incomplete.
The unwitting fleet is not merely vulnerable. It is already functioning as adversary intelligence infrastructure. Thousands of vessels transit strategic waters broadcasting position, transmitting communications through exploitable links, and maintaining connections to shoreside networks – all without security adequate to the operating environment.
The commercial fleet provides positioning, sensors, and connectivity. Operators maintain the infrastructure and pay the bills. Collection requires only the will and skill to access what is already exposed.
A vessel does not need to be gray-hulled to present intelligence value – or strategic risk. Naval and intelligence communities attentive to military communications security should extend that awareness to the unwitting fleet operating every day on the world’s oceans.
Royal Navy in talks to sell Batch I offshore patrol vessels to Uruguay
Navy Lookout – Local media reports the UK has offered to sell the three River-class Batch I OPVs, HMS Tyne, HMS Mersey and HMS Severn to the Uruguayan Navy when they go out of service in 2028.
Why America Needs a Four Ocean Navy
CIMESC – America’s strategic map must change. The two-ocean Navy of the past secured victory in World War II and sustained deterrence preventing great power conflict throughout the Cold War. With the inability to field high-end, multipurpose warships globally, we need a four-ocean Navy that recognizes the Atlantic, Arctic, Indian, and Pacific as distinct theaters with unique requirements. This is a call for clarity: matching missions to oceans and tailoring warships with crews to oceans.
Royal Navy battlestaff readies for NATO command in Arctic exercises
Navy Lookout – NATO exercise Cold Response 2026 in Norway has tested the Royal Navy’s deployable battlestaff and demonstrated increased Royal Marine presence. The exercise highlighted both the UK’s central role in alliance command structures and the limits imposed by a shrinking surface and amphibious fleet.
Operation Highmast: UK Deployment Across the Mediterranean Indo Pacific For a Two Carrier Navy
CIMSEC – Five strategic questions remain to be answered for the future concerning the operation of a two-carrier Navy.
HMS Dragon arrives off Cyprus
Navy Lookout – HMS Dragon arrived off Cyprus this week and is now integrated with the international force providing air defence for the Island.
Moving Toward Distributed Maritime Operations: Getting the Navy Out of its VLS Hole
CIMSEC – The U.S. Navy faces a period in which its missile-firing capacity is declining as strategic threats are rising. Distributing long-range fires across existing additional classes of ships with the help of containerized launchers offers a solution to fill the VLS gap, provide reload flexibility, and expand the number of shooters at sea. While some vessels might not possess the same organic communications, radars, and command and control capabilities as destroyers and cruisers, Navy efforts to improve the fleet’s connectivity and battle network could eventually mean these missiles can be used with the help of other ships in the theater. In distributing lethality this way, the Navy could dig itself out of its VLS hole faster, and achieve the virtues of mass without the vulnerabilities of concentration.
Archers Need Arrows: Deficiencies in US Submarine Munitions
CIMSEC – Archers need arrows. If Congress and the U.S. Navy do not act now to ensure submarines stay armed and ready for battle, munitions problems will only worsen – leaving the force, the fleet, and country more vulnerable.
Hellscape Taiwan: A Porcupine Defense in the Drone Age
War on the Rocks – The Hellscape concept shifts the strategic calculus. The question is no longer whether Taiwan can win a conventional war against China. The question is whether Beijing can stomach the operational chaos, staggering casualties, and strategic uncertainty that an invasion would bring. By making an assault prohibitively costly and dangerously unpredictable, Taiwan can deter it from happening in the first place.
A Torpedo in the Trade Lanes: Naval Warfare Returns to the Indo-Pacific
War on the Rocks – The sinking of the IRIS Dena was a stark reminder that naval warfare follows its own logic. Engagements can occur far from home waters, unfold with little warning, and carry consequences well beyond the immediate tactical exchange. In this case, a single submarine strike intersected with global trade flows, alliance dynamics, contested information environments, and the legal realities of conflict at sea.
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