US Naval War College Review – Mine warfare is a persistent threat to naval operations and ocean commerce, and yet it remains a persistent area of underinvestment by the U.S. Navy. The recent history of the Navy’s improvisational approach to emergent mine threats suggests how the Navy might succeed by “preparing to be unprepared” before it faces mines again.

US Naval War College Review – Since World War II, fleet air defense has been organized around the principle of engaging threats as far out from the fleet as possible, motivated by early failures to engage the kamikaze threat. This approach remains as vital as ever and progressively more challenging in the face of the contemporary threats posed by cruise missiles and—increasingly—by drone warfare.

Breaking Defense – “The interesting part of this is it’s not just a kind of fleeting presidential idea, but this is, in fact, something that does kind of resonate with what the Navy’s finding it probably needs to do with the fleet through its own work,” one analyst said.

The War Zone – Two days after passing through the Strait of Gibraltar en route to the Caribbean, the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford has not moved significantly from a position just west of Morocco in North Africa, the Navy confirmed to us Thursday. The flattop and elements of its strike group were ordered by President Donald Trump to join the ongoing enhanced counter-narcotics mission in the region, but it is unclear if plans have changed.

Breaking Defense – In this op-ed, Eyck Freymann and Harry Halem lay out three areas where action is needed to avoid a logistical catastrophe in deterring China.

The War Zone – Even as the U.S. continues to build up forces in the Caribbean ostensibly for an enhanced counternarcotics operation that could include inland strikes, there are reported plans underway for attacks on cartels inside Mexico.