War on the Rocks – Given the very real limitations on deploying additional personnel or platforms to existing forward bases or to aspirational new ones in the Western Pacific, Washington ought to adopt a more peripheral approach to conflict management in the region. An emphasis on platforms that do not require new basing rights would offer a more mobile and survivable posture. 

Global Times – A Beijing-based think tank is keeping an eye on an increase in close-range reconnaissance activities this year by US Navy ocean surveillance ships in the South China Sea, saying in a report released on Tuesday that the US is attempting to monitor Chinese submarine activities in the region and provide anti-submarine intelligence support.

CIMSEC – U.S. Navy and Department of Defense bureaucratic and acquisition practices have frustrated innovations promoted by Chiefs of Naval Operations and the CNO Strategic Studies Groups over the past several decades.¹ The Navy could have capabilities better suited to meet today’s challenges and opportunities had it pursued many of these innovations. This alternative history presents what the Navy could have been in 2019 had the Navy and DoD accepted the kinds of risks faced during the development of nuclear-powered ships, used similar prototyping practices, and accepted near-term costs for longer-term returns on that investment.

National Review – Jerry Hendrix on why a troubling new report on the Navy’s surface-warfare capabilities and culture matters.

USNI News – By 2025, the Navy will have solved its strike fighter shortfall in part by changing how it will field the F-35C Lighting II Joint Strike Fighter. Instead of two squadrons per air wing with 10 tails, the Navy will now field a single squadron with 14 tails.

CIMSEC – CIMSEC shared questions with Captain Eric M. Sager to discuss the Submarine Force’s new Aggressor Squadron (AGGRON). In this conversation, Capt. Sager discusses what AGGRON is doing to enhance undersea lethality, the vital importance of connecting adversary doctrine to submarine force development, and how a dedicated Red team makes for much more realistic high-end combat training.

War Zone – The Navy’s Optical Dazzling Interdictor, or ODIN, was photographed installed on the USS Stockdale during a replenishment in the Pacific.

Navy Times – The Navy is poised to start selecting sailors and civilians this summer to become warrant officers and operate the MQ-25 Stingray carrier-based refueling drone.

CIMSEC – This article outlines the path that led to the U.S. Navy’s current strategic deficit and proposes a framework for a new maritime strategy, one that should be immediately developed along with the corresponding force structure assessment. With a modest 5% additional investment in the Navy over the next five years, 90% of the changes required by this strategy can be achieved.

USNI News – The Navy’s surface warfare community is weighed with a culture that values administrative chores over training to fight, ship commanders that are micromanaged and an aversion to risk, according to a new survey overseen by a retired Navy admiral and Marine general at the behest of a group of Republican lawmakers. That culture was at least partially responsible for a string “of high-profile and damaging operational failures in the Navy’s Surface Warfare community,” the report found.

USNI Proceedings – The Washington Naval Treaties had different effects on interwar innovation in Britain, Japan, and the United States.

Navy News – In a year’s time, progress has been made in all programs ranging from Combat Crafts to mini submersibles to Unmanned Underwater Vehicles as USSOCOM gears towards peer nation challenges. Naval News presents a summary of the NSW programs discussed at Virtual SOFIC 2021.

War Zone – The three-decade-old submarine appears to have received a big addition to its sonar system during a protracted refit.