Proficiency Versus Effectiveness: What Readiness is Not

CIMSEC – The U.S. Department of Defense is like an NFL franchise that, for lack of any game tape, relies solely on the athletic testing numbers to determine how ready their players are for the next game. Internal metrics of success, as the only numbers available, take on an outsized importance in predicting battlefield success. But anyone with even a small amount of military (or athletic) experience understands that there is more to winning than simply being the most proficient person on the field. A military, like a football team, has to be effective, as well.

Moving Toward a Holistic, Rigorous, Analytical Readiness Framework

CIMSEC – The adoption of this new data framework for military readiness would go a long way toward achieving the quantitative underpinnings necessary to support the service chiefs’ vision and it can be used to fix the fundamental problem they call out: the “gold-plating” of existing force requirements at the expense of future capability. 

The Navy sub commanded by artificial intelligence

BBC – On 20 April, the Royal Navy’s latest nuclear-powered hunter-killer submarine, HMS Anson, emerged from a vast construction hall at Barrow-in-Furness, travelled down a slipway and entered the water. All 7,400 tonnes of it. Around 260 miles away in Plymouth, another submarine made its debut that same day. A minnow compared to HMS Anson, this secretive nine-tonne craft may have greater implications for the future of the navy than the £1.3bn nuclear boat. 

Italy’s Secretive Submarine Deal With Qatar: New Intelligence

Naval News – The world of Italian midget submarine construction is famously secretive. Deals are not talked about in the same way that larger submarine purchases inevitably are. Currently an Italian boatyard is building two small submarines for the Qatari Emiri Navy. That much can be treated as fact, yet few other details are available through traditional reporting. In the absence of details, speculation has been rife. Which company is building them? What will their capabilities be?

Israeli Warships Fire Missiles At Gaza While Hamas Takes Aim At Offshore Oil Platforms

War Zone – Reports, as well as video and photos from the Eastern Mediterranean, demonstrate that the Gaza conflict is rapidly expanding into the maritime domain, with Israeli missile strikes now being launched from vessels off the coast against reported Hamas targets in the self-governing Palestinian territory. At the same time, reports from both sides in the conflict confirm that Hamas militants are meanwhile launching rockets against Israeli natural gas platforms in the Mediterranean, which, in turn, are being defended by shipborne Iron Dome air defense systems, and other assets.