Russia’s Naval Shift: Offensive USVs and Their Strategic Role in the Baltic Sea

Naval News – The Russian Navy recently concluded a fleet wide naval exercise, with the exception of the Black Sea Fleet, called July Storm. The exercise took place between July 23-27 and included a notable event during with the deployment of two new Russian unmanned surface vessels (USVs) that engaged and destroyed a floating surface target.

Sustaining the Fight: Challenges of Distributed Maritime Operations​

Center for Maritime Strategy – The emergence of peer competition and the increase of adversarial capability has driven the U.S. Navy to adopt the concept of Distributed Maritime Operations (DMO) as a guiding framework for how it will fight the next high-end war at sea. DMO presents a compelling vision for building a combat-credible force capable of maintaining maritime dominance in a contested environment. However, to properly implement this concept, a more clearly defined and rigorous approach is essential. As the Navy works to modernize and operationalize DMO, it must address two critical sustainment challenges: (1) logistics and (2) munition stockpiles.

Beijing’s South China Sea Campaign of Intimidation Has Run Aground

War on the Rocks – During a June 17 speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, U.S. Pacific Fleet commander Adm. Steve Koehler declared that despite an ongoing campaign of intimidation against its smaller neighbors in the South China Sea, “China’s pressure is not working well. It has failed to intimidate Southeast Asian claimants and make them surrender their sovereign rights.”

Black Sea battle: how Ukraine’s drones overpowered the Russian Navy

Navy Lookout – In less than three years, Ukraine has achieved staggering successes against the Russian navy in the Black Sea through an agile, low-cost campaign of uncrewed surface vehicles (USV) and drone strikes. Here we look at the details of this campaign and the profound implications for procurement, tactics and doctrine for global navies.

Insights on the French ‘Clemenceau 25’ Indo-Pacific Deployment

Naval News – At a private event focusing on France’s strategy in the Indo-Pacific, senior officers from the French Navy, including an Admiral, shared some details about Clemenceau 25 revealing behind-the-scenes details of a particularly intense deployment in terms of operations, diplomacy and technology. The latter enabled the full capabilities of the French carrier strike group (CSG) to be deployed and major technological firsts to be conducted.