USNI News – With limited and costly ways for a surface warship to physically take out an incoming anti-ship missile, the Navy has been pursuing more ways a warship could use the power of electronic spectrum to splash threats. To that end, the first array of a massive update of the Navy’s surface electronic warfare systems is preparing for its ground tests later this year. 

War on the Rocks – The world’s most important strategic chokepoints lie in the Indian Ocean, making the region a key theater in geopolitical competition. Then why is it still missing from Washington’s Indo-Pacific priorities? U.S. Pacific Command was recently re-named United States Indo-Pacific Command in order to highlight the importance of the Indian Ocean region. Yet, the Indian Ocean, in its entirety, remains largely absent from the command’s priorities and engagements.

Navy Times – The crew of the fast-attack submarine Connecticut has been subjected to a bed bug infestation in their racks, and sailors assigned to the sub allege that the boat’s command has been slow to fix the problem.

USNI News – The sea services see themselves moving toward a future where they are just as likely to perform a mission with an unmanned platform as a manned one, based on the specifics of the mission and what assets are available. A third of the Navy’s fleet and half of Marine Corps aviation could be unmanned under this hybrid vision the two services are pursuing, which they argue in a new Department of the Navy Unmanned Campaign Framework is necessary to stay ahead of adversary capabilities without breaking the bank.

CIMSEC – There is a long-running debate in the United States Navy over building smaller aircraft carriers. These arguments generally focus on cost and hull count. Rather than dive into these arguments and attempt to argue for what should be done, we will instead explore how we use these arguments to rethink requirements and produce a more robust concept.

1945 – James Holmes writes that the competitor who blunders the least wins.

Defense News – The U.S. Navy’s Board of Inspection and Survey, commonly called INSURV, was established in 1868 to provide an independent evaluation of the condition of ships and their ability to perform their missions. This report reflects the 2020 evaluation based on 40 ship evaluations.

CIMSEC – The current structure of the Unified Command Plan bakes in an inefficient approach to the execution of the national grand strategy and its maritime component. When the United States enjoyed a robust force structure this inefficiency could be tolerated; in the current environment of resource scarcity it creates more strategic risk than is necessary by limiting the global mobility of naval forces, and to some extent other forces.