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– USNI Proceedings – To combat a rising China and transnational crime, U.S. maritime law enforcement experts should partner with local nations to increase training and capacity.
Military Times – The Russian navy conducted major war games near Alaska involving dozens of ships and aircraft, the biggest such drills in the area since Soviet times.
CIMSEC – The world is increasingly urban and littoral. This convergence between urbanization and the littoral, or littoralization, can lead to “the worst of both worlds” and may remake the littorals into hotspots of instability and conflict. At the same time, the U.S. Marine Corps is shifting its focus away from decades of counterinsurgency and irregular warfare in the Middle East.
Breaking Defense – With one icebreaker down, the US has one left in port — with no new ships scheduled to arrive for years.
USNI News – It’s growing more likely that components of the mine countermeasures mission package designed for the Littoral Combat Ship small combatant will end up also fielded on the Navy’s massive Lewis B. Puller-class expeditionary sea bases.
Breaking Defense – “If we do come to blows with China, it’s gonna be very confused for the first 30 or 45 days, and then we must fight in a distributed fashion,” said Maj. Gen. Tracy King, Marine Corps’ director of Expeditionary Warfare.
National Interest – History suggests how Taiwan’s defenders can overcome not just a blockade but an amphibious onslaught.
Breaking Defense – Existing amphibious ships might be the “Swiss Army Knife of the fleet,” but the Navy and Marines want an enemy who “jumps on it in the opening gambit…they’re gonna have the shock of their life.”
Foreign Affairs – The resurgence of U.S.-Chinese competition poses a host of challenges for policymakers—related to trade and economics, technology, global influence, and more—but none is more consequential than reducing the risk of war. Unfortunately, thanks to today’s uniquely dangerous mix of growing Chinese assertiveness and military strength and eroding U.S. deterrence, that risk is higher than it has been for decades, and it is growing.
War Zone – Russia is holding its largest naval drills in the Pacific in recent memory as the U.S. Navy’s big RIMPAC wargames are underway.
South China Morning Post – China’s efforts to modernize and expand its naval forces have once again kicked into high gear after disruptions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, pressing on with efforts to have at least four carrier strike groups in the next decade. But military watchers and insiders said that even without the coronavirus disruptions, China still had a long way to go to train the personnel it needed to realise its ambitions.
South China Morning Post – China is conducting military drills almost simultaneously in four sea regions, a rare move possibly designed to signal its readiness to handle confrontation with the United States and self-ruled Taiwan.
South China Morning Post – China is expected to launch an eighth guided-missile destroyer designed for the navy’s aircraft carrier strike groups llater this year.
South China Morning Post – China’s first Type 075 landing helicopter assault dock completed its first test voyage on Sunday, and is expected to join the Chinese Navy’s marines next year, military analysts said. However, a military insider said the amphibious warship was still awaiting the launch of the aircraft it would carry: the naval versions of the Z-8J and Z-20J, which are modified based on the air force’s Z-8 and Z-20 armed helicopters.
South China Morning Post – China launched two missiles, including an “aircraft-carrier killer”, into the South China Sea on Wednesday morning, a source close to the Chinese military said, sending a clear warning to the United States.
War Zone – China is making a big deal out of a supposed overflight by a U.S. Air Force U-2 spy plane of one of its currently underway People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) exercises.
Greek City Times – In previous days, the episode between the Greek Limnos frigate and the Turkish Kemal Reis frigate were broadcast to the world, as were the air confrontations between Greek and Turkish jets, but lesser known is what has been happening underwater with Turkish submarines in Greek maritime space.
(Thanks to Alain)
Greek City Times – There is undeniable superiority of Greek submarines over the Turkish ones, something that the Turkish lieutenant commander of the “Type 209” submarine, of older technology and German construction, discovered.
(Thanks to Alain)
Barents Observer – The USS Seawolf conducted a brief stop in the fjord near Tromsø on August 21 for personnel change before sailing out to waters inside the Arctic Circle.
Forbes – In a creative—some might say desperate—bid to bolster its amphibious fleet, the U.S. Navy in recent years has been building so-called “expeditionary sea-base ships” that are little more than commercial heavy-load carrier ships with a gray coat of paint and some military radios. Now the Chinese fleet has demonstrated the same creativity—or desperation. A commercial heavy-load carrier flying a Hong Kong flag recently supported a Chinese naval exercise, functioning as a base for at least two army helicopters.
(Thanks to Alain)
CIMSEC – There are three ways that Marines can help the Commandant reduce the inevitable friction associated with changing the Marine Corps to match emerging operational realities: creativity, concepts, and communications.
National Interest – James Holmes writes that it is incumbent on President Tsai and her advisers to mull the opportunity costs of the looming F-16V purchase. What Taipei spends on Vipers cannot be spent on something else, barring a major increase in the fraction of GDP allocated to defense. If $8 billion would buy platforms and weapons with greater operational and strategic heft, budgeteers should redirect funding to procure them.
– US Naval War College Review – Recent programs such as the littoral combat ship, the Zumwalt-class guided-missile destroyer, and the Ford-class aircraft carrier all have highlighted the Navy’s failure to produce innovative, afford-able ships in the quantity and of the quality needed to configure a larger, redesigned fleet. Unless the Navy can address mistakes made in these programs it will have difficulty innovating success-fully—with potentially disastrous consequences.
The Strategist – Anti-submarine warfare (ASW) has always been a game of hide and seek, with adversarial states looking to adopt and deploy emerging technologies in submarine stealth or detection to give them the strategic edge. The advantage has shifted back and forth, but, on the whole, it has proved easier to hide a submarine than find one: the oceans are wide, deep, dark, noisy, irregular and cluttered.
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