– Breaking Defense – In 2016, the Defense Department flew aircraft or steamed ships through territories claimed by Albania, Brazil, Italy, Japan, Malta, and, well, China, according to the Pentagon’s annual report released today. So should Beijing be relieved it was not the sole focus of American Freedom of Navigation Operations (FONOPS) or should it feel slighted that it wasn’t our sole focus? Of course, China’s Pacific pushiness does get pride of place, with the most extensive single entry — but the 22-nation list also includes US allies and neutral powers like tiny Malta.

– USNI News – Iran is developing a submarine that could launch an anti-ship cruise missile designed to quickly sink an American warship operating in the Strait of Hormuz.

– USNI News – While rough seas and queasy stomachs tested some 350 Japanese soldiers and command staffs who took to sea aboard Navy ships for exercise Iron Fist, time might be their greatest obstacle. The members of the Japanese Ground Self Defense Force’s Western Area Infantry Regiment training in California are part of a fledgling force that will become the JGSDF first Amphibious Ready Deployment Brigade. That unit is tasked with creating a credible, ready force to conduct amphibious operations and defend its islands by next year.

– The Art of the Future Project – Jeremy Shapiro’s poignant fictional piece in Foreign Policy, This is How NATO Ends, bristles the academic, humors the skeptic, as it paints a dark future for the 68-year-old alliance. Good fictional speculation should draw on history to explore and challenge through imagination; it is the reader’s role to test his or her own assumptions as well by putting themselves in another person’s shoes.

– The Economist – Analysing images from space could be big business.

– CNN – The Russian spy ship Leonov sits 30 miles off the coast of Connecticut. This is the farthest north the Russian spy vessel has ever ventured.

– Defense News – Responding to a growing number of dangerous incidents in waters around Yemen, the US Navy is expanding its presence in the Red Sea, especially around the Bab el Mandeb strait at the southern entrance to the waterway.

– Breaking Defense – he Navy needs a bigger fleet of smaller ships than envisioned in its official Force Structure Assessment, says a congressionally-chartered study from the Center for Strategic & Budgetary Assessments.

– National Interest – China has parlayed the world’s second-largest economy and second-largest defense budget into the world’s largest ongoing comprehensive naval buildup, which has already yielded the world’s second-largest navy. All that is only part of an extraordinary maritime transformation—modern history’s sole example of a land power becoming a hybrid land-sea power on a sustained basis. Underwriting this transition are a vast network of ports, shipping lines and financial systems, and increasingly advanced ships. It also raises the rare prospect of a top-tier non-Western sea power in peacetime, one of the few instances to occur since the Ming Dynasty developed cutting-edge nautical technologies and briefly projected unrivaled power across the Indian Ocean six centuries ago. These factors raise a critical question for our age: Where is China headed at sea, and to what end?

– CIMSEC – Far from the battlegrounds of East Ukraine and Syria another confrontation with Russia is brewing. As the Arctic ice retreats countries with claims in the Arctic are more willing to extract the resources found in this inhospitable location. The U.S. estimates the Arctic seabed is home to about 15 percent of the world’s remaining oil, up to 30 percent of its natural gas deposits, and about 20 percent of its liquefied natural gas. Like the U.S., Canada, Denmark and Norway, Russia has its own claim on a section of the Arctic which it is now looking to defend and expand. Today we are witnessing a resurgent Russia in the Arctic, deploying more troops and equipment to the Arctic in support of its claims.

– New York Times – The United States no longer has a strategic monopoly on artificial intelligence technology, which is widely seen as the key factor in the next generation of warfare. The Pentagon’s plan to bring A.I. to the military is taking shape as Chinese researchers assert themselves in the nascent technology field.