– Defense News – Four littoral combat ships are on track to be available to deploy in 2019, the head of the U.S. surface Navy told Defense News in an interview.

– Defense News – The U.S. Navy is slowly making progress to restore to fighting condition its hard-worn fleet of F/A-18 Super Hornet fighters, which last year had just one in three of its fighters ready to deploy.

– BBC – US submarine hunting aircraft are to operate out of RAF Lossiemouth on the Moray Firth.

– US Naval War College Review – New gadgets are useful, but our personnel are the most critical component to continued operational success. The Third Offset Strategy provides a near-unique opportunity to leap forward in optimizing human performance. We must establish priorities, tangible deliverables, and a timeline.

– USNI Proceedings – Advances in artificial intelligence, coupled with popular movies such as Ex Machina where robots turn on their humans, have exacerbated concerns the military might lose control of armed autonomous systems. Augmented intelligence may be the answer.

– USNI Proceedings – In October 2016, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the Navy gave the public a glimpse into the future of aerial combat in the skies above Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake.

– CHIPS – A discussion with NPS faculty and students from Captain Wayne Hughes.

– USNI Proceedings – To enable true mission command, the Navy must dismantle its zero-defect mentality. It is doubtful World War II heroes Chester Nimitz, Ernest King, and Raymond Spruance would reach even the rank of captain today.

– USNI Proceedings – The Navy has a blind spot about offensive mining, but technological advances and a new concept of operations could make it a game changer.

– USNI News – In 1970 in the Mediterranean, the USS Independence (CVA-62) and the Soviet destroyer shadowing her activated their fire-control radars and locked onto each other. The author, a young ensign at the time, recalls his disappointment when the tensions came to naught but concludes the strength of Sixth Fleet kept the Soviets from pushing too far.

– US Naval War College Review – Naval officers must understand the considerations required to exert effective mission command as operations devolve into forms characterized by lesser degrees of structure and control.

– USNI Proceedings – Long the centerpiece of the U.S. Navy, the aircraft carrier will become a more focused player.

– US Naval War College Review – The political, economic, and financial aspects of sustaining an oil blockade against China mean that even a militarily successful blockader could find its political, economic, and diplomatic position untenable well before a blockade could exert its full effects.

– USNI Proceedings – More than century ago, Jules Verne envisioned what an individual might do if able to operate uncontested in the underwater domain. Captain Nemo, the iconic antihero in Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea , harnessed his wealth and engineering genius to build the ultimate disruptive machine of his time, the submarine Nautilus . Today, the undersea domain is an active arena of competition, but nonstate actors do not play a significant role. That almost certainly will change in the next decade, and the United States is not prepared for the threat this new reality will present.

– CIMSEC – A conversation with CAPT Wayne Hughes, USN (Ret.) and RADM Robert Girrier, USN (Ret.) about the new edition of Fleet Tactics and Naval Operations.

– USNI Proceedings – Artificial intelligence and autonomous systems will disrupt the traditional calculation of military power. To adapt, the United States must stay nimble and ramp up investments in learning, research, and development.

– War Zone – The price of a single Ford class supercarrier is approaching the size of the entire annual defense budget of Canada.

– Defense News – The U.S. surface fleet’s brand-new anti-ship missile was used as part of the barrage of rockets and missiles that put an end to the landing ship tank Racine on July 12 during the Rim of the Pacific exercise, but it wasn’t shot by the Navy.

– War on the Rocks – Energy for military operations in the geographically vast Pacific region still primarily takes the form of military-grade fuels used by ships and aircraft. That fuel is still mostly stored in fuel terminals in known locations, many of which are in range of potential adversaries’ aircraft, submarines, and surface-to-surface missiles. The United States relies on an inadequate number of overtasked fleet tankers to support logistically fragile operational concepts (in contrast to southwest Asia and Europe, where it is often possible to move military fuel by other means, such as pipelines and ground transportation). Because of the enormous quantities of fuel required to support military operations in the Pacific and elsewhere, the military is increasingly aware of the tension between war plans and their underlying fuel logistics.

– CIMSEC – The stand-up of a new NATO Maritime headquarters in Norfolk, Virginia, the re-establishment of the U.S. Navy’s East Coast-based Second Fleet and the prospect for a new NATO Maritime Strategy this year have again fueled interest in naval warfare in the wider Atlantic Ocean.

– Breaking Defense – America’s nuclear deterrent is aging, with a half-dozen replacement programs on the horizon. But the young men and women who serve, Gen. John Hyten said, are better than ever: “They love this country. They want to defend this country. They go to work every day. They’re amazing — they’re smarter than we were, by far. They get motivated differently so you have to lead them differently, but their passion is just the same.”

– Defense News – The Harry S. Truman carrier strike group is returning to Norfolk after just three months on deployment, a dramatic shift from the Navy’s standard seven-month deployment and a move that has been signaled at the highest levels of the military as the Navy moves to rebuild readiness and surge capacity.

– National Interest – A “ship” is more than a hunk of steel that rides the bounding main. It is an expression of human ideas and history in steel. It’s a composite of materiel, human beings, and history. Therein lies its allure.

– USNI News – The three-ship Essex Amphibious Ready Group and the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit left San Diego, Calif., on Tuesday with little fanfare for an expected Western Pacific and Middle East deployment.

– Defense News – The new head of U.S. Pacific Fleet is walking back from a throw-back command structure championed by his predecessor that had the San Diego-based head of U.S. 3rd Fleet take tactical control of ships in the Asia Pacific region, a role usually taken over by the Japan-based U.S. 7th Fleet once ships sail west of Hawaii.