– Aviation Week – The die is cast and the U.S. Navy has made its big bet – the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS)-Next is going to be an uparmed and uparmored version of the current vessels that the service has redesignated as an FF, or fast frigate.

– War is Boring – And the admirals don’t seem to care…

– USNI News – Debate is raging over the utility of the aircraft carrier and whether it’s even relevant anymore in the face of China’s new, lethal anti-ship missiles. It’s a debate worth having, but it needs to be rooted in realistic naval principles and war precedents, not politics and hype.

– Politico – It’s too small—and getting smaller.

– National Interest – What would happen if U.S. nuclear attack submarines—some of the most sophisticated and expensive American weapons of war—suddenly became obsolete? Imagine a scenario where these important systems became the hunted instead of the hunter, or just as technologically backward as the massive battleships of years past. Think that sounds completely insane? If advances in big data and new detection methods fuse with the anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) ambitions of nations like China and Russia, naval planners around the world might have to go back to the drawing board.

– National Interest – A number of recent events underscore South Korea’s plans to establish a formidable submarine fleet to counter North Korea and other regional security threats.

– The Diplomat – A fascinating new paper by two academics asks us to question a fundamental assumption about China’s naval buildup.

– Aviation Week – Is the Littoral Combat Ship worth fixing?

– USNI News – The amphibious warship USS Iwo Jima (LHD- 7) is standing by in the event it would need to assist in the evacuation of U.S. embassy personnel from Yemen.

– USNI News – A January test of a Raytheon Tomahawk land attack missile (TLAM) against a moving target at sea could be a short-term answer to the U.S. Navy’s long-range anti-surface missile problem. The test – conducted off of San Nicolas Island, Calif. – demonstrated that a TLAM launched from a ship could be guided into a moving target at sea by a Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet.

– USNI News – Engineering studies to include an electromagnetic railgun on a Zumwalt-class destroyer (DDG-1000) have started at Naval Sea Systems Command.

– US Naval Institute Proceedings – You say you want a revolution? Autonomous unmanned vehicles could bring on the biggest one yet.

– US Naval Institute Proceedings – Instead of emphasizing the differences between today’s junior officers and their predecessors, senior leaders should focus on unlocking this generation’s potential.

– US Naval Institute Proceedings – The Navy needs a practical platform—one that is economic and adaptable—to fulfill its missions.

– US Naval Institute Proceedings – To counter China’s recent actions and maintain stability in the Western Pacific, the United States must find an effective strategy—soon.

– US Naval Institute Proceedings – As the Navy modifies its next surface combatant, it would do well to learn from the mistakes made with the littoral combat ship.

– US Naval Institute Proceedings – For more power in more places, the Navy should increase the offensive might of the surface force and employ ships in dispersed formations known as ‘hunter-killer surface action groups.’

– Foxtrot Alpha – The DDG-1000 Zumwalt Class Destroyer could very well revolutionize the way the Navy does its surface warfare business. One of its biggest innovations is ditching the cramped, darkly lit Combat Information Center (CIC), a fixture for many decades on past USN combat ships, and replacing it with the state-of-the-art, spacious, Star Trek bridge-like Ship’s Mission Center.

Breaking Defense – “If it floats, it fights,” Rear Adm. Peter Fanta says. “That’s ‘distributed lethality'[:] Make every cruiser, destroyer, amphib, LCS [Littoral Combat Ship], a thorn in somebody else’s side.”

– USNI News – Amphibious warship USS Green Bay (LPD-20) left Naval Station San Diego, Calif. on Monday to join the U.S. Navy’s forward deployed forces in Sasebo, Japan. The San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock (LPD-17) replaces the Austin-class LPD Denver (LPD-9) that was decommissioned in August

– Defense News – The US Navy ended nearly a year of speculation on Dec. 11 about what form the new small surface combatant would take with the announcement that it would move ahead with variants of both littoral combat ship designs. But that was only the beginning of a process to turn those ideas into a formal ship development and procurement program. Now, the holidays are over, and the service is getting to work.

– USNI Proceedings – To win the A2/AD challenge, the U.S. Navy must be prepared to best an adversary in the battles for information dominance, bases, undersea superiority, and precision strikes.

– Breaking Defense – Submarines have been America’s invisible advantage since World War II. But the oceans are getting more transparent.

– USNI News – The Pentagon has dropped the controversial name Air Sea Battle for its concept to defeat modern anti-access weapons and folded the accompanying Air Sea Battle Office (ASBO) into the Department of Defense’s Joint Staff.

– USNI News – Less than a month after U.S. Navy leaders announced modified versions of both variants of the Littoral Combat Ship would be the Navy’s pick for its for a more lethal and survivable small surface combatant, one of the chief LCS critics said the upgrades would do little to improve the survivability of the class.