– The Diplomat – The U.S. Navy’s post-Cold War holiday from history is drawing to a close—if it hasn’t expired already.

– Aviation Week – Bill Sweetman writes that nowhere other than inside the Pentagon will you find more truth in Machiavelli’s warning about the hazards of change: “There is nothing more difficult to plan, more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to manage … For the initiator has the enmity of all who would profit by the preservation of the old institution and merely lukewarm defenders in those who gain by the new.”

– USNI News – Video of the first F-35C trap.

– Aviation Week – With the recent commissioning of the amphibious assault ship LHA 6 USS America in its new San Diego home, the U.S. Navy may be getting ready to soon deploy a perfect kind of ship to roam the waters of the Asia-Pacific.

– Information Dissemination – *Excellent* series of posts by Jon Solomon on the Soviet Union’s strategies and tactics for using the Backfire bomber in the Cold War and the lessons they teach us in today’s AA/AD environment. Make sure to read all 5 posts indexed at the top of this one.

– Navy Times – The flip-flop of two carrier deployments has revealed the Achilles’ heel of the latest deployment plan — designed to make ship schedules more predictable — before it was even able to get started.

– USNI News – The George H.W. Bush Carrier Strike Group (CSG) has left U.S. 5th Fleet headed home after seven months of supporting air operations in the Middle East.

– USNI News – Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus has signed an internal memo recommending the service base its next generation amphibious warship (LX(R)) on the existing San Antonio-class (LPD-17) warship design.

– USNI News – The U.S. command ship USS Mount Whitney (LCC-20) has left the Black Sea after several port calls with allies in the region.

– Breaking Defense – The Navy is crafting a battle plan to retake control of the electromagnetic spectrum, which the Pentagon’s chief of research says we’ve lost.

– Navy Times – It’s been nearly 40 years since the Navy started its relationship with the Harpoon missile, but now the service seems to have eyes for another surface-to-surface anti-ship missile: A younger, more agile Norwegian.

– Defense News – Bigger often means better, especially when the discussion is about one gun versus another. But a decision to replace a secondary weapon on the US Navy’s new Zumwalt-class destroyer with a smaller gun caliber is raising some eyebrows within the surface warfare community.

– Defense One – Much of the discussion and fear of armed unmanned vehicles ignores a central fact. Aerial drones like the Predator or Reaper are operated by two-man human teams, a pilot to steer the drone and a sensor operator to control the various mechanical eyes and ears. The boats that participated in the event on the James River were able to sense one another as well as other vessels, and execute complicated “swarm” maneuvers, with a bare minimum of guidance. These boats are not your average drones.

– Foxtrot Alpha – As part of San Francisco’s Fleet Week festivities, the US Navy had a high-profile commissioning ceremony for the USS America LHA-6, the fourth US Navy ship to bear the name and the first in a new class of amphibious assault ships that are really more like aircraft carriers, yet somehow, compromised as both.

– Breaking Defense – The Navy’s research arm is justifiably proud of its recent experiment with “swarming” drone boats, whose results (with video) were officially released today. But the very thing that’s most impressive about the swarmboats — their ability to act autonomously with minimal human guidance — raises crucial questions about when we can trust a robot to pull the trigger in combat.

– USNI News – The U.S Navy has declared initial operational capability (IOC) with the Northrop Grumman E-2D Advanced Hawkeye.

– War is Boring – The U.S. Navy has sent its most advanced battle command ship the USS Mount Whitney into the Black Sea to reassure allies rattled by an aggressive Russia. And while she’s there, the ship also has a chance to snoop on Moscow’s military moves.

– USNI News – The five ships of the Carl Vinson Carrier Strike Group (CSG) have entered the U.S. Navy’s Middle East area of operations — U.S. 5th Fleet.

– Weekly Standard – The misbegotten plan to shrink the U.S. submarine fleet.

– War is Boring – The Navy has long wanted to get into the robot game. The admirals are envious of the Air Force’s hundreds of flying drones, and the sailing branch is working on a carrier-launched drone of its own. But now the Navy is creating swarms of robotic gunboats and testing them on the James River in Virginia.

– USNI News – The U.S. command ship USS Mount Whitney (LCC-20) entered the Black Sea on Saturday — a day after guided missile destroyer USS Cole (DDG-67) — bringing the total of American naval ships in the region to two, according on a release from U.S. 6th Fleet. The French signals intelligence ship — Dupuy de Lôme (A759) — is also due in the Black Sea by Friday.

– Defense News – The US Navy’s stealth destroyer will go to sea next spring.

– Defense News – Congress again is hung up on a budget, but lawmakers have left town to fight the midterm elections, leaving the Pentagon to wait and see what happens in one budget year before it can nail down the next. Meanwhile, there’s work to do, and the US Navy has several major decision points coming up — questions that need to be decided regardless what Congress ultimately comes up with.

– USNI News – The U.S. is sending the guided missile destroyer USS Cole into the Black Sea on Friday as part of an ongoing presence mission in the region since Russia seized the Crimea region of Ukraine in March.