– Aviation Week – Cmdr. Patrick Thien, the commanding officer of the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS-1) USS Freedom, bristles at the thought that he would take it easy on his ship’s engines and generators.

– The Diplomat – Past fears that carriers were vulnerable to new technologies weren’t proven right… nor were they proven wrong.

– US Naval Institute Proceedings – Now is the time for supporters of American sea power to promote the U.S. Navy’s unique strategic role in national security. Will the next Theodore Roosevelt please step forward?

– AP – The U.S. Navy plans to increase sonar testing over the next five years, even as research it funded reveals worrying signs that the loud underwater noise could disturb whales and dolphins.

– Virginian Pilot – Navy testing and training could kill dozens of dolphins, whales and other sea mammals and injure thousands more over the next five years, according to the service’s own analysis. But while environmental groups say those estimates only scratch the surface of the impact that sonar and explosives can have on sea life, the Navy believes that most of those injuries would be temporary, that the numbers will likely be lower and that the long-term effects on the species will be negligible.

– Air Force – DOD is beefing up operations at Andersen Air Force Base and throughout the Marianas.

– US Naval Institute Proceedings – The Ohio -class replacement program should be canceled; it is a costly anachronism in a changed global nuclear landscape.

– Aviation Week – The US Navy’s aviation simulation master plan for 2020 calls for progressively boosting the fidelity of individual simulators among Navy aircraft as well as the connectivity between simulators located anywhere. Rather than eliminate live aircraft training, the simulator plan is designed to cautiously and progressively increase the amount of cost-saving virtual training while maintaining enough in-aircraft practice to ensure safety.

– US Naval Institute Proceedings – Detractors consider the Air-Sea Battle concept to be an overarching strategy that excludes land forces. That is simply not the case, and here’s why.

– Aviation Week – There may be a new sheriff in LCS Town, but I wouldn’t expect much to change with the program.

– USNI News – The Pentagon is preparing a ship-borne facility to neutralize of Syrian chemical weapons at sea. MV Cape Ray (T-AKR-9679) — a ship in the U.S. Maritime Administration’s (MARAD)Ready Reserve Force — will be leased by the Navy through U.S. Military Sea Lift Command to field a chemical weapon disposal package.

– Aviation Week – The Joint High Speed Vessel (JHSV), which already has garnered attention for its operational promise, is now getting rave reviews for, shall we say, its programmatic prowess.

– USNI News – The U.S. Navy has demonstrated the launch of a small unmanned aircraft from submarine for the first time, the service announced in a statement on Dec. 5. The successful test could herald the arrival of potentially revolutionary new intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities for the Navy’ submarine force and special warfare communities.

– War on the Rocks – An insightful summary of the state of the US Navy today.

– The Diplomat – With the U.S. Navy’s diminishing submarines and outdated armaments, the undersea balance in Asia is changing.

– Aviation Week – The Joint High-Speed Vessel (JHSV) program is certainly getting a lot of attention these days.

– BBC – The body charged with overseeing the destruction of Syria’s chemical weapons has confirmed some will be “neutralised” aboard a US Navy ship.

– CNN – The deafening roar of state-of-the-art warplanes being catapulted into the air from its huge flight deck signaled that the USS George Washington was back in combat mode after its recent detour to the Philippines to take part in the aid effort in the wake of Super Typhoon Haiyan…

– BBC – The US has flown two B-52 bombers over disputed islands in the East China Sea in defiance of new Chinese air defence rules, officials say.

– USNI News – The U.S. Navy appears to have shifted its position on the requirements for its next generation carrier-based unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). Instead of developing the planned Unmanned Carrier Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike (UCLASS) to only conduct operations in uncontested airspace, the service will instead pursue a design that can be adapted over time to operating against higher threat levels.

– War is Boring – Sometime apparently in August, the U.S. Navy nuclear-powered attack submarine USS Seawolf eased out of the port of Bremerton, in Washington State, on what was probably her fifth or sixth deployment since commissioning in 1997. A month later the U.S. Sixth Fleet, in charge of ships in European waters, posted a series of photos to the Website Flickr depicting the U.S. ambassador to Norway, Barry White, touring the 350-foot-long Seawolf pierside at Haakonsvern naval base … in southern Norway. Thousands of miles from Washington State. How Seawolf got to Norway—and what she might have done en route—offer a rare and tantalizing glimpse into some of the most secretive quarters of the most poorly understood aspects of American naval power.

– Stratus Military Reform Project – In 1959, The U.S. Navy commissioned its final diesel-electric submarine combatant, the USS Blueback, which served until 1990. She was the last of her kind in the American Navy because of its insistence, or some would say, dogma, that all combatant submarines must be nuclear powered. After all, diesel-electric submarines are merely surface ships that can submerge only for short periods of time. They are too slow as well, and for these reasons primarily, they are thought to be inferior to nuclear submarines. At least that’s the way the U.S. Navy thinks, but I would like to suggest that this thinking is wrong. Not just wrong, actually, but expensive and unreasonable as well. Conventional submarines, especially those with the incredibly quiet and long lasting Air Independent Propulsion (AIP), are arguably an essential weapon for any modern navy, including the U.S. Navy, for reasons that follow….

– USNI News – The Navy has selected a design concept to replace its nuclear guided missile submarines (SSGNs). Late last month NAVSEA and the Navy settled on a design concept for the Virginia Payload Module, a $743 million design change in the Virginia-class nuclear attack submarines (SSN-774) that will eventually replace the current Ohio-class SSGNs as part of the Block V iteration of the attack boat. The design will extend the hull by approximately 70 feet to include four so-called Virginia Payload Tubes (VPT) each containing seven Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles (TLAMs).

– National Interest – The mounting challenge presented by China’s military modernization has led the United States to review existing military strategies and to conceptualize new ones, as illustrated by the ongoing debate over AirSea Battle (ASB), a new concept of operations put forward by the Department of Defense. But in the universe of possible strategies, the idea of a naval blockade deserves greater scrutiny. By prosecuting a naval blockade, the United States would leverage China’s intense dependence on foreign trade—particularly oil—to debilitate the Chinese state. A carefully organized blockade could thus serve as a powerful instrument of American military power that contributes to overcoming the pressing challenge of China’s formidable anti-access and area denial (A2/AD) system. A blockade could also be easily paired with alternate military strategies, including those based on ASB.

– War is Boring – Giant dock ship can carry jump jets, copters, hovercraft—and for cheap.