– San Diego Union Tribune – As the third ship in the Navy’s littoral class left a Wisconsin shipyard this week, the inaugural step toward its eventual home in San Diego, the Navy billed it as an “exponential” improvement over the controversial first vessel in the line.

– Flight Global – The US Department of Defense needs to develop new unmanned aircraft that can survive inside contested airspace, as it shifts its focus toward the Pacific – but the services must invest in new technologies to seamlessly share intelligence data.

– Washington Post – A very interesting look at how AirSea Battle is playing out in the Pentagon…

– US Naval War College Review – The U.S. Navy has an integrity problem in the ranks of its commanding officers (COs). Although (as far as we can tell) over 97 percent of the Navy’s commanding officers conduct themselves honorably, the increasing number of those who do not raises concerns that the Navy must address.

– US Naval Institute Proceedings – Undersea warriors must learn from the past while handling a sophisticated network of manned and unmanned platforms and sensors.

– US Naval Institute Proceedings – The Navy must redesign a capable follow-on ballistic-missile submarine that it can afford.

– US Naval Institute Proceedings – Today’s tech-dependent, risk-averse submarine culture keeps young officers from developing warfighting skills crucial to success in conflict.

– US Naval Institute Proceedings – While the Navy appears to be doing a better job of selling itself to lawmakers and the American public, it still needs to improve its marketing, or the whole effort could blow up in its face.

– US Naval Institute Proceedings – Three bedrock lessons from the War of 1812 remain the basis for U.S. Navy operations in the 21st century.

– US Naval War College Review – For more than three decades, beginning soon after the end of World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union faced off against each other. The concept of “mutual assured destruction”-MAD, the U.S. threat of massive retaliation to a Soviet first strike-became America’s Cold War de facto strategic defense policy. In March 1983, however, President Ronald Reagan asked whether ballistic missiles could be destroyed before they reached the United States or its allies, thus catalyzing efforts for a national ballistic-missile-defense program that would undermine the need for MAD. That same year, the U.S. Navy commissioned USS Ticonderoga (CG 47), the first of what is to become a fleet of more than eighty Aegis warships. In 2012, these trends have converged, and Aegis ballistic-missile defense (BMD) is an increasingly important component of a robust national BMD System (BMDS).

– US Naval Institute Proceedings – The Secretary of the Navy says that the Navy and Marine Corps will be the long arm of a National Fleet central to U.S. military power.

– US Naval Institute Proceedings – Let’s just say it: AirSea Battle in East Asia is about China. Foreclosing its options is perhaps the surest way to deter aggression.

– Air Force – The US military is refocusing its attention on the threats and opportunities in Southeast Asia, a region often overlooked in the last decade.

– US Naval Institute Proceedings – The divisions between men and machines are crumbling, leading to an autonomous mechanized force.

– US Naval Institute Proceedings – The Chief of Naval Operations says we need to move from ‘luxury-car’ platforms-with their built-in capabilities-toward dependable ‘trucks’ that can handle a changing payload selection. Is this the beginning of the end of the F-35 in the US Navy?

– The Economist – An American admiral calls for new military thinking and questions stealth technology.

– San Diego Union Tribune – The point of the Rim of the Pacific exercises every two years: to practice major naval maneuvers. As the Pentagon shifts its focus to the Pacific after 11 years of desert warfare, the number of nations attracted to these month-long international maritime war games has exploded. Twenty-two countries – notably Russia for the first time – paid their own way to Hawaii, even a 21-man contingent of Marines from tiny Tonga and a platoon of Malaysian army rangers. Two years ago the list was 14 nations long, and in 2008 there were 10.

– Defense News – The original idea for the littoral combat ship (LCS) envisioned modular mission packages that could be rapidly swapped, so one ship could change missions easily from mine warfare, for example, to anti-submarine warfare over the course of a single deployment. But instead of taking just days to make the switch, it’s now apparent it could take weeks. An LCS assigned to a particular operation will likely operate in a single “come-as-you-are” configuration, requiring additional ships equipped with other mission modules to provide the flexibility the concept once promised.

– New York Times – One of the Navy’s oldest transport ships, now converted into one of its newest platforms for warfare, arrived in waters off Bahrain late last week, a major addition to the enlarged presence of American forces in the Persian Gulf designed as a counter to Iran.

– Daily Telegraph – The United States is to intensify its military build up in the Persian Gulf by deploying miniature underwater drones to hunt for Iranian mines.

– New York Times – CJ Chiver’s chronicles the evolution of close air support and the crucial role it plays in today’s wars.

– US Naval Institute Proceedings – There’s no time like the present to start looking into the proverbial crystal ball and thinking about a maritime strategy ‘refresh.’

– US Naval War College Review – Today’s American navy writes prolifically about maritime strategies but has not devoted equal attention to campaign plans or analysis that tests the strategies’ viability. We illustrate herein how the operational-or campaign-level links policy and strategy to the tactical and technological elements of war at sea. First, we relate how the U.S. Navy reluctantly came to accept the existence of an operational level of warfare but having done so will find it useful. Second, we describe important properties of naval operations in terms of constants, trends, and variables in warfare at and from the sea. Third, we demonstrate how operational- level planning would help if the Navy and the nation were to adopt six clearly stated, twenty-first-century strategies that would serve present and future national policies better than do current strategy documents.

– US Naval Institute Proceedings – Norman Friedman looks at what’s new and what’s not in ‘Sustaining U.S. Global Leadership: Priorities for 21st Century Defense?’

– US Naval Institute Proceedings – The Navy has to work out its strategy-tactics confusion; until then, it will continue to put the budgetary cart before the strategic horse.