– Associated Press – When U.S. Navy helicopters returned from a humanitarian mission on the first weekend following Japan’s earthquake and tsunami, Lt. j.g. James Powell felt a slight unease.

– Virginian Pilot – Congress’ inability to approve a 2011 budget is causing significant problems for the Navy, officials say, by delaying ship repairs; reducing aircraft flight hours and ship steaming hours; postponing construction projects; and disrupting the orderly moves of sailors and their families.

– Washington Post – When some Chinese naval officers crossed the Pacific to visit the Naval War College here on an Atlantic-lapped island, they gazed reverently at a desk used by Capt. Alfred Thayer Mahan (1840-1914). This compliment to America’s preeminent naval strategist has scholars here wondering whether Mahan’s Chinese readers are taking from him lessons similar to those Theodore Roosevelt derived.

– Washington Post – Scholars at the Naval War College here probably nodded in vigorous agreement with a recent lecture delivered at another military institution 130 miles away. Speaking at West Point to leaders of tomorrow’s Army, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said that “any future defense secretary who advises the president to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should ‘have his head examined,’ as General MacArthur so delicately put it.” This underscored Gates’s point that “the most plausible, high-end scenarios for the U.S. military are primarily naval and air engagements – whether in Asia, the Persian Gulf or elsewhere.”

– BBC – Nice summary of the military assets currently operating against Libya.

– Air & Space – The new, supersonic face of e-warfare.

– US Naval Institute Proceedings – In the 1916 Battle of Jutland, two Royal Navy battlecruisers exploded because their armor had been sacrificed for speed, famously prompting Admiral David Beatty to remark, “There seems to be something wrong with our bloody ships today.” In our day, as littoral combat ship (LCS) construction continues, many mutter similar complaints. The trimaran hull of the Independence class causes some of the dismay, but even more so for naval planners is the sacrifice of armor and armament for high speed.

– US Naval Institute Proceedings – In light of global economic and strategic realities, here’s how the Navy of the future might look.

– Virginian Pilot – Crew members of the Bulkeley came to the aid of a Japanese vessel on Saturday and arrested the four Somalis suspected of trying to hijack it. The Bulkeley was one of four U.S. Navy ships that tried last month to free four Americans off East Africa who were later shot and killed.

– Wall Street Journal – Sixty ships were commonly underway in America’s seaward approaches in 1998, but today there are only 20. We are abdicating our role on the oceans.

– Virginian Pilot – After two years, multiple breakdowns and more than $40 million in fixes, the amphibious transport dock is nearly ready for sea tests. The ship’s troubles, estimated in the thousands, included major engine problems.

– Washington Post – The deaths of a US couple, at the hands of pirates who had ostensibly entered into negotiations with commanders aboard the nearby USS Sterett, reflected the increasingly violent ways of Somali pirates who have been pushing further out to sea in search of victims.

– Aviation Week and Space Technology – The U.S. Navy is building on the successful first flight of the stealthy, tailless Northrop Grumman X-47B demonstrator as a pivotal step toward the long-held goal of marrying persistent, autonomous unmanned intelligence and strike aircraft with the reach of its fleet of aircraft carriers.

– Associated Press – A new “carrier killer” missile that has become a symbol of China‘s rising military might will not force the U.S. Navy to change the way it operates in the Pacific, a senior Navy commander told the Associated Press.

– Associated Press – As if life on a submarine wasn’t already stressful enough, with its cramped quarters, long work hours and weeks at sea, thousands of smokers on the U.S. Navy’s submarine fleet recently got an unwelcome ultimatum from Uncle Sam. As of last month, all submarines in the U.S. Navy are officially smoke free — and it’s been a tense transition.

– Armed Forces Journal – Like a ship’s hull with too many barnacles, seabasing is laden with unnecessary conceptual debris that has obscured its central tenets and confused its core strengths. As the Navy ponders its roles and corresponding force structure for the coming decades, it is worth putting seabasing in dry dock and stripping it clean. Only then will a vision appropriate to the 21st century emerge.

– US Naval Institute Proceedings – A former surface warfare officer looks at the cause and effect of the recent spate of surface-ship commanding officer firings.

– The Economist – America’s navy is developing an antenna made of seawater

– Aviation Week and Space Technology – On the American ballistic submarine USS Maine in waters off the Florida coast not too long ago, two submariners eyed a U.S. aircraft carrier through their periscope in the roiling sea. “I think it’s the Washington,” one submariner said. “It doesn’t matter — it doesn’t know we’re here,” the other replied, eyeing the carrier through the scope. “Bang,” he said. “You’re dead.”

– BBC – When British troops in Helmand need air support, it doesn’t only come from airfields within Afghanistan itself – it may come from a floating runway 500 miles away.

– Air Force – A force buildup on Guam anchors a broad US military strategy to keep China in check.

– US Naval Institute Proceedings – It is clear that the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) program cannot live up to expectations. Yet the surface Navy still badly needs low-end ships for littoral and maritime-security missions.

– US Naval War College Review – A very interesting article looking at how to use low-cost and cheap obscurants to defeat Chinese antiship cruise missiles and antiship ballistic missiles.

– US Navy – Small-boat simulator tests Little Creek crew’s mettle – More and more, the Navy is turning to simulators to train its sailors. Its Expeditionary Combat Command, which oversees the maritime security teams, owns more than 100. They can replicate everything from interacting with locals in Afghanistan to operating a crane during a humanitarian mission, responding to small-arms fire in a war zone or leading a supply convoy in Iraq.

– Defense Technology International – Bill Sweetman’s update on the state of the F-35B STOVL variant.