– Stars and Stripes – The Navy has completed its latest assessment of the Arctic region, where melting ice is raising strategic questions as well as commercial opportunities.

– Virginian Pilot – Navy ships began heading to sea or moving to piers with better weather protection Thursday. The vessels that embarked won’t have trouble outrunning the hurricane.

– Defense Technology International – A company claims to have developed “the first supercavitating ship”.

– US Naval Institute Proceedings – Do our foreign-policy interests compromise our readiness against asymmetric threats?

– US Naval Institute Proceedings – As the U.S. Navy’s submarine force faces tighter budgets, it could learn a thing or two from solutions that surfaced from an informal Submarine Officers Conference in the 1920s.

– US Naval Institute Proceedings – A former submarine procurement guru details what was behind the Virginia–class program, one of the most talked-about cost-saving acquisitions in Department of Defense history.

– US Naval Institute Proceedings – In a world where defense budgets are shrinking but the U.S. submarine force remains vital to security, viability tomorrow requires stringent planning today.

– Wired– Back in 2009, the Navy and the Air Force secretly shook hands on a new way to work together to fight future wars against major powers. It’s called AirSea Battle, and not much about it has been made public. But the Air Force’s second in command publicly fretted on Wednesday that some of its core components might not be affordable.

– Virginian Pilot – The $2 billion warship experienced problems with all four of its engines – forcing one to be shut down – on a recent training mission. The Navy still expects to begin a 20-week, pre-deployment training on schedule in August.

– Defense Technology International – What’s been reported elsewhere is that investigators have focused on pilot hypoxia (lack of oxygen) as the primary cause for the November 16 crash of an F-22 operating from Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Alaska, and in particular on the functioning of the onboard oxygen generating system (Obogs). What hasn’t been reported is that there is a history of Obogs-related hypoxia issues in the world’s biggest fleet of Obogs-equipped fighters, the bulk of the US Navy Hornet and Super Hornets.

– CNN – Three U.S. Navy ships arrived Friday – as welcome guests – at the Vietnamese port of Da Nang.

– US Naval Institute Proceedings – The Navy’s new doctrine should include several related operational concepts for planning and executing future conflicts.

– Virginian Pilot – The Navy moved a step closer to unmanned carrier-based aerial combat last weekend when a modified F/A-18D Hornet made its first carrier touchdown without a pilot’s guiding hands.

– Aviation Week and Space Technology – Even on an island of unique buildings anchoring the premiere U.S. Navy maritime testing grounds for the service’s most sophisticated air and ballistic missile defense radar systems, the building that those here call the “Taj Mahal” stands apart, gleaming eggshell white near the ocean’s edge.

– Washington Post – The Navy has fired a dozen commanding officers this year, a near-record rate, with the bulk getting the ax for offenses related to sex, alcohol or other forms of personal misconduct.

– Wired – The Navy’s newest warship is slowly disappearing, one molecule at a time.

– Associated Press – Russia is voicing concern about a U.S. warship now just off its shores in the Black Sea. The guided-missile cruiser USS Monterey, which is taking part in annual joint military exercises conducted by NATO and Ukraine, is an integral part of U.S. plans to create a missile shield in Europe, which Russia opposes.

– BBC – A US warship intercepted and halted a North Korean vessel that was bound for Burma and was suspected of carrying missile technology.

– Aviation Week – The sign outside the Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII) Composites Facility in Gulfport, Miss., states the company’s optimism about the potential for advanced materials in U.S. Navy shipbuilding: “Composites, the Wave of the Future.”

– US Naval Institute Proceedings – With smaller and lighter unmanned aircraft coming into the mix, the United States can also deploy smaller and lighter—and less expensive—ships to carry them.

– Associated Press – The U.S. is developing aircraft carrier-based drones that could provide a crucial edge as it tries to counter China’s military rise.

– San Diego Union Tribune – Cmdr. Shanti Sethi is the first Indian American woman to command a U.S. Navy warship. So when Sethi’s ship, the destroyer Decatur, docked in India this spring, it was a singular moment in history.

– Aviation Week – The Navy signed a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) with the Army on May 2 transferring all five of the Army’s Joint High Speed Vessels (JHSV) to the Navy.

– Virginian Pilot – In a string of firsts associated with Wednesday’s deployment, Rear Adm. Nora Tyson, shown, will be a part of history as the first female commander of a carrier strike group. The deployment also coincides with the 100th anniversary of naval aviation.

– Defense Technology International – While pirate attacks have increased, we’ve also seen an increased willingness on the part of U.S., French, Russian and South Korean special forces to get kinetic, boarding and forcibly retaking some of these pirated ships–a risky proposition given that they’re facing an armed and unpredictable enemy–which makes attempts at gaining situational awarness a critical part of the operation. In order to do that, some think it’s time to call in the robots.