Sea Power – A new Navy concept of mine countermeasures aims to deliver speed and agility to the fleet, vastly improving operational timelines.

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Virginian Pilot – A look at the improvements made to the USS Eisenhower.
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People’s Daily Online – The USS Blue Ridge makes a port call in China.
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Aviation Week and Space Technology – A look inside the Blue Angels flight demonstration team.
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Sea Power – Navy budget request is up in 2006 as cost of high-tech weapons keeps rising; some Marine Corps budget lines decline.

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Gulf Daily News – The USS Carl Vinson Carrier Strike Group has arrived in the Gulf.
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Associated Press – The USS Dwight D. Eisenhower finishes its Service Life Extension Program refit.
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Sea Power – The Navy is considering how to navigate the new strategic landscape depicted in Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s view of the future.
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News4Jax – The destroyer USS Spruance is slated for retirement after more than three decades of service.
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Virginian Pilot – Sailors comment on the pros and cons of the Sea Swap program.
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Associated Press – The USS Kearsarge Expeditionary Strike group is about to deploy with the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit onboard.
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Sea Power – As the Navy builds up its SEAL force dramatically, the integration of special operations and conventional forces is still a work in progress, drawing heavily from experience in Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom.

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Associated Press – The Navy plans to send the retired carrier USS America to the bottom of the Atlantic in explosive tests this spring, an end that is difficult to swallow for some who served on board.
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Virginian Pilot – The aircraft carrier John F. Kennedy has only ‘marginal capability’ and will soak up about $300 million a year the Navy should invest in new and better ships, Navy Secretary Gordon R. England said Wednesday.
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Associated Press – The U.S. military ended its tsunami relief in Aceh province on Wednesday when the medical ship USNS Mercy steamed out of the Indonesian region most devastated by the Dec. 26 disaster. The ship took away the last of the U.S. servicemen and women helping tsunami survivors in the province. The ship planned to stop in eastern Indonesia, at the other end of the countryís vast archipelago, to treat patients there on its way home.
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New York Times – U.S. Navy investigators have found that the officers on a nuclear submarine failed to take into account a variety of danger signs before the vessel smashed into an undersea mountain in January.
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Naval War College Review – Since 11 September 2001, the U.S. defense budget has risen by about 25 percent, after factoring out inflation. The reasons for such an increase are numerous: simultaneously fighting wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq, increases in military pay and benefits, and more money for some major weapons programs. In this same time period, money devoted to building the Navyís ships has only bounced around. In fiscal year 2001, the Navy spent $12 billion on ships. The Presidentís request for ships in 2005 is $11 billion. Why might this be the case?

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Virginian Pilot – If the USS John F. Kennedy were mothballed, what are the chances it would ever be brought back into service?
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Jakarta Post – The U.S. Navy hospital ship has been specially deployed in Aceh for the past three weeks to help treat tsunami victims.
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Sea Power – A look at the Advanced SEAL Delivery System (ASDS), a mini-submarine being developed by Northrop Grumman to covertly transport special operations forces from a submerged submarine to a shoreline or harbor and back.

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Associated Press – The USS Jimmy Carter, set to join the nation’s submarine fleet Saturday, will have some special capabilities, intelligence experts say: It will be able to tap undersea cables and eavesdrop on the communications passing through them.
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Virginian Pilot – The Navy expects to mothball the aircraft carrier John F. Kennedy after retiring it later this year, preserving vital systems so that the ship could return to the fleet if needed.
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Sea Power – The Navy and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) plan to pour $97 million during the next four years into a new joint project known as Tango Bravo, intended to lead to the design of a new attack submarine that would have all the capabilities of the current Virginia-class boats, but would be half the size and built at half the cost.

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Sea Power – While the public spotlight in Washington, D.C., is focused on defense numbers, as usual, relatively scant attention is being given to a nascent personnel management strategy that foretells of fundamental change to the Navy and its people, possibly to include several revolutionary shifts in the serviceís recruitment and staffing practices.

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Sea Power – A roundtable discussion on the future of the US shipbuilding industry.
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