– USNI News – Fires are a constant worry for any ship, and every sailor is taught from their earliest days in the service that damage control is everyone’s responsibility. However, that responsibility becomes more complex when a ship is in maintenance. Fewer sailors are typically aboard, and opportunities are greater to spark a fire from welding or other hot work.

– War Zone – The Navy says it is throwing everything it has at fighting the blaze on the stricken amphibious assault ship as it enters into its 28th hour.

– USNI News – The USS Bonhomme Richard (LHD-6) continued to burn after the sun had set in San Diego. It now appears that the fire has migrated to the ship’s island superstructure with its bridge seen engulfed in flames, which is a very bad thing. Additional large booms were also heard as the blaze continued to rage aboard some 14 hours after it started.

– USNI Proceedings – As the Navy and Marine Corps adapt to distributed maritime operations and distributed lethality, the types of aircraft carriers and their roles also must adapt.

– Defense One – Fleet-force planning has been seized by a Joint Staff and Defense Secretary who put budget-slicing before strategy.

– War Zone – For the past three weeks, there has been a big increase in U.S. military air activity in the Bashi Channel between Taiwan and the Philippines.

– War Zone – Not since the introduction of the F/A-18A Hornet in the 1980s has the famed schoolhouse had to adapt to such an advance in air combat capability.

– War Zone – The U.S. Navy expects to have eight warships, in total, equipped with the Optical Dazzling Interdictor, Navy, or ODIN, a laser directed energy weapon system, within the next three years.

– Defense News – The officer overseeing the deployment of the carrier Gerald R. Ford was fired Wednesday, the latest jolt to the trouble program that has been operating under a microscope as technical problems with nearly two dozen new technologies bundled into the lead ship have piled up.

– USNI News – The U.S. and Chinese navies are holding competing naval exercises in the South China Sea, as the Beijing accuses Washington of militarizing the region. On Saturday, the U.S. Navy’s Reagan and Nimitz carrier strike groups transited from the Philippine Sea to the South China Sea and held the first dual-carrier drills there since 2014.

– Modern War Institute – The reality of American military power has long been that the United States must project its forces into the enemy’s territory. This brings with it a host of challenges, some inflicted by the adversary and others that are self-inflicted (such as lack of strategic lift or production capacity). In any future war, the US military will likely play an “away game,” and an adversary will probably not allow the United States to leisurely amass personnel and equipment on its borders, but will actively try to prevent it. As a result, the US military will suffer from an inherent asymmetry and have immense costs imposed on it, at least in the initial phases of the war. This challenge lies at the heart of what is colloquially called the “anti-access/area denial” family of military concepts.

– USNI Proceedings – To better attract midshipmen, the Navy nuclear power community should prioritize warfighting over nuclear engineering.

– War Zone – The Navy has touted the addition of Naval Strike Missiles as a game-changer for the oft-maligned Littoral Combat Ships.

– War Zone – America’s remote island outpost in the Pacific is an essential fallback point for pushing airpower west during a major conflict.

– Breaking Defense – A new class of unmanned ships proposed by the Navy as a bulwark against growing Chinese and Russian naval might is running into deep skepticism on Capitol Hill, reflecting larger and broad frustration in Congress over the Navy’s stalled modernization push.

– Defense News – Data is arguably the most important strategic asset to emerge in the 21st century. Access to data and the ability to protect its integrity are vital to American security and prosperity. As 5G and artificial intelligence transform our societies into highly integrated networks, protecting data will become even more crucial.

– USNI News – USS Montgomery (LCS-8) recently wrapped up its maiden deployment – and the ship class’s first since a restructure of the Littoral Combat Ship program – and the head of LCS operations said the ship leveraged lessons learned from earlier deployments to avoid readiness problems and make the most of its operational capabilities.

– Defense News – The Navy’s first four littoral combat ships will be headed into mothballs next March, according to a June 20 message from the chief of naval operations.

– War Zone – A veteran submariner explains how the experience of serving aboard a U.S. Navy submarine varies greatly based on the sub’s mission set.

– War on the Rocks – As the National Defense Strategy demands, the Marine Corps is currently demonstrating, and the new Air Force chief of staff has discussed, the challenges posed by an increasingly capable Chinese military demand innovation and disruptive thinking in the Pentagon. Innovation requires strategists to consider all options on the table. Moreover, it requires all options to be placed on the table in the first place. One option noticeably absent from most debates on future operations in the Pacific Ocean is the seaplane.

– USNI News – An advanced U.S. attack submarine and guided-missile destroyer are among the forces participating in the NATO anti-submarine warfare exercise Dynamic Mongoose 2020, which kicked off this week off Iceland.

– War Zone – The craft could be part of one of a number of programs aimed at providing persistent maritime surveillance coverage for the U.S. Navy.

– USNI Proceedings – The LCCs cost too much to maintain and will be 70 years old at the end of their planned lives

– USNI Proceedings – For many senior Navy leaders, the crush of their daily routines leaves them struggling to find time for deliberate thought and strategic decision-making. This was not always the case.

– USNI News – The head of U.S. naval forces in Europe would like to see more coordination and more dialogue in the Arctic, where military and commercial traffic are increasing, and so is the risk of miscalculations.