– War on the Rocks – Naval officers pray at the altar of “more ships.” We demand more of them, fantasize about new ways to use them, and assume that the fleet will only grow. In the navalist faith, the post-Cold War period — which saw the fleet fall to an all-time low of 279 ships in 2007 — was an aberration, but happily the “return to great-power rivalry” has obliterated such shortsightedness.

– Defense News – The U.S. Navy’s interminable quest to design and field a next-generation large surface combatant is going back to the drawing board once again, a victim of the Pentagon’s disorganization around this year’s long-range shipbuilding plan, according to documents and a source familiar with the situation.

– USNI News – The Navy has lost much of its power on deciding what its future fleet will look like, with a Pentagon-led effort set to produce secretary of defense directives to the service by the end of the summer on what the fleet’s future plans should include.

– CIMSEC – Captain Wayne Hughes, USN, who would have turned 90-years-old this spring, left us a huge legacy on which to build and from which to learn regarding the intellectual content of naval research, our approaches to instruction, and how we organize our naval PME institutions.

– National Interest – The United States has been continuing Chinese sub-hunting patrols with its Poseidon P-8 surveillance plane in the South China Sea area.

– USNI News – The first of a new generation of aircraft that will ferry supplies and personnel on and off aircraft carriers arrived at the first operational squadron in California on Monday.

– National Review – Jerry Hendrix writes that a strategic design update is due for US aircraft carriers.

– Naval News – In total, nine Type 056 corvettes have joined the People Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) since the beginning of 2020. The “Jingdezhen” (617) was admitted to active service in the PLAN East Sea Fleet and assigned to the 16th fleet based in Xiamen.

– USNI News – Capt. Brett Crozier, who commanded USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71) until April, will not be reinstated to lead the ship, will not be eligible for future command and faces additional administrative punishment that will be overseen by U.S. Pacific Fleet Commander Adm. John Aquilino.

– Defense News – In the latest sign of Congressional ambivalence on unmanned surface warships, the House Seapower and Projection Forces subcommittee called for restricting funding for procurement of any large unmanned surface vessels – LUSVs – until he Navy can certify it has worked out an appropriate hull, mechanical and electrical system and that it can operate autonomously for 30 days consecutively.

– USNI News – Frustrations are mounting in Congress over the limited insight lawmakers and the public have into the Navy’s future fleet, and the service now faces fiscal consequences in upcoming defense bills.

– CIMSEC – We have assembled a short reading list focused along the theme of naval integration…

– Breaking Defense – “Replacing ships lost in combat will be problematic,” Marine Commandant Gen. David Berger writes in a forthcoming paper. “Our industrial base has shrunk while peer adversaries have expanded their shipbuilding capacity. In an extended conflict, the United States will be on the losing end of a production race.”

– War Zone – Getting assigned to your first sub doesn’t make you a submariner and once you become one you’ll find yourself in a social structure unlike any other.

– Naval News – Last week, the U.S. Navy Ohio-class ballistic missile submarine (SSBN) USS Maryland conducted a full at-sea crew exchange to prevent sailors from possible COVID-19 exposure. At-sea crew transfer is quite unusual. Transfer of the entire crew of a submarine is even more exceptional.

– USNI Proceedings – If the day ever comes when the Navy decides it should stop building aircraft carriers, will it be able to?

– Defense News – The US Navy could face a three-year delay in testing of the MQ-25 Stingray carrier-based tanking drone if it doesn’t get its designated test ships through the required modernizations on time, a possibility the Navy said was remote.

– CIMSEC – In reviewing the proposed EABO operations, many different capabilities are mentioned, but one, naval mines, are given scant attention, and to the point of being almost completely ignored.

– USNI News – The Navy and its NATO allies and partners are underway for the 49th iteration of the Baltic Operations (BALTOPS) exercise – which this year will focus on naval warfare at sea, partly by design and partly in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

– CIMSEC – The Arctic is changing physically and the security dimensions of the region are changing along with it. The region will not be ice-free overnight, and the United States is not without partners in addressing those changing strategic considerations. It behooves the United States to not pursue a hardline balancing arrangement against Russian militarization and instead pursue what it has been doing for some time, preparing for the potential of Arctic operations across all service branches. The pursuit of this policy perspective will signal American commitments to regional security without exacerbating the militarization of the Arctic into a full blown arms race, enabling an emerging littoral to be sufficiently addressed without intensifying competition within one of the most peaceful and cooperative regions of the world.

– CIMSEC – Strategic chokepoints and littorals are the arena of current and future power struggles. Great power competition is layered within these maritime and littoral domains. To a lesser extent, but still consequential, are the potential actions of regional and non-state actors capable of causing disruption along maritime chokepoints and littoral zones. The United States will be required to address multi-layered challenges to its maritime dominance in these areas while also fulfilling the role of humanitarian and the facilitator of free and open commerce.

– War Zone – The carrier just left on a cruise and it’s packing a new electro-optical and infrared sensor system that will enhance its situational awareness.

– Naval News – The Dry Combat Submersible (DCS) is about a year from achieving Initial Operational Capability (IOC) for USSOCOM’s US Navy SEALs.

– ABC – The goal is to keep ships at sea as “Covid-free bubbles.”

– USNI News – The Navy and the Department of Defense haven’t finished their homework needed to inform how the Navy builds its future fleet, a panel of naval experts told a House panel on Thursday.