– CIMSEC – Freedom of seas has been and remains essential for all Americans. However, maritime order is increasingly at risk and from both traditional and nontraditional threats. A critical question is whether we can sustain freedom of the seas into the future.

– USNI Proceedings – Directed-energy weapons could provide the U.S. military with its biggest technological advantage ever. It is time to make the big bets that will put them in the hands of war-fighters.

– USNI Proceedings – A force that can harness AI to make decisions faster than the adversary will have the advantage. But what specific tasks should these technologies help warfighters perform?

– CIMSEC – To achieve success, the Navy must enable public affairs to function as a tool of credibility versus persuasion and spin, it must embody the principles of transparency, and it must better synchronize public affairs with other elements of U.S. information power such as information operations and public diplomacy.

– USNI News – There is a Littoral Combat Ship operating forward on deployment for the first time in 19 months, with USS Montgomery (LCS-8) arriving in the Philippines over the weekend on its maiden deployment.

– Breaking Defense – Increasingly concerned over technological problems plaguing its new $13 billion nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, the Navy has dispatched a unique team of civilian and government experts to the USS Gerald R. Ford in a new attempt to understand what is happening.

– Defense News – With the Navy looking to keeps its surface combatants such as the Arleigh Burke-class destroyers for 40-to-45 years each, sailors and maintainers must do everything they can to keep corrosion under control.

– Defense News – With bigger, faster missiles in development and bound for the fleet, the Navy’s engineers are eyeing back-fitting upgraded launchers on its stalwart Arleigh Burke destroyers.

– CIMSEC – As discussed in Part I, it is clear that NAVSEA needs to undertake a project now to completely re-engineer the next generation of SSNs. The old bloated SSN(X) (now “New SSN”) concept should be rejected entirely because it is more of the same, but bigger and more expensive. Instead, the Navy should go for a new class of SSN that is far smaller and cheaper than the current Block 5 Virginias.

– USNI News – Amphibious forces in BALTOPS 2019 tested out new, high-end tactics for the first time in a live exercise, working in a less-rigid structure that allows enablers like air-defense or anti-submarine ships, mine clearance teams and artillery units to flow through the operating area to where they can do the most good.

– CIMSEC – SEAD has evolved over the past 70 years. The DoD and Navy do not have 70 years to organize and prepare for conflict against a nation with near-peer ISR and target acquisition capabilities. The SEISR mission will require an institutional focus, the rapid evolution of concepts and tactics, focused intelligence and target study support, and the development of personnel with a tailored commitment to the Counter-ISR missions.

– USNI News – As the U.S. Navy undergoes a major transition in how it conducts mine warfare, it had the chance to test out its newest tools during BALTOPS 2019 alongside European partners who are mine warfare experts.

– National Interest – Sea lanes are harder to patrol than you think.

– National Interest – The Navy must reequip itself for its core function of high-seas battle if it is to resume custodianship of an increasingly competitive maritime world.

– War on the Rocks – Warfighting concepts come and go. Reflecting the predominant concerns of their times, some will produce lasting reforms with historical impact, whereas others will be unceremoniously discarded as their champions retire. Still others will quietly fade into obscurity as their useful contributions are absorbed into practice, their bad ideas are forgotten, and a yet-newer concept captures the imagination. “Multi-domain operations,” a concept which has taken various forms since about 2016, could go any of the three directions.

– USNI News – The Navy’s next large surface combatant will probably look more like the futuristic Zumwalt class of guided-missile destroyers than fleet’s current workhorse class of Arleigh Burke destroyers.

– USNI News – As this year’s BALTOPS exercise shaped up to be the largest in years, exercise planners also sought to make the annual event more focused on high-end warfighting than previous iterations.

– Defense News – The U.S. Navy’s program to buy a new frigate, known as FFG(X), has been smooth sailing since it was announced in 2017, but congressional protectionism could torpedo much of the progress the service has made to date.

– War Zone – The Pentagon won’t comment in detail about the incident and there is already confusion as to what type was actually lost.

– BBC – A US military surveillance drone has been shot down by Iranian forces while flying over the Strait of Hormuz.

– CIMSEC – The U.S. Navy is faced with several big challenges in maintaining undersea warfare dominance – the domain of the fast attack nuclear submarine or “SSN.”

– CIMSEC – A recent independent review of the Navy’s cybersecurity posture, completed in March 2019, was predictably harsh on our Navy’s current culture, people, structure, processes, and resourcing to address cybersecurity.

– War on the Rocks – The Trump administration has made a number of strong statements about the need for the United States to do more to prepare for great power competition with China. Officials have effectively set the stage for 2019 as a year in which critical progress must occur with regard to implementing posture, budgets, and policies that counter Chinese efforts to displace the United States in the Western Pacific. Unfortunately, the scope and scale of Chinese efforts over the past 25 years diminished America’s influence in Asia, particularly its role in Southeast Asia, in such a way that current U.S. actions must have a sense of urgency if they are to succeed.

– CIMSEC – Alongside the renewed focus on traditional adversaries, operations in green and brown waters driven by unconventional threats will likely play an enduring role in U.S. foreign policy.

– Defense News – The U.S. Navy’s and Marine Corps’ F-35s become unpredictable to handle when executing the kind of extreme maneuvers a pilot would use in a dogfight or while avoiding a missile.