– CIMSEC – The recent online republication of a 1993 Proceedings article from Capt. Christopher H. Johnson, “The Surface Navy: Still in Search of Tactics,” by the Center for International Maritime Security (CIMSEC) in July 2018 can be interpreted two ways. The reprint either suggests that Capt. Johnson’s cautionary tale of 25 years ago went unheeded and the Surface Forces are substantially unchanged in our approach to the development of tactical proficiency, or it serves as an invitation to examine what has changed.1,2 As the Surface Warfare community prepares to gather for the annual national symposium of the Surface Navy Association, I choose the latter interpretation and offer that there have been significant changes, particularly in the last five years.

– USNI News – The Navy may follow up October’s carrier strike group operations in the Arctic with another foray into the icy High North, with leadership considering sending a group of ships into a trans-Arctic shipping lane this summer, the Navy secretary said.

– War Zone – The new rounds dramatically expand the ability of the guns on these ships and other platforms to engage surface targets and air and missile threats.

– CIMSEC – Whether artillery begins to rain on the Korean peninsula, or Iranian mines litter the Strait of Hormuz, or a major terrorist attack unfolds, the Navy must never again allow itself to totally do away with preparing for the high-end fight. The story of the modern American Navy is unfortunately that of an organization that was divorced from the main purpose that had long animated its spirit, and dysfunction radiated throughout its institutions as a result. A difficult transition looms ahead, its urgency underscored by the sudden naval ascendance of a great power rival.

– USNI Proceedings – Nearly ten years into its time in the Information Warfare Community (IWC), naval intelligence has not “left the beach” with a sense of urgency to acquire and field cutting-edge systems that will vault the community into the era of big data and human-machine pairing. Instead, it largely has remained complacent while watching dramatic change occur in the information domain. The past decade has witnessed the emergence of mass digitization, artificial intelligence, robotics, and rapid technological change: the big data era. Yet naval intelligence persists in using the same tools, people, and tradecraft as in 2009. In a global security environment where “margins of victory are razor thin,” this must rapidly be addressed.

– USNI News – The Navy deployed a new ship pairing – a destroyer (DDG-51) and an amphibious transport dock (LPD-17) – to test out a new concept that could supplement amphibious squadrons and surface action groups as a formation in future operations.

– War Zone – Big claims abound about mysterious objects submariners detect below the waves, so we went straight to the source and what we found out was surprising.

– Defense News – The U.S. surface fleet has a big year in store for 2019, and we’re going to start getting more details very soon on what the future has in store for surface warriors.

– USNI Proceedings – Offensive submarine operations against highly capable modern diesel boats in the littorals require new tactics.

– USNI Proceedings – Although they appear to have disappeared from carrier strike group operations, submarines still are vitally connected to defense of the fleet—but only when and as needed.

– USNI Proceedings – To counter the return of peer competitors, the Navy is taking steps to expand the fleet and make it more deadly by distributing lethality to smaller surface ships in the form of ship-killing missiles. Distributed lethality increases the effectiveness of the U.S. fleet, but it is deficient in one key respect: it does not include Coast Guard cutters.

– USNI Proceedings – The U.S. Navy faces a growing submarine threat that it soon will be unable to match numerically. It is imperative that the service find an alternate approach. One solution is to use the U.S. Navy’s newly fielded P-8 Poseidon aircraft in tandem with the unmanned surface vessel Sea Hunter to prosecute submarines cheaply and with minimal manning.

– War Zone – The life of the often overlooked “quarterback” of the air wing that goes to work in a dimly lit flying tube to coordinate chaotic air wars from above.

– CIMSEC – Faced with the specter of having to go it alone, the Navy could capitalize on two emerging concepts to tackle the Bad Day Scenario: Dynamic Force Employment (DFE) and Distributed Maritime Operations (DMO). Both concepts have the potential to improve the Navy’s global responsiveness. Integrating DFE and DMO into actual operations and doctrine creates both intriguing challenges and opportunities for the Navy of the future.

– Defense News – Cuts to new ships, aircraft, maintenance and much-needed public shipyard modernization are on deck if Congress can’t come to an agreement to avert across-the-board cuts to the defense budget by January of 2020, according to a document submitted to lawmakers Dec. 12.

– Breaking Defense – It’s a major shift after decades in which submarines focused on projecting power ashore, with their only anti-ship weapons being their rarely-used torpedoes. Driving the change: increasing anxiety about China.

– USNI Blog – Revisiting the opening campaigns in the Pacific from December of 1941 through the spring of 1942 may help divine a blueprint for future wartime aircraft carrier (CV) operations. During the early days of the war, America’s CVs operated at the edge of their logistical tether, conducting long-range tactical raids to preserve a mobile striking force and effect strategic results.

– Defense News – The U.S. Navy’s top officer released an updated version of his strategy document Monday, an expanded version heavy on goals for specific programs that extend beyond his tenure as chief of Naval Operations.

– USNI News – Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson lays out aggressive acquisition goals and overhauls in how the Navy develops new technologies and implements operating concepts in a sweeping 2.0 revision of his Design for Maintaining Maritime Superiority. The push to field new kit and concepts is his effort to ready the Navy for not only high-end warfare but also gray-zone conflict and other challenges related to Russian and Chinese aggression that the service and joint force will have to confront.

– CIMSEC – How well a military has prepared for conflict in peace helps determine how much it will have to adjust in war. In this sense, force development is the peacetime equivalent of wartime adaptation.

– USNI Blog – As of this writing, the Navy consists of 287 deployable battle-force ships, of which some 31 are part of the amphibious force. These ships—“amphibs” in Navy parlance—are optimized for the transport and delivery of land power from the sea (otherwise known as the U.S. Marine Corps). Amphibs are large and capable and are among the most heavily tasked ships in the Navy because of their versatility and value to regional combatant commanders. What they aren’t is lethal, at least as warships go, and this limitation is no longer acceptable as the Navy limbers up for great power competition. In addition, given the reemergence of budget uncertainty and the near-certainty that the Navy will not achieve the 355-ship level described in its 2016 Force Structure Assessment, it must make more lethally efficient use of the floating real estate it operates, including platforms such as amphibs which traditionally have fielded only self-defense weapons.

– Breaking Defense – The Navy may begin deploying submarine-hunting P-8 Poseidon aircraft to a small airstrip hundreds of miles off the Alaskan coast, signaling a new emphasis on keeping watch over Russian and Chinese moves in the Arctic. The remote runway sits on the island of Adak in the Aleutian island chain, and is the westernmost airfield that can handle passenger aircraft in the United States — in fact, it currently handles Air Alaska flights two days a week. Formally known as Naval Air Facility Adak, the small airport has been operating commercially since the Navy moved out in 1997, but increasing Russian and Chinese activity in the Arctic has the Navy looking at new patrols as it searches for ways to keep a closer watch on the far north.

– Breaking Defense – Navy readiness is “heading in the wrong direction,” the Government Accountability Office told the Senate this morning, with only 15 percent of Navy F-35Cs rated “fully mission capable.” At the same hearing, a four-star admiral acknowledged three nuclear-powered attack submarines were still stuck awaiting overhaul, with the USS Boise expected to be out of action for a total of six years.

– USNI News – The Harry S. Truman Carrier Strike Group has sailed out of U.S. 6th Fleet and is on its way back to its homeport in Norfolk, Va. The strike group is wrapping up the second of two back-to-back three-month deployments as part of the Navy’s first attempt to demonstrate the Pentagon’s dynamic force employment concept.

– CIMSEC – This week CIMSEC featured 6 fictional short stories which explore various national security themes through fiction. Check them out as there is no better way to think about the future than through fiction…