– CIMSEC – The Navy is not the only branch of the military facing significant challenges born from a long focus on the low-end fight. The United States, as a maritime nation, and the world, as dependent on maritime order, now find themselves at greater risk by an American fleet deficient in sea control.

– USNI News – The amphibious force may get a massive capability overhaul, if a plan by the Expeditionary Warfare Directorate to increase lethality and survivability of amphibious ships is accepted by Navy and Marine Corps leadership.

– Defense News – The U.S. Army is pushing Congress to act on a looming sealift shortfall that will create “unacceptable risk in force projection” within the next five years if the Navy doesn’t act quickly.

– National Interest – Ship types have displaced one another other from the cores of fleets across the decades and centuries. Maybe it’s time to unseat the ship itself.

– War Zone – The service is also eying a new sub-launched ballistic missile to replace Trident and could end up expanding its nuclear deterrent capabilities.

– USNI News – The U.S. Navy submarine force is creating an aggressor squadron as one initiative to ensure all subs are combat-ready as the service trains to take on China and Russia.

– Russia Matters – This week, NATO forces are engaged in the largest military exercise the alliance has organized since the end of the Cold War and the first major Western exercise in decades to take place in the Arctic region. To be held in Norway through Nov. 23, the Trident Juncture exercise is designed to improve NATO’s ability to defend member states and to strengthen the alliance’s credibility as a deterrent force against potential aggression.

– National Interest – No one covets sentry duty. British tars found naval raiders and privateers of old an unworthy but also stubborn foe. U.S. mariners may be repeating their mistake. If so, the first year of the next war could be 1942 all over again. That’s a trauma no one should want to relive.

– CIMSEC – This series will consider the Bad Day Scenario, how the Navy could respond to such a challenge today, and what steps it could take to be better postured to respond in the future.

– USNI News – The Navy’s mine warfare community is putting together a comprehensive plan to lay out the investments required for a successful transition from legacy mine countermeasures systems to more advanced capabilities.

– CIMSEC – Four common types of major surface combatants exist today: cruisers, destroyers, frigates, and corvettes. Each title has historical roots and a variety of practical and political implications. This essay explores how these classifications came to represent modern ship types, how nations abuse them to suit their needs, and how they facilitate or hamper exploration of alternative fleet designs.

– Defense News – The U.S. is woefully short of ships and even the Navy’s target goal of 355 ships is well short of what the country needs to prepare for two simultaneous major conflicts and maintain its rotational presence requirements with excess capacity for surge operations and combat casualties. That is the major finding of a new study from the conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation, an organization prominent in the Trump era because of its knack for influencing administration policy.

– USNI News – The head of naval forces in Europe is satisfied with the increased presence he’s seen in his theater this year, but he stressed that the U.S. will also have to rely on its allies and partners to counter a growing threat.

– USNI News – Two of the three ships in the Iwo Jima Amphibious Ready Group had to return to port in Reykjavik, Iceland, after heavy seas en route to Norway injured a few sailors and caused damage to one ship’s well deck.

– Defense News – The U.S. Navy is pushing to deploy its new over-the-horizon anti-ship missile by late next year, months ahead of its original target date, according to industry executives familiar with the initiative.

– CIMSEC – During the power projection era the Navy’s readiness cycle lost its discipline. In less than 20 years the Navy has deployed under four separate cycles, and where the two most recent constructs are attempting to restore order and arrest systemic shocks that spiraled out of control. These shocks unbalanced the Navy, sapped its ability to surge the fleet, and incurred significant strategic risk with respect to great power war.

– Army Times – The U.S. and its NATO allies are teaming up to more closely cooperate on the development and fielding of unmanned maritime systems, according to an agreement signed by the defense heads of 13 NATO allies.

– USNI News – The Navy’s next class fast attack submarine will be designed for a return to blue-water great power competition, where the ability to support forces ashore is less important than operating in the open ocean hunting rival submarines.

– Defense News – The U.S. surge sealift fleet, the ships needed to transport up to 90 percent of the Army and Marine Corps’ gear if the U.S. had to fight a war against a great power, will be facing a full-blown modernization crisis by the end of the 2020s if the Navy can’t arrest its decline, according to a Navy report send to Congress earlier this year.

– USNI News – Last week Naval Sea Systems Command won Pentagon approval to develop a mine countermeasure unmanned surface vehicle as part of the Navy’s ongoing effort to replace its aging MCM infrastructure.

– USNI News – The Navy is beginning the formal operational testing of its first stealth aircraft to determine how well the F-35C Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter performs against stated goals and requirements.

– Defense News – In the event of a major war with China or Russia, the U.S. Navy, almost half the size it was during the height of the Cold War, is going to be busy with combat operations. It may be too busy, in fact, to always escort the massive sealift effort it would take to transport what the Navy estimates will be roughly 90 percent of the Marine Corps and Army gear the force would need to sustain a major conflict.

– The Atlantic – The latest incidence of a government agency quietly removing data from its website demonstrates the dangers of an ever-changing internet.

– CIMSEC – Combat systems are rapidly evolving in the Information Age and are frequently upgraded through new software updates. This adds to the challenging of maintaining current skills and can require a force to regularly retrain its people. However, warfighting culture characterized by scripted training can mask a decline in technical competence. Such a decline can be seen in how standards fell for some of the most important tools that help the Navy guard against tactical surprise.

– Defense News – With Russia’s reemergence as a menace in Europe, the U.S. Army has been laying the foundations to fight once again on the continent it defended through most of the 20th century. But if war were to break out tomorrow, the U.S. military could be hard-pressed to move the number of tanks, heavy guns and equipment needed to face off with Russian forces. And even if the Army could get there in numbers, then the real problems would start: how would the U.S. sustain them?