CIMSEC – Today, who is making sure that the U.S. Navy is asking the right questions? Who is defining the vocabulary and the intellectual infrastructure of how we think about our contemporary challengers? And are we learning from each other, and developing the next generation of analysts who will be creative and intelligent enough to do the deep work, “read everything,” and come up with creative new ideas rather than rehashing old models? Andy Marshall believed in focusing on finding the right questions and defining their parameters. In Reflections on Net Assessment, naval and national security practitioners and analysts can still learn a great deal from Yoda in his own words, if we do the reading and remain reality-based in our search for wisdom in confronting the challenges of the 21st century.

Defense News – U.S. Fleet Forces Command is working on an initiative to make destroyers more independent of carrier strike groups during the deployment phase of the Navy’s force-generation plan, even as Naval Surface Forces is working to make them more operationally available in the sustainment phase that follows.

CIMSEC – The Navy recently issued Change 1 to one of its key new doctrine books, Navy Warfare Publication 3, Fleet Warfare. The change was issued to update the definitions of a number of key terms to keep them in accordance with joint doctrine. The issuing command, the Navy Warfare Development Center, says “Ultimately, Change 1 to NWP-3 enhances fleet-centric warfighting effectiveness through establishing a framework for the execution of fleet warfare at the operational level of warfare.” Certainly there is an advantage to maintaining consistency across the services in the definition of terms, but NWP-3’s contribution to warfighting effectiveness is less than it could be due to its generic approach to the subject. Granted, it is an unclassified publication, but nonetheless, it could have offered more practical detail on the evolving nature of the Navy’s approach to warfighting. An unclassified practical framework would be vital to operationalizing the Navy’s renewed emphasis on fleet-level warfare.

USNI News – First the fighter, then the destroyer and finally the submarine. That’s the order the Navy is set to introduce its next three major acquisition programs in the 2030s, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday said last week.

War Zone – TF59 and its regional allies hope to deploy a fleet of 100 unmanned vessels by this summer as it works toward building a ‘Digital Ocean.’

Defense News – The U.S. Navy is firming up plans for the Medium Unmanned Surface Vessel, after previously questioning the need or utility of the system.

USNI News – The Navy could deploy the aluminum hull, Independence-class Littoral Combat Ship to the Middle East as part of a future mine-countermeasures force in U.S. Central Command.

USNI News – U.S. Fleet Forces is rethinking how to deploy carrier strike groups by changing how it would train and maintain its guided-missile destroyers.

Defense News – Following a budget that yielded a record-breaking $31.5 billion in shipbuilding funds for the U.S. Navy, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday has one message to ship construction yards: “Pick up the pace.”

Defense News – The U.S. Navy wants to keep nearly half its surface fleet in a deployable state, as it aims to raise the overall readiness of the force in case it’s called upon to fight.