Four ways to kill a ship: How US Marines are focused on controlling the seas

Defense News – The service, through its new stand-in forces and its expeditionary advanced base operations concepts, envisions small groups of Marines scattered throughout regional islands and shorelines, including the Philippines, Indonesia, Japan and anywhere else partner nations allow. Those small units will carry everything they need to move from one place to another while conducting surveillance missions, establishing refueling spots for joint forces and launching missiles.

PLA drills around Taiwan continue to ‘rehearse reunification operation’ amid Pelosi’s visit, ‘exercises blockading island to become routine’

Global Times – Joint military exercises around the island of Taiwan by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) continued Wednesday with a joint blockade, sea assault and land and air combat trainings, involving the use of advanced weapons including J-20 stealth fighter jets and DF-17 hypersonic missiles after the drills started on Tuesday evening, when US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi landed on the island which seriously violates China’s sovereignty.

War Studies Primer

We invite you to try War Studies Primer – an introductory course on the study of war and military history. Its purpose is to provide an introduction to the study of war.

War Studies Primer is presented as a lecture curriculum at the university level. It is a free, non-credit, self-study course that consists of 28 topics and over 1,900 slides and is updated on a yearly basis.

Look at slides 2 and 3 in the War Studies Primer for its Table of Contents, and then choose a lecture to read and enjoy.

General Anthony Zinni (ret) on Missed Opportunities, Integrated Deterrence, and Ill-Advised Red Lines.

CIMSEC – This is Part IV of our conversation series with General Anthony Zinni, USMC (ret.) on leadership, strategy, learning, and the art and science of warfighting. In this iteration, we focus on how the decline in strategic thinking following the end of the Cold War, which we discussed in Part I, helped lead to the situation in Ukraine, how to construct credible red lines, and what integrated deterrence may mean.

‘Narco-drones’ are the newest form of drug trafficking. Our laws aren’t yet ready to combat them

The Conversation – Drugs are clandestinely shipped to Australia with traffickers attempting a variety of methods. It’s only a matter of time before Australian Border Force is confronted with these “maritime autonomous vehicles” being used to smuggle contraband into the country. These are ships or underwater vehicles that are remotely controlled or autonomous and don’t have humans on board. Both international and Australian laws need to catch up.

(Thanks to Alain)