Navy Times – The Navy is poised to start selecting sailors and civilians this summer to become warrant officers and operate the MQ-25 Stingray carrier-based refueling drone.
British Carrier Joins Forces With U.S. Flattop And Amphibious Assault Ship In Gulf Of Aden
War Zone – HMS Queen Elizabeth joined American and Dutch warships in the Gulf of Aden, an important maritime crossroads.
Overcoming the Diego Garcia Stalemate
War on the Rocks – The lack of convergence in the interests of Mauritius, the United Kingdom, the United States, and India has produced a stalemate over the status of the Chagos Archipelago.
A New U.S. Maritime Strategy
CIMSEC – This article outlines the path that led to the U.S. Navy’s current strategic deficit and proposes a framework for a new maritime strategy, one that should be immediately developed along with the corresponding force structure assessment. With a modest 5% additional investment in the Navy over the next five years, 90% of the changes required by this strategy can be achieved.
Lawmakers Survey: 94% of Sailors Say ‘Damaging Operational Failures’ Related to Navy Culture, Leadership Problems
USNI News – The Navy’s surface warfare community is weighed with a culture that values administrative chores over training to fight, ship commanders that are micromanaged and an aversion to risk, according to a new survey overseen by a retired Navy admiral and Marine general at the behest of a group of Republican lawmakers. That culture was at least partially responsible for a string “of high-profile and damaging operational failures in the Navy’s Surface Warfare community,” the report found.
Strategic Failures Are Often Failures of Imagination
USNI Proceedings – The Washington Naval Treaties had different effects on interwar innovation in Britain, Japan, and the United States.
Naval Special Warfare Programs Update With USSOCOM At SOFIC 2021
Navy News – In a year’s time, progress has been made in all programs ranging from Combat Crafts to mini submersibles to Unmanned Underwater Vehicles as USSOCOM gears towards peer nation challenges. Naval News presents a summary of the NSW programs discussed at Virtual SOFIC 2021.
Marines Train With Handheld Swarming Drones That Can Also Be Fired From 40mm Grenade Launchers
War Zone – Images shared online show Marines conducting training exercises with the Drone40, a tiny quadcopter that can carry a wide variety of payloads.
Is the Moskva-Class Helicopter Cruiser the Best Naval Design For the Drone Era?
CIMSEC – A variety of factors, including the long range capabilities of modern artillery, the evolution of drones and missiles, together with the need for stand-off and distributed lethality, have combined to make space in the world’s navies for a great comeback of helicopter cruisers.
Wanna Know How To Stop China From Being A Bully? Watch A Christmas Story
1945 – Some opine that Chinese Communist Party general secretary Xi Jinping bears a striking resemblance to Winnie the Pooh. Nah. He’s Scut Farkus, the bully from the 1983 comedy classic A Christmas Story.
Ballistic Missile Submarine USS Tennessee Emerges From Refit Sporting A Flank Sonar Array
War Zone – The three-decade-old submarine appears to have received a big addition to its sonar system during a protracted refit.
China reveals secret programme of unmanned drone submarines dating back to 1990s
South China Morning Post – A research team in China has unveiled an underwater drone that can recognise, follow and attack an enemy submarine without human instruction.
For America and Japan, Peace and Security Through Technology, Part 2
CIMSEC – The broader DOD (USN) and MOD (JMSDF) must better leverage emerging technologies and developing concomitant warfare concepts (doctrines) to adapt to the new way of fighting. Otherwise, the United States and Japan risk ceding the technology domain and consequently military superiority in the Indo-Pacific to revisionist China and revanchist Russia.
Remembering the Geography in Geopolitics and Indo-Pacific Discourse
Strategy Bridge – While a global superpower like the United States is capable of rapidly deploying small forces abroad, the logistical demands of sustaining such a force incurs greater costs and requires greater international acquiescence than that of a state within the same region. Thus, it remains an imperative that the United States cultivate and support regional allies as meaningful security partners, a fact made even more crucial as it enters a new era of great power rivalry.
Egypt Inaugurates A New Naval Base Near The Libyan Border
Naval News – Egypt inaugurated its newest naval base close to the Libyan border on July 3. The new naval base, “3rd of July Base”, is located in Gargoub on Egypt’s northwest coast, around 255 kilometers (160 miles) west of the Alexandria port.
VOA – L’Egypte inaugure une base navale stratégique en Méditerranée
(Thanks to Alain)
The Royal Navy Will Add 50 Percent More Surface-To-Air Missiles To Its Existing Destroyers
War Zone – New missiles, and more of them, are set to enhance the Daring class, especially in its vital role of protecting British aircraft carriers.
The Glutted Mariner Shortfall
CIMSEC – Based on data from the recent Maritime Workforce Working Group Report, there is an estimated 2,000 U.S. mariner shortfall for sustaining sealift in support of a major national mobilization lasting more than 6 months. This number could be even higher due to double counting mariners that are actively sailing and also serving as strategic sealift officers.
Clandestine Cargo: Hiding Sealift in Plain Sight
CIMSEC – To pace threats and ensure sealift survivability, America could relatively safely “smuggle” a certain amount of clandestinely loaded military materiel across contested oceans and through contested chokepoints, until reaching friendly offload destinations in theater.
South Korea Conducts Submarine-Launched Ballistic Missile Test
Naval News – South Korea tested for the first time a submarine launched ballistic missile from a submerged barge last week.
“No Option is Excluded” — Using Wargaming to Envision a Chinese Assault on Taiwan
U.S. Army Mad Scientist Laboratory – The Mad Scientist Laboratory is excited to feature today’s post by returning guest blogger Mr. Ian Sullivan, who converges the power of wargaming with narrative to compellingly imagine the unthinkable — China defeating the US in large scale combat operations.
Great Power Competition Requires Theater Deterrence
USNI Proceedings – The United States and its allies must have sufficient combat power in key theaters such that the enemy will hesitate to undertake hostile operations.
China’s New Super Carrier: How It Compares To The US Navy’s Ford Class
Naval News – A new aircraft carrier, currently under construction in Shanghai, is the most visible sign of China’s rapidly expanding navy. It is larger than China’s current two carriers and differs in key aspects. But the natural comparison is to the U.S. Navy’s latest carriers, the Ford Class.
Offshore Balancing with Chinese Characteristics
StrategyBridge – The conventional wisdom in Washington today is that China is committed to achieving global supremacy. But that conventional wisdom is built on the dubious assumption that China’s economic growth of the past several decades will continue unabated into the future. The reality, however, is quite different. China is not destined to continue its meteoric rise as an economic power. Indeed, China’s economy is already beginning to stall. This being the case, China is unlikely to be able to pursue a revisionist policy of upending the liberal international order, even if the current leadership continues to pursue an assertive foreign policy while it is able to do so. But while the U.S. foreign policy establishment ought to plan for a period of turbulence as China’s leaders reluctantly come to grips with the reality of peak China, the more pressing need is to begin a conversation about the future of American grand strategy that takes as its jumping off point the fundamental reality that China’s rise is coming to an end.
Don’t Overlook the Medical Fleet in Distributed Maritime Operations
CIMSEC – The medical fleet is often overlooked in discussions about Distributed Maritime Operations.
Freedom on Navigation Operations: A Mission For Unmanned Systems
War on the Rocks – The time has come for the U.S. Navy to pass the freedom of navigation mission set to unmanned systems
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