US Navy is aggressively telling startups, ‘We want you’

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Defense News – While Silicon Valley executives like those from Palantir, Meta and OpenAI are grabbing headlines for trading their Brunello Cucinelli vests for Army Reserve uniforms, a quieter transformation has been underway in the U.S. Navy.

How so? Well, the Navy’s chief technology officer, Justin Fanelli, says he has spent the last two and a half years cutting through the red tape and shrinking the protracted procurement cycles that once made working with the military a nightmare for startups.

Steel and Silicon: Shipbuilding’s Defense Tech Moment

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War on the Rocks – Can the American military maintain deterrence in East Asia without fixing its shipbuilding? The U.S. Navy’s fleet is rusting and shrinking, while China’s grows. Last week, new data showed Chinese shipbuilding again accelerating relative to American, with 54 percent of global output, up from 35 percent a decade ago. “All of our programs are a mess,” said Secretary of the Navy John Phelan before the Senate. Chinese military planners may conclude it is time to risk their fleet against America’s. Without strong shipbuilding, the Pentagon may hesitate to commit a fleet it cannot regenerate.

NATO’s Task Force X Baltic Demonstrates Multi-Domain Response to Seabed and Wider Maritime Threats

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Naval News – NATO is conducting maritime uncrewed systems (MUS) experimentation in the Baltic Sea to demonstrate both the capacity to accelerate capability delivery and the importance of multi-domain operations (MDO) in building maritime situational awareness (MSA) to secure seabed infrastructure and sea lines of communication (SLOCs).

We Need a Marine Corps, Part II: A Corps Confounded

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War on the Rocks – In just over 20 years, the Marine Corps has gone from being America’s reliable middleweight force in readiness to more of a secondary, general purpose backup force. Today, marines are more likely to find themselves assisting special operations teams and U.S. Army crisis response task forces than spearheading operations. Without meaningful change, a dangerous question resurfaces: “Why do we need a Marine Corps?”

We Need a Marine Corps, Part I: A Corps in Crisis

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War on the Rocks – Marines have spent too much energy in the past five years debating the merits of former Commandant David H. Berger’s Force Design 2030 plan. Force Design is now part of the Marine Corps. It is time for all marines on and off active duty to set aside their disagreements and focus forward, towards the vision articulated by current Commandant Eric M. Smith. And it is time for the allies of the Marine Corps to lean in and support this reorientation. The U.S. Marine Corps is facing a relatively slow moving but all too real existential threat.

Choking the Artery: The Naval Dimension of a Future India-Pakistan Conflict

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CIMSEC – The Line of Control still dominates the nightly news, yet war between India and Pakistan could spill seaward. In early May 2025, the two nuclear‑armed neighbors again traded strikes, suspended bilateral trade concessions, and placed elements of their fleets on alert.1 Nearly one‑third of Pakistan’s import bill, and, critically, 16 percent of its food supply, arrives by sea.2 With roughly 60 percent of that traffic funneling through the single port complex of Karachi, the question is no longer whether the coast matters, but how maritime leverage could shape the next crisis.

Don’t Sweep Minesweepers Under the Rug: America’s Critical Naval Vulnerability​

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Center for Maritime Strategy – The Trump Administration has prioritized making the American military more lethal, agile, and capable, with a hyper-focus is on making sure the U.S. Navy is ready for the next war. The Navy intends to invest in drones and a “hybrid fleet” of manned and unmanned systems. Unfortunately, while procurement debates focus on the gap between the United States and China, submarine procurement, and cruiser retirements, one critical capability remains dangerously neglected: mine warfare. 

Toward a Sea-Power Strategy—Chinese Communist Party Debates and Consensus Building under Jiang Zemin, Hu Jintao, and Xi Jinping

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US Naval War College Review – China’s rise as a major maritime and naval power in recent decades resulted from a deliberate policy choice, but that choice was not an uncontroversial one. Internal Chinese Communist Party debate about naval power was resolved by balancing entrenched continental interests, resulting in an integrated but possibly compromised policy approach.

A Forgotten Dimension of Naval Diplomacy—The Production of Social Capital in the National Interest

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US Naval War College Review – Naval diplomacy is a key noncombat mission for fleets to engage in as they communicate their nations’ broader political objectives. Most literature focuses on how different platforms affect this communication but neglects the social dimension of naval diplomacy and how personal relationships supplement and impact the strategic landscape.

Changes in U.S. Indo-Pacific Military Strategy and U.S. Bases in Okinawa

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US Naval War College Review – The U.S. forces based on Okinawa in Japan’s Ryukyu Islands are critical to America’s strategic position in the western Pacific, its defense cooperation with the Japanese Self-Defense Forces, and U.S. security guarantees to Japan itself. Local opposition to hosting those forces and the subsequent uncertainty and consolidation of bases have bearings on that position and demand reevaluation.

Proper Conceptualization of Naval Operational Doctrine—A Case Study of the Israeli Navy

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US Naval War College Review – The character of naval warfare is changing profoundly, and traditional conceptions of victory may no longer apply. Naval warfare requires systematic reconceptualization to ensure that operational doctrine is applicable to the future environment and that navies are tasked with, train to, and are structured for missions they actually are able to accomplish. The Israeli navy’s early successes, more-recent challenges, and current contribution to the ongoing response to the 7 October Hamas attacks are illustrative.

CMSI Translations #19: Lessons and Thoughts from the Struggle for Command of the Sea in the Red Sea

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China Maritime Studies Institute – Since mid-November 2023 to the present Houthi armed forces in Yemen have continued to hijack and attack vessels in the Red Sea that “use Israeli ports” or “engage in trade with Israel” to oppose Israel’s military operations in Gaza and disrupt military assistance to Israel from the United States, the United Kingdom, and other countries. As of April 1, 2024, over 86 vessels related to the United States, the United Kingdom, Israel, and other countries have been attacked. The Houthis continue to maintain control over the Red Sea, forcing vessels from these countries to risk damage and loss of life while navigating through the area. The crisis in the Red Sea is worsening.

Is Autonomy the End of the Naval Warfare Officer

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Wavell Room – In a rain-beaten marina on a rugged coastline, near a nameless village more familiar with fishing than fleet operations, a teenage Able Seaman sits inside a converted shipping container. Watching a laptop screen, they remotely pilot a small crewless boat through choppy waters via a suite of cameras and RADAR feeds. For all intents and purposes, they are the Captain…