– CIMSEC – To effectively govern the maritime space, states need an accurate picture of what is happening and where in order to establish normal “patterns of life” at sea. With this picture, states can identify suspicious activity and task assets to respond. This ability to collect, analyze, share, and respond to information in the maritime realm is often called maritime domain awareness (MDA).
U.S. Marines Launch Amphibious And Air Assaults On Saudi Islands In The Persian Gulf
– War Zone – The training exercises come amid a new spike in hostility with Iran, which uses its own nearby islands to stage various naval operations.
Navy Readies To Buy New Frigates As Industrial Base Wobbles
– Breaking Defense – The Navy has decided to split the frigate class, recompeting the program after the first 10 ships are under contract, leading to a new award and another bite at the apple for the bidders who lost out the first time around.
The Rest of the Story: Evaluating the US Marine Corps Force Design 2030
– War on the Rocks – While the world is worried about pandemics, trade, and migration, U.S. defense leaders remain laser focused on treating China as the new pacing threat. Each service has marched in step to the 2018 National Defense Strategy and linked their force modernization to great power competition. The focus of the Marine Corps Commandant’s Planning Guidance and new force design report illustrate this trend. Are the concepts and formations called for in these documents flexible enough to respond to other, more likely conflicts?
Dynamic. Distributed. Deadly.
– USNI Proceedings – The Harry S. Truman Strike Group’s April 2018 deployment offers a host of lessons for the Navy as the service renewed the concept of dynamic force employment with today’s fleet.
How China Sees the World
– The Atlantic – And how we should see China according to H.R. McMaster.
The Pentagon will have to live with limits on F-35’s supersonic flights
– Defense News – An issue that risks damage to the F-35’s tail section if the aircraft needs to maintain supersonic speeds is not worth fixing and will instead be addressed by changing the operating parameters. The deficiency means that at extremely high altitudes, the U.S. Navy’s and Marine Corps’ versions of the F-35 jet can only fly at supersonic speeds for short bursts of time before there is a risk of structural damage and loss of stealth capability. The problem may make it impossible for the Navy’s F-35C to conduct supersonic intercepts.
Destroyer USS Zumwalt Delivers to Navy After Combat System Activation
– USNI News – USS Zumwalt (DDG-1000) was delivered to the fleet after completing its combat system activation and subsequent at-sea trials.
COVID-19 and British Nuclear Deterrence
– War on the Rocks – In early April, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson nearly died. Suffering from COVID-19, Johnson spent three nights in the intensive care unit before eventually recovering and being discharged. Without the expert and round-the-clock attention of his medical team, the prime minister later admitted, he may not have survived. Johnson’s stint in an intensive care unit raised a sensitive question related to British national security — with the prime minister incapacitated, who was authorized, if required, to launch the country’s nuclear weapons?
Battle For The Arctic: Russia Plans Nuke Icebreaker, US Counters China In Greenland
– Breaking Defense – Two Russian companies announced an agreement today to build the world’s most powerful nuclear icebreaker, the first step in a bold new Arctic strategy Moscow hopes will bring riches and drive open lucrative new shipping routes.
French Navy Receives Third Upgraded ATL2 Maritime Patrol Aircraft
– Naval News – The third Atlantique 2 (ATL2) maritime patrol aircraft (MPA) upgraded by Dassault Aviation, Thales and Naval Group was delivered by DGA to the French Navy at the Lann-Bihoué naval air base.
Mission Capable: How More Ready Jets Is Helping the Navy Create Deadlier Pilots
– USNI News – The U.S. Navy’s improvement in pilot performance comes as a direct result of a push in 2018 to get more jets to a better state of material readiness.
Mission Capable: How the Navy Harnessed Its Data to Achieve 80% Fighter Readiness
– USNI News – By embracing data and developing the Naval Sustainment System and Performance to Plan frameworks for aviation readiness, the Navy had 340 more aircraft flying in March 2020 compared to March 2019, including 90 more Super Hornets.
To Prepare For a Crisis, Read Fiction
– War on the Rocks – …As policymakers make hurried judgments with vast, life-altering consequences, they draw on a stock of intellectual capital assembled over decades. Every discipline — psychology, economics, biology, history — examines the world through a particular prism. Yet only fiction invites us inside the minds of others, transports us across time and place, and produces in us a kind of experience we could otherwise never attain. By enmeshing us in its characters and stories, reading fiction helps policymakers better understand the human condition, and more ably fashion responses to it.
Pentagon Leaders Say Trump Tweet on Iranian Attack Boats Was ‘Important Warning’
– USNI News – The Navy’s existing policy for dealing with the small Iranian vessels prevalent in the Persian Gulf matches the sentiment of a Wednesday morning Tweet from President Donald Trump.
U.S. Navy & Royal Australian Navy Team Up In The South China Sea
– Naval News – The U.S. Navy and Royal Australian Navy came together for operations in the South China Sea.
Naval Surface Fire Support An Assessment of Requirements
– RAND – Naval surface fire support (NSFS) has been a traditional mission of U.S. Navy surface combatants. Although naval guns have been viewed as a major instrument of sea control, they have also been seen, and widely used, as ways to directly influence the battle ashore by providing the equivalent of artillery support for U.S. Marine Corps (USMC) forces operating ashore. Although there is no denying that the Navy and the USMC have viewed NSFS as important, the actual requirements are sometimes vague.
An Overview of the New Hydrographic Vessels of the Russian Navy
– Naval News – The navigation and oceanography department of the Russian Defense Ministry will receive a dozen new hydrographic boats and vessels by 2021. Each Russian Navy fleet will be reinforced with them.
Russia Has Abandoned Its Massive Nuclear Destroyer And Supersized Frigate Programs
– War Zone – Russia’s Severnoye Design Bureau has stopped development entirely of its Project 23560 destroyers, also known as the Lider class, and the Project 22350M frigate, an expanded derivative of the Project 22350 Admiral Gorshkov class. The company has said these ships are among its most promising future offerings and the halting of the two programs has raised questions about its long-term financial stability.
China Launches 2nd Type 075 LHD For The PLAN
– Naval News – China’s second amphibious assault ship, a Landing Helicopter Dock (LHD) known as Type 075, was launched in Shanghai today by Hudong Zhonghua shipyard.
Iran views the pandemic as prime time for antics at sea — at its peril
– The Hill – James Holmes writes that America’s coronavirus agony is Iran’s opportunity. Or at least the mullahs who rule the Islamic Republic may see it that way — rightly or wrongly.
USNS Comfort to leave New York and head back to Norfolk, Trump says
– Virginian Pilot – A Navy hospital ship deployed to New York City to help fight the coronavirus outbreak is no longer needed, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Tuesday, expressing confidence that stresses on the hospital system are easing.
Operation Indigo Spear and the Second Tanker War of 2022
– CIMSEC – A new naval near-future fiction story.
Ex-RAN Adelaide-Class Frigates Commissioned With The Chilean Navy
– Naval News – Australia officially transferred former Adelaide-class frigates Melbourne (FFG 05) and Newcastle (FFG 06) to the Chilean Navy.
How Submarines Regularly ‘Fight To The Death’ Off The Bahamas
– War Zone – Just like how Navy planes have vast instrumented ranges for aerial wargames, submarines have one too, and it is arguably even more impressive.
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