– USNI Proceedings – Assigning the South China Sea geostrategic importance based on its popular sea lanes or assumed oil and gas reserves is suspect.
NATO’s Selective Sea Blindness—Assessing the Alliance’s New Navies
– US Naval War College Review – The navies of NATO countries fall into two categories: old and new. The new navies lack modernization and readiness, making them deficient in their contributions to NATO security priorities. Sea blindness is a problem across the spectrum of NATO governments and illuminating this problem is now more important than ever in light of an increasingly aggressive Russia.
Go Get Mahan’s Yardstick
– USNI Proceedings – Mahan’s 3,500 nm “standard distance” for naval planning may be a crude metric, but it highlights the geographic reality that must shape theater strategy and force development in the vast Pacific operating area.
Preparing Today for the Mines of Tomorrow
– US Naval War College Review – Maritime mining long has been called on to support various naval strategies. However, shifting objectives and naval priorities call for new analysis. By adapting methodologies developed for land mines, we can find measures of effectiveness (MOEs) aligned to operational objectives, explore developmental mining concepts, and present new MOEs for maritime mining operations.
Argentina’s Gray Zone Gambit
– Naval History – The 1982 Falklands War was more than “bald men fighting over a comb.” It offers lessons in readiness for today’s Navy–Marine Corps team.
Game Changers
– Air Force – The surface-to-air missile that destroyed a US Navy drone in June heightened tensions with Iran and throughout the region. More importantly, however, it blew a hole in the notion that US aircraft designed to operate in permissive airspace—airspace absent advanced surface-to-air missile (SAM) threats—can operate with impunity anyplace and anytime. Let that be a wake-up call. Maybe Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps did the US a favor.
Localized Sea Denial: Countering Chinese Aggression in the South China Sea
– CIMSEC – There can be no doubt that the United States lacks an actionable maritime strategy with respect to the South China Sea, nor does the maritime force exist to effectively counter Chinese expansion in this economically and politically critical space.
No Free Ride in the Pacific: The Case for Investing in Mobility
– CIMSEC – If the United States wants to compete, deter, and win in a potential conflict its military needs to be able to move troops around the theater in question at will. To do this will require a reallocation of acquisition priorities and investments.
An Autonomous Navy for an Autonomous World
– USNI Blog – Don’t be afraid of the robots.
The “Dumbest Concept Ever” Just Might Win Wars
– War on the Rocks – In the final analysis, expeditionary advanced base operations is a concept designed to exploit geography and contribute to winning a hard war against a nation with military capabilities approaching those of the United States. It gives the American military its best chance to win such a conflict. But, vastly more important, if the United States is prepared to implement this concept, it presents the nation with the best possible chance of deterring a future conflict and preserving the peace.
The Role of Public Affairs in U.S. Seapower, Part 2
– CIMSEC – We will explore how to synchronize information power to enable maritime strategy, along with several counter-arguments and perspectives.
China swings a small stick in the South China Sea
– The Hill – It’s hard to drive China out of the headlines. Yet a dispute between Iran and Great Britain, each of which has seized a tanker ship belonging to the other, has managed it in recent weeks — eclipsing a running feud between Vietnam and China, whose ships have squared off at Vanguard Bank, the westernmost feature in the Spratly Islands. For all that, the South China Sea dispute entails consequences at least as severe as those in the Persian Gulf.
Talisman Sabre: Land-Based Missiles Vs. China
– Breaking Defense – The Army’s experimental Multi-Domain Task Force tested new tactics for Pacific conflict, hand-in-glove with the Marines, Air Force, and Australians.
USS Mount Whitney Brings 6th Fleet Autonomy, Flexibility of Command at Sea
– USNI News – One of two Blue Ridge-class command and control ships in the fleet, Mount Whitney serves as the U.S. 6th Fleet command ship and would be the platform from which operations would be controlled if a war were to occur in theater.
War Studies Primer
Visit the War Studies Primer for an introductory course on the study of war.
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.
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Korean Fat Leonard? Feds probe new US Navy corruption case in Asia
– Defense News – The Justice Department has filed corruption charges against the head of a Busan, Korea,-based husbanding services provider in a case with unmistakable echoes of the Fat Leonard scandal that has rocked the Navy since the investigation was revealed in 2013.
The Army Abruptly Pulls Ship Auction Listings And Halts Plans To Slash Its Naval Fleet
– War Zone – The service had controversially planned to sell off dozens of ships and other watercraft, inactivating multiple units in the process.
Sacred Cows Die As Marine Commandant Changes Course On Amphibs
– Breaking Defense – “It would be illogical to continue to concentrate our forces on a few large ships,” the new USMC Commandant writes in his new guidance, setting decades of planning on its head. So what’s next?
Iran tanker seizure: UK warship HMS Duncan arrives in Gulf
– BBC – A second Royal Navy warship has arrived in the Gulf to protect British ships amid heightened tensions in the region.
How geopolitics make the U.S. Navy’s plans for major Arctic operations so complicated
– Arctic Today – The U.S. Navy will conduct some kind of Arctic operations this summer — but it hasn’t said exactly what. Every option comes with potential issues.
Here’s Why Naval Convoys Are An Ideal Solution Hated By Everyone
– War Zone – As Iran threatens commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, many are calling for convoys. Here is why they aren’t so easy to execute or maintain.
How the U.S. Could Lose a War With China
– The Atlantic – It’s not that the Chinese Communist Party would take over Washington. But in its own region, China has the advantage.
Marines Reach 2011 Goal of 2,500 in Darwin, With Addition of HIMARS Platoon, More to Current Rotation
– USNI News – The deployment of a High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) platoon to Australia has helped the Marine Corps reach the 2,500-Marine presence in Darwin that U.S. and Australian leaders promised in 2011.
In a naval confrontation with Iran, Great Britain can find neither ships nor friends
– Defense News – The U.K. has the responsibility to protect its own ships, but doesn’t have the Navy it needs to do it.
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