– Global Times – Military actions, including those involving aircraft carriers, are always an option if the island of Taiwan continues to “play with fire,” an expert warned Tuesday after the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy conducted real combat exercises around the island involving “Chinese Aegis” class destroyers.
Navy’s Troubled Ford Carrier Makes Modest Progress
– Breaking Defense – General Atomics says it is launching new, heavier planes from its EMALS carrier launcher. The launches are taking place on land, and won’t be attempted on board the $13 billion Ford for some time, however.
Future US Navy weapons will need lots of power. That’s a huge engineering challenge
– Defense News – The U.S. Navy is convinced that the next generation of ships will need to integrate lasers, electromagnetic rail guns and other power-hungry weapons and sensors to take on peer competitors in the coming decades. However, integrating futuristic technologies onto existing platforms, even on some of the newer ships with plenty of excess power capacity, will still be an incredibly difficult engineering challenge, experts say.
Togetherness at Sea: Promoting 21st Century Naval Norms of Cooperation
– CIMSEC – In spite of renewed great power competition, multilateral cooperation between the world’s navies must grow to deal with common threats and forge constructive bonds between nations.
South Korea picks Boeing P-8 for $1.7 billion maritime patrol aircraft contract
– Reuters – South Korea’s military has picked Boeing Co (BA.N) to supply the country’s maritime patrol aircraft in a contract worth around 1.9 trillion won ($1.71 billion).
Narcosubs: Technological Innovation in the War on Drugs
– CIMSEC – Last year, the Colombian Navy detected and captured the first electric narco-submarine. Demonstrating the innovative capacities of Colombian drug traffickers, narco-submarines, drug subs, narco-semisubmersibles, self-propelled semisubmersibles, or simply narcosubs, are maritime custom-made vessels used principally by Colombian drug traffickers with the purpose of smuggling illicit drugs to consumers or transshipment countries.
As threats mount, US Navy grapples with costly Ballistic Missile Defense mission
– Defense News – Twelve years since the 2006 crisis on the Korean peninsula, the BMD threat has multiplied just as the Pentagon predicted it would but other threats have also cropped up. The threat from a resurgent Russia and rising China – which is cranking out ships like it’s preparing for war – have put enormous pressure on the now-aging fleet and standing requirements for BMD patrols have put increasing strain on its surface ships.
Ten-year escort operations in Gulf of Aden reflect rise of Chinese Navy
– China Military Online – Opportunity favours only the prepared mind. In 2008, increasingly intensified piracy in waters off Somalia offered opportunity for the Chinese Navy to gain blue water experience.
Will China have aircraft carrier that can match US Navy’s?
– CNN – China’s top shipbuilding company is working on an aircraft carrier with an electromagnetic catapult aircraft launch system, something featured exclusively aboard the US Navy’s most expensive carrier ever, the USS Gerald R. Ford.
The Evolution of Maritime Strategy and Naval Doctrines in North East Asia
– CIMSEC – Great power competition and arms races are back, especially in Asia. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) Asia and Oceania countries in 2017 were responsible for 27 percent of global military expenditures. In absolute numbers it totalled U.S. $477 billion. Three out of the 15 top spenders are located in North East Asia: China ($228 billion), Japan ($45.4 billion), and South Korea ($39.2 billion).
U.S. Intel Says China To Have Railgun-Armed Ships By 2025
– War Zone – A U.S. intelligence review offers new details about a Chinese prototype electromagnetic weapon that first appeared in public earlier in 2018.
Suspected Chinese lasers target US aircraft over the Pacific, US military source says
– CNN – Lasers have been used to target US aerial operations in the Pacific, with 20 incidents recorded since September of last year.
Sweden’s Notorious Little Carrier Killing Sub Just Got Some Major Upgrades
– War Zone – Gotland blazed a trail for modern air-independent propulsion equipped diesel-electric subs, wreaking havoc on U.S. carrier groups in drills.
Don’t Just Rename the Pacific Command—Give It More Weapons
– National Interest – Rebranding the Pacific Command represents an effort to recast how military folk assigned to the command regard their theater and how to manage it.
Upgrading US Navy ships is difficult and expensive. Change is coming.
– Defense News – The Navy’s front-line combatants ― cruisers and destroyers ― are incredibly expensive to upgrade, in part because one must cut open the ship and remove fixtures that were intended to be permanent when they were installed.
Here Is the Advanced Attack Submarine the U.S. Navy Never Built
– Popular Mechanics – The submarine, never built, would have been smaller than other subs and a mothership to drones.
More NATO warships to Northern Norway
– Barents Observer – Several naval vessels are sailing in the Ofoten area and will make port calls to Jarvik.
Keep Ships Longer To Boost Fleet Size: 355 Ships By 2035
– Breaking Defense – Instead of growing from 284 ships now to 355 in 2052-2055, the timeframe officials cited in the past, the Navy could reach its goal in 2032-2035, said Vice Adm. Thomas Moore, chief of Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA).
BAE Beats Upstart SAIC To Build Marine Amphibious Combat Vehicle
– Breaking Defense – The initial contract announced today was just $198 million for the first 30 vehicles, to be delivered by next fall, but Marines want to replace approximately 870 existing AAVs with better-protected, more mobile ACVs “as rapidly as we can,” which will take into “the mid to late ’20s.”
In 1895, Japan Crushed China in a War (And the Impact Is Still Felt to This Day)
– National Interest – Japan only needed a small-scale triumph over imperial China to fulfill its aims in 1894-1895. It saw no need to overthrow the Qing regime, occupy China or even vanquish the entire Qing navy. Today, likewise, China need not utterly defeat American arms to achieve modest goals. Capability sufficient to Beijing’s purposes may soon fall within the PLA’s grasp. Heck, it may already be within reach.
China Lands First Bomber on South China Island
– Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative – The People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) announced on May 18 that it had landed bombers, including the top-of-the-line H-6K, on an outpost in the South China Sea for the first time.
The £6 billion Royal Navy fleet that hardly ever went to sea: Warships that can’t sail in the heat spent 80 per cent of the year in dock
– Daily Mail – The British Royal Navy’s six Type 45 £1 billion destroyers barely ever leave their docks.
The US Navy is fed up with ballistic missile defense patrols
– Defense News – The U.S. Navy’s top officer wants to end standing ballistic missile defense patrols and transfer the mission to shore-based assets.
Manning the Distant Rampart: Maritime Strategy in an Age of Global Competition
– CIMSEC – Great power competition has clearly returned. But nontraditional issues have retained their relevance, with great powers using them as strategic facilitators in their quest to gain marginal advantages. In this international environment, the sea has retained its unbroken importance. The overwhelming majority of humankind’s physical trade is still transported on maritime highways, while the geography of contemporary global flashpoints, and the ambitions of great powers and nonstate actors, makes the sea central to international competition.
Countering Hybrid Threats in the Maritime Environment
– CIMSEC – Today, there are state and non-state actors challenging nations, institutions, and private companies through a wide range of overt and covert activities targeted at their vulnerabilities. Both NATO and the European Union refer to these as “hybrid threats” and the maritime domain has proven to be especially vulnerable.
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