– Breaking Defense – Andrew Krepinevich writes that the National Defense Strategy does a service by getting the diagnosis right. But that is only the first step. To get the right prescription—the defense program—we will have to develop the operational concepts that link the ends sought with the means we can procure to achieve them.

– USNI News – Under cover of darkness, U.S. Navy guided-missile destroyer USS Ross (DDG-71) slipped through the Bosporus Strait and into the Black Sea on Friday. The next day USS Carney (DDG-64) joined Ross. The ships are operating are part of an unspecified regional “proactive” presence mission in the sea bordered by Russia, according to the Navy.

– USNI News – Five ship designs will compete in the Navy’s bid for 20 next-generation guided-missile frigates (FFG(X)) that will follow the Littoral Combat Ship, the service announced on Friday.

– USNI News – The Marine Corps intends for the next Expeditionary Sea Base ship, the future USNS Hershel “Woody” Williams (T-ESB-4), to operate in the Mediterranean Sea on its maiden deployment.

– Defense News – The Navy has a new vision for what its enormous high-tech destroyers will do: Killing enemy warships at extended ranges.

– USNI News – The Navy intends to support a near-term increase in ship inventory and deployed forces by forward-deploying some ships with rotational crews, tackling often-overlooked manpower costs and reestablishing the readiness squadron concept. However, many questions still remain about the feasibility of the buildup in force structure and operations at sea.

– USNI News – Following its inaugural deployment to the Asia-Pacific, the U.S Navy’s P-8A Poseidon Patrol Squadron 16 has been playing a key role not only in regard to operations in the region but also in cooperation and engagement activities with U.S partner nations.

– Breaking Defense – Faced with erratic funding from Congress, the Navy has pursued cost-efficiency so rigorously that it has cut corners and compromised peacetime safety and, very possibly, wartime performance. Crews are shorthanded and spare parts stockpiles are low.

– War on the Rocks – The Navy has done well to acknowledge its shortcomings, but it is a long road ahead to get healthy. The recent budget deal is a positive step toward one aspect of giving the service dollars to jump start advance procurement of future ships. While long-term, stable funding is needed to refocus the military toward high-intensity warfare and the modernization of the nuclear triad, raising the spending caps alone is insufficient to address the Navy’s systemic woes.

– War Zone – Amid news of the partnership and the Navy’s questionable budget plan for the program, we talked to General Atomics and got their take.

– USNI News – The Eastern Mediterranean is becoming “one of the most kinetic areas in the world,” as the U.S., NATO, Russia and China operate more and more in the crowded region, the Navy’s top officer in Europe said on Tuesday.

– Defense News – The Navy will grow by more than 40 ships over the next five years, the Navy’s Budget director said Monday. But while the fleet will grow rapidly in the near term, the gains will sputter out shortly thereafter.

– USNI News – The Navy’s MQ-25A Stingray unmanned aerial tanker project, previously described as a rapid acquisition program for the department, is now not set to be integrated into the air wing until 2026.

– Defense News – The U.S. Navy is getting larger and adding an extra ship to its fleet in 2019, over its 2018 request, but the total shipbuilding budget request seems to make little headway toward a 355-ship fleet called for in a review last year.

– Breaking Defense – It takes a million dollars and at least 50 technical experts just to get a carrier strike group’s networks working right before a deployment.