– Navy Times – Defense experts warn that Putin’s forces are on a collision course with NATO that pits the U.S. and its allies against a sophisticated, even “mischievous,” foe set on resurrecting the Cold War playbook, according to one leader.
Taiwanese Navy – China: Frigate Sales to Taiwan ‘Brutally Interferes’ with Internal Affairs
– USNI News – China issued a strong statement against a planned sale of U.S. Oliver Hazard Perry frigates to Taiwan that was singed into U.S. law on Thursday.
US Navy – Why Eel Drones Are the Future of Naval Warfare
– Defense One – In the decade ahead, unmanned underwater vehicles, or UUVs, may have the same sort of disruptive effects on militaries as their flying counterparts. More than 12 countries are at work on undersea robots, which some militaries, including the United States, use to check for mines, map the sea floor and collect weather data. There’s no reason they couldn’t be used to defend battleships from small boats or even carry out attacks on enemy divers. But what will they look like?
US Navy – Why Does the Navy Still Not Have Enough Money for New Submarines?
– Defense One – The Navy is beginning to increase the tempo of its drumbeat calling for additional shipbuilding money to pay for the long planned replacement for the Ohio-class ballistic missile submarine. The ship is not unexpected, which is why the plea for more money is surprising– or at least it should be. How has the sea service arrived at this strategic juncture without enough money already inside of its budget to pay for one of its most critical assets?
US Navy – Pentagon Decides To Build An Even More Confused Littoral Combat Ship
– Foxtrot Alpha – The Littoral Combat Ship saga has been just another reminder of the Pentagon’s chaotic and illogical procurement strategy. Now, after studying alternatives to the over-sized jet boat after deciding that it was a indeed a flawed concept, the DoD has come up with the laughable decision to build a more complicated and expensive but still highly vulnerable version of the troubled ship.
Royal Navy – Next Generation U.K. Boomers Benefit from U.S. Relationship
– USNI News – When the inhabitants of Scotland voted three months ago to remain part of the United Kingdom, their decision preserved not only a 307-year-old union with England and Wales but also two sites of crucial strategic importance.
Indian Navy – New Indian Boomer Starts Sea Trials
– USNI News – India’s first domestically built nuclear ballistic missile submarine (SSBN) started sea trials.
US Navy – Fleet Put LCS Follow-on Focus on Surface and Sub Threats, Not Air
– USNI News – Navy operators said the service’s next small surface combatant (SSC) top priorities should be fighting other surface ships at longer ranges and hunting and killing submarines — not fighting fighters, striking land targets at long range or conducting ballistic missile defense (BMD), service leaders outlined last week when they briefed the follow-on to the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) to reporters.
US Navy – Lasers! What Are They Good For?
– The Diplomat – Lasers won’t solve all the problems facing naval weaponeers, but they’ll help address quite a few of them.
Chinese Navy – The Ghost That Haunts the Chinese Navy: When China and Japan Went to War
– National Interest – The First Sino-Japanese War a century ago offers Beijing interesting lessons for the future—lessons China’s military through its writings is clearly exploring.
Rough Waters Ahead: How to Maximize the Power of the U.S. Navy’s Surface Fleet
– National Interest – America’s Navy faces a daunting future environment. Focusing on sea control might be the best way to evolve.
Miscellaneous – The Rise of Asia’s Mini-Marines
– War is Boring – Across the Pacific Rim, regional powers are creating new marine infantry units.
US Marines – Marines Shift F-35 Deployment Plans
– Aviation Week – The US Marine Corps is changing the way it plans to use its Lockheed Martin F-35B short take-off, vertical landing fighters. Briefly, the new concept of operations envisages the use of mobile forward arming and refueling points (M-Farps) to support groups of F-35Bs, which would return to U.S. Navy amphbious warfare ships, allied carriers (special mention to the British Queen Elizabeth class) or even regional land bases for routine maintenance.
Canadian Navy – Canadian navy sailors face near-total alcohol ban
– BBC – Canada’s navy has imposed a near-total ban on its sailors from drinking while at sea.
US Navy – U.S. Navy Allowed to Use Persian Gulf Laser for Defense
– USNI News – The U.S. Navy is has declared an experimental laser weapon on its Afloat Forward Staging Base (AFSB) in the Persian Gulf an operational asset and U.S. Central Command has given permission for the commander of the ship to defend itself with the weapon.
US Navy – Navy spy “fish” could be operational next year
– Virginian Pilot – Project Silent Nemo is under way this week at Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek, where a team of civilian engineers and military officers are testing the capabilities of a 5-foot, 100-pound experimental robot that’s designed to look and swim like a bluefin tuna.
US Navy – Up Gunned LCS Hulls Picked for Navy’s Next Small Surface Combatant
– USNI News – The Navy will beef up the weapons, armor and sensors on its two existing classes of Littoral Combat Ships (LCS) in an answer to Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel’s call for a tougher Small Surface Combatant (SSC).
Japanese Maritime Self Defense Force – Japan Takes Another Step in Building Marine Force
– The Diplomat – An announcement that it would be procuring the MV-22 Osprey adds another element to a future amphibious marine force.
Chinese Navy – China’s CX-1 Missile Now Exportable
– Defense News – China’s new CX-1 supersonic anti-ship cruise missile is ready for export to America’s friends and foes alike, with potential markets including Iran, Pakistan and African and South American countries.
Russian Navy – Russia Accepts Third Borei-class Boomer
– USNI News – The Russian Navy has accepted its third Project 955 Borei-class nuclear ballistic missile submarine (SSBN) ahead of a formal ceremony next week.
Chinese Navy – China’s Checkmate: S-400 Looms Large Over Taiwan
– Defense News – Taiwan’s F-16s face a growing threat from China’s arsenal of surface-to-air missiles (SAMs). The latest and gravest is the Russian sale of 400-kilometer-range S-400 Triumf road-mobile SAM systems to China. If fielded in Fujian Province, the SAM system will be able to cover the whole of Taiwan airspace, thus finally solving the “problem of air superiority for the Chinese.”
US Navy – This Destroyer Is The World’s Largest Remote Controlled Vehicle
– FoxTrot Alpha – What does the Navy do when it needs to know for sure that a new weapon system or electronic countermeasure works, not just under stringent lab-like settings or at a land based range, but in its intended operating environment? They put it to sea on a giant remote controlled Destroyer and throw live missiles at it.
Russian Navy – Russia to France: Give Us the Mistrals or a Refund
– USNI News – Russia has given the French government a choice, either deliver the two promised Mistral-class amphibious warships to the Russian Navy or refund the purchase price of the $1.53 billion program.
Royal Navy – U.K. to Relocate Two Attack Boats to Scotland by 2020
– USNI News – The U.K. Royal Navy plans to relocate two Trafalgar-class nuclear attack boats (SSN) from the Southern England to the service’s primary submarine base in Scotland.
Geopolitics / ISIS – ISIS: What the US Doesn’t Understand
– New York Review of Books – Ahmed Rashid writes that the crisis ISIS has created for the West and the Arab world cannot be effectively addressed until there is a broader understanding of what ISIS wants. The first thing we need to recognize is that ISIS is not waging a war against the West…ISIS wants to destroy the near enemy, the Arab regimes, first. This is above all a war within Islam: a conflict of Sunni against Shia, but also a war by Sunni extremists against more moderate Muslims—between those who think the Muslim world should be dominated by a single strand of Wahhabism and its extremist offshoot Salafism and those who support a pluralistic vision of Muslim society. The leaders of ISIS seek to eliminate all Muslim and non-Muslim minorities from the Middle East—not only erasing the old borders and states imposed by Western powers, but changing the entire ethnic, tribal, and religious composition of the region.
NOSI - Naval Open Source Intelligence™ 
You must be logged in to post a comment.