– Marine Corps Times – Approximately seven months after wrapping up a deployment at Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni, members of Fighter Attack Squadron 122 found themselves back in Japan, the latest sign of the increasingly quick turnarounds being asked of F/A-18 and other aircraft squadrons across the service.
Phillipine Navy – China-Philippines navy spat captured on camera
– BBC – Journalists on board a Philippine ship have witnessed Chinese coast guard vessels trying to block access to a disputed shoal in the South China Sea.
US Navy – LCS Got Game
– Aviation Week – In the coming decade, enemy forces that focus on aircraft carriers, destroyers and other ships of a carrier strike group and ignore the little Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) will do so at their own peril.
Geopolitics / East China Sea – The guns of August in the East China Sea
– Gulf News – Robert D. Kaplan writes that the parallels of history have obsessed the foreign policy elite for years, and are building towards a fever pitch: Is the Asia of 2014 the new Europe of 1914?
US Navy – Assured Access, Anytime, Anywhere
– US Naval Institute Proceedings – The Navy’s preoccupation with anti-access/area denial is a throwback to ‘counting battleships’ as a measure of naval capability. It’s time to shift focus to the Navy’s overwhelming dominance of its adversaries.
Ukranian Navy – One-Ship Ukraine Navy Defies Russia to the End
– Wall Street Journal – Its escape to the open seas blocked by sunken ships, the Ukrainian minesweeper Cherkassy weaved and lurched in a narrow gulf on Tuesday afternoon with a symbolic, if inevitably brief, distinction: the last Ukrainian military vessel in Crimea not yet seized by the Russian navy.
Japanese Maritime Self Defense Force – Japan and Vietnam Expand Defense Partnership
– USNI News – Leaders from Japan and Vietnam have signed an agreement to expand maritime security relations between the two countries against a backdrop of an expansionist China.
Geopolitics / Empire – In Defense of Empire
– The Atlantic – Robert D. Kaplan writes that Empire can ensure stability and protect minorities better than any other form of order. The case for a tempered American imperialism.
US Navy – SEALs Take Control of Hijacked Tanker
– USNI News – A team of U.S. Navy SEALs took control of a commercial oil tanker that was seized earlier this month by three armed Libyans.
Geopolitics / Crimea – Crimea: The Revenge Of Geography?
– Stratfor – Robert D. Kaplan on the situation in Crimea.
US Navy – Navy ‘black box locator’ to aid in search for missing jetliner
– Stars and Stripes – Navy officials are sending a black box locator to the search area near Australia in support of the efforts to find the Malaysia Airlines jetliner that went missing more than two weeks ago.
Iranian Navy – Iranians up to ‘no good’ with U.S. aircraft carrier mock-up
– USA Today – The senior Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee says Iran’s construction of a mock-up U.S. aircraft carrier demonstrates Iran’s continued lack of good faith. “We don’t really know what it means, but I for sure don’t trust the Iranians,” Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., said Saturday. “It’s some kind of a ruse and whatever they are up to, it’s no good.”
Editorial Note – P-8 Poseidon God of the Sea
Visit our maritime patrol aircraft blog, P-8 Poseidon God of the Sea, for updates on the search for Malaysian Airlines Flight 370.
US Navy – Maritime Deception and Concealment
– US Naval War College Review – An investigation of concepts for defeating wide-area oceanic surveillance-reconnaissance-strike networks.
US Navy – The Navy’s New Cruiser Is … the Navy’s Old Cruiser
– War is Boring – The U.S. Navy’s 22 Ticonderoga-class cruisers have been its biggest and most heavily-armed surface combatant warships since the mid-1980s. For years, the sailing branch tried and failed to design an even more powerful ship to replace the Ticos, but the high cost proved prohibitive. Now the Navy has finally identified its next cruisers. They’re the same cruisers as today, upgraded for a quarter-billion dollars apiece as part of a complicated plan that sees the last Tico finally leaving the fleet in 2045—at which point the vessel will have been in commission for a staggering 51 years.
US Marines – The Fleet-and Fleet Marine Force-in the 21st Century
– US Naval Institute Proceedings – With end-strength numbers reduced and budgets slashed, the Navy–Marine Corps team must cultivate innovative ways to maintain vital capabilities.
US Navy – Why the Navy Wants More Growlers
– USNI News – The Navy is eyeing expanding its fleet of electronic attack aircraft to better fit into the service’s next generation plan for fighting a high end air war.
US Marines – U.S. Marines Get Ready for the Next Benghazi
– War is Boring – The Pentagon is sending more Marines and warplanes to join its emergency response group in Spain. The additions show the growing importance of smaller task forces in an era of shrinking defense budgets.
US Navy – Outrage On Capitol Hill As Navy Changes Ship-Counting Rules
– Breaking Defense – Quantity has a quality all its own. The Navy announced this afternoon that it has changed the arcane rules by which it counts ships, adding 10 coastal patrol craft, two hospital ships, and a high-speed transport to what it calls the “battle force.” The new rules would also keep 11 cruisers the Navy plans to not-quite-mothball on the rolls.
Japanese Maritime Self Defense Force – US, Japan to Jointly Develop Littoral Combat Ship
– The Diplomat – The U.S. and Japan will jointly develop a littoral combat ship (LCS) for quick intervention in shallow waters.
US Navy – Tomahawk Re-routes Faster to Hit Moving Targets
– DefenseTech – A Navy destroyer recently test-fired a Block IV Tomahawk missile that quickly received updated target information in-flight, changed course rapidly and destroyed a moving target, Raytheon officials said. While the net-enabled Tomahawk Block IV missiles already have an ability to be re-targeted in flight, this Feb. 19 missile test aboard the USS Sterett demonstrated that the weapon can perform this function much faster, more frequently and with greater radio throughput, Raytheon officials explained.
Piracy – Piracy in the Gulf of Guinea: Oil Soaked Pirates
– USNI News – Off Nigeria—the epicenter of western Africa piracy—there have been at least 12 attacks against various types of vessels this year, resulting in multiple kidnappings. Within the swampy maze of the Niger Delta, militants-cum-pirates have robbed passenger vessels, kidnapped oil workers and ambushed security-force patrols. This level of organized piracy—as distinguished from opportunistic robberies against berthed and anchored vessels—can be sorted into two different categories: tanker hijackings for product theft and maritime kidnapping for ransom.
US Navy – Now What?
– Aviation Week – The real and long-lasting effects of the recent Defense Department directive to cut the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) fleet are just starting to sink in.
Russian Navy – The Russian Navy ‘Rebalances’ to the Mediterranean
– US Naval Institute Proceedings – As NATO and the United States deprioritize a former strategic center of gravity, Russia eagerly moves in to fill the void.
US Navy – After 32 Ships, Future of LCS Program Unclear
– Defense News – Hardly anything is clear in Washington about what’s happening with the US Navy’s Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) program. Details are embryonic, discussions are just beginning, the whys and wherefores still unclear, memos and specific directions yet to be issued, and sensitivities still raw.
NOSI - Naval Open Source Intelligence™ 
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