US Navy – U.S. to Start Cutting Submarine Missile-Launchers Next Year

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– Global Security Newswire – The United States next year is slated to begin reducing launch tubes on each of its Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines, a new independent report states. The elimination of four operational launch tubes on each of the 14 submarines that make up the Navy’s Ohio submarine fleet will be the first substantial reduction in U.S. strategic weapon delivery capability since the 2011 New START accord went into effect.

US Marines – Army’s ‘Pacific Pathways’ initiative sets up turf battle with Marines

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– Washington Post – As the Obama administration winds down the Army-centric war in Afghanistan, Pentagon leaders are seeking to place the Air Force, Navy and Marines in dominant roles to counter threats in the Asia-Pacific region, which they have deemed to be the nation’s next big national security challenge. Fearful that the new strategy will cut its share of the defense budget, the Army is launching an ambitious campaign to transform itself and assert its relevance in the Pacific. And that, in turn, is drawing the Army into a fight. With the Marines.

US Navy – The Navy’s 2014: Subs, Cyber, & Cheap Support Ships

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– Breaking Defense – The Navy, is, hands down, the service in the best shape for 2014. Every act of belligerent idiocy from Beijing – and there’ve been a lot of them lately – makes the Navy budget an easier sell. In stark contrast to the Army, the Navy has the central role in the new Pacific-focused strategy, a high-tech threat justifying high-cost programs, a highly visible role in peacetime engagement around the world, and, perhaps most crucial, a clear set of missions.

Chinese Navy – China’s Near-Seas Challenges

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– National Interest – The U.S. National Intelligence Council forecasts that China will become the world’s largest economy (measured by purchasing-power parity) in 2022. Jane’s predicts that by 2015 People’s Liberation Army (PLA) funding will double to $238 billion, surpassing that of NATO’s eight largest militaries after the United States combined. The International Institute for Strategic Studies says that China’s defense spending might surpass America’s as early as 2025. Even if these projections prove exaggerated, economic, technical and industrial activity of an amazing scope and intensity is already affording China potent military capabilities. This is especially the case when such capabilities are applied—most likely through peacetime deterrence, or a limited skirmish with a neighbor such as Vietnam—to the “near seas” (the Yellow, East China and South China Seas), currently a major Chinese strategic focus.

Allowing Beijing to use force, or even the threat of force, to alter the regional status quo would have a number of pernicious effects. It would undermine the functioning of the most vibrant portion of the global commons—sea and air mediums that all nations rely on for trade and prosperity, but that none own. It would undermine important international norms and encourage the application of force to more of the world’s many persistent disputes. Finally, it would threaten to destabilize a region haunted by history that has prospered during nearly seven decades of U.S. forces helping to preserve peace. No other nation has the capability and lack of territorial claims necessary to play this still-vital role.

A number of strategists appear to believe that America faces the threat of conflict with China in the future, but that it can be avoided through accommodation or prepared for over a protracted period. In fact, a different scenario is more likely: even as the two Pacific powers are sufficiently interdependent to avoid direct hostilities—and share significant interests on which they may cooperate increasingly—China is already beginning to pose its greatest challenge to U.S. influence and interests in the Asia-Pacific.

US Navy – USS Little Rock, From Light to Guided Missile Cruiser: Lessons For The Littoral Combat Ship

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– Breaking Defense – The Littoral Combat Ship has come under light fire from Congress because they worry especially about findings by operational testers that the ships cannot survive a firefight. Norman Friedman, a consultant at Gryphon Technologies with more than 30 military books to his name, argues in the following piece that critics need to consider that “change is at the core” of the LCS design, marking a welcome change in naval design. He believes LCS marks “the most fundamental change in warship design” in decades. Friedman compares the just-launched LCS ship USS Little Rock with the history of its predecessor, a light cruiser built near the end of World War II, mothballed a few years later and later rebuilt as a guided missile cruiser at considerable cost.

US Navy – Knifefighter

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– Aviation Week – There’s something special and hopeful about steaming into a tropical port on the bridge of a Navy warship that’s just finished a trek across the Pacific as the year’s drawing to a close. It’s a time of reflection of the deployment that’s been and hope for the potential that lies ahead. Green island hills hovering above a postcard Honolulu cityscape and a blue sea – all add to the dreamy scene. It’s easy to ignore the storm clouds gathering on the horizon. And as the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS-1) USS Freedom steamed into Pearl Harbor and docked, it was easy to focus on all of the positives of the ship’s maiden Western Pacific deployment – and forget about the roiling seas still threatening the LCS program.

Geopolitics / Middle East – Disraeli And The Eastern Question

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– Forbes – Robert D. Kaplan writes that the Eastern Question strikes at the heart of present-day debates over humanitarian intervention in the Balkans, Libya and Syria. Simply put, the Eastern Question was about how to respond to the slow-motion demise of the Ottoman Empire, whose territory included not only much of the Near East but much of Southeastern Europe besides.

Chinese Navy – Eying Taiwan, China Is Getting Four Giant Hovercraft

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– War is Boring – The first of China’s four giant hovercraft has been spotted conducting trials on the Pearl River in the country’s south. Meanwhile, hovercraft number two is being assembled in nearby Guangzhou. It’s not hard to see why Beijing is spending a reported $300 million on the four Zubr-class hovercraft—two built in Ukraine and two in Guangzhou. Able to speed a distance of 300 miles in six hours while carrying eight armored vehicles or 500 marines apiece, the 187-foot-long Zubrs will help Beijing back up its once-empty threat to invade Taiwan in the event the island nation ever formally declares independence from the mainland.

Chinese Navy – Deterrence by Denial: How to Prevent China From Using Force

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– National Interest – To ensure that Beijing cannot use force—or the threat of force—to change the status quo in the Asia-Pacific, the U.S. must maintain military capabilities that will deter any threatening or aggressive actions by China—even as they cooperate in areas of shared interest. At a minimum, the U.S. must continue to prevent force from being used to resolve Asia-Pacific disputes and cooperate where it can until Beijing embraces the mutual efforts required for the two Pacific powers to achieve durable, if frequently or even continuously competitive, coexistence. To ensure this, the U.S. should demonstrate the capability to deny China the ability to seize and hold disputed territories. Given the inherent defensiveness of the U.S. approach, it should be possible to meet core objectives at an affordable price through the most critical timeframe—likely over the coming decade—with a bottom-line strategy of deterrence by denial.

US Navy – Defending the Fleet From China’s Anti-Ship Ballistic Missile: Naval Deception’s Role in Sea-Based Missile Defense

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– Georgetown University Institutional Repository – A *fascinating* analysis from Jonathan Solomon of how lessons learned in the Cold War by the US Navy in how to defeat the Soviet Ocean Surveillance System and air-launched anti-ship cruise missiles can be applied today against the Chinese Ocean Surveillance System and their anti-ship ballistic missiles. 137 pages long, but well worth the read. Happy Holidays!