– Washington Post – Gwenyth Todd had worked in a lot of places in Washington where powerful men didn’t hesitate to use sharp elbows. She had been a Middle East expert for the National Security Council in the Clinton administration. She had worked in the office of Defense Secretary Dick Cheney in the first Bush administration, where neoconservative hawks first began planning to overthrow Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. But she was not prepared a few years later in Bahrain when she encountered plans by high-ranking admirals to confront Iran, any one of which, she reckoned, could set the region on fire.
US Navy – U.S. Navy Creates LCS ‘Council’ To Guide Development
– Defense News – A new, high-powered effort to boost development of the littoral combat ship (LCS) is kicking off, intended to help implement numerous proposals and suggestions to integrate the new ship type into U.S. Navy operations.
Royal Navy – MoD Unveils Royal Navy’s Future Warships
– Defense Aerospace – The latest design of the Royal Navy’s next generation of warships has been unveiled today by the MoD. Images show the basic specification of the Type 26 Global Combat Ship (T26 GCS).
Royal Navy – Navy 'running out of sailors to man submarines’
– Daily Telegraph – Britain’s nuclear deterrent is at risk because the Navy does not have enough sailors to man its submarines, Ministry of Defence officials admit.
Russian Navy – Silent Running
– Free Beacon – Russian attack submarine sailed in Gulf of Mexico undetected for weeks, U.S. officials say.
The Pentagon denies the story.
US Navy – ACTUV – SAIC's Automated Submarine Stalker
– Aviation Week – With Senators up in arms over disputed reports that a Russian submarine cruised around the Gulf of Mexico undetected for a month, it was an opportune time for DARPA to award SAIC a contract to develop an unmanned vessel that can shadow a submerged submarine throughout its patrol.
Geopolitics / South China Sea – The South China Sea's Gathering Storm
– Wall Street Journal – James Webb on the current state of affairs in the South China Sea.
Geopolitics – Niall Ferguson: Don’t Believe the Techno-Utopian Hype
– Newsweek – Niall Ferguson does not believe our future is as bright as Silicon Valley would lead us to believe…an interesting look at a historian’s view of the future.
US Navy – U.S. Navy Officials Suppressed Bad LCS-1 Test Results
– Aviation Week – U.S. Navy emails and other documents suggest that officials muzzled bad test results for the first Littoral Combat Ship (LCS-1) variant, the USS Freedom, at a crucial time in the program’s development, when the service was considering which seaframe to pick for the $30 billion-plus fleet. Top program officers for the ship and at Naval Sea Systems Command (Navsea) told subordinates to avoid certain language in the test-result reports because of concerns over the downselect decision, the documents show. One naval officer said in an email he would delete the offensive wording of the report.
Japanese Maritime Self Defense Force – U.S., Japan said discussing missile-defense ship upgrades
– Reuters – The United States and Japan are discussing system upgrades for a pair of Japanese destroyers to boost defenses against a ballistic missile attack.
US Navy – America’s Dangerous Battle Plan
– The Diplomat – The AirSea Battle concept for countering China’s military rise is expensive and unhelpful. And could even spark a nuclear conflict.
Indian Navy – Indian Navy Freezes Flat-Top Configuration
– Aviation Week – The Indian navy is likely to call an end to its tryst with ski-jump aircraft carriers, deciding that its next big vessel will be a flat-top with a catapult-launch system.
Geopolitics / South China Sea – South Korea's Lee Myung-bak visits disputed islands
– BBC – South Korea’s president is visiting islands also claimed by Japan, in a move set to raise diplomatic tensions.
US Navy – Third littoral class ship much improved, Navy says
– San Diego Union Tribune – As the third ship in the Navy’s littoral class left a Wisconsin shipyard this week, the inaugural step toward its eventual home in San Diego, the Navy billed it as an “exponential” improvement over the controversial first vessel in the line.
Piracy – Piracy attacks drop to zero for first full month in five years
– Daily Telegraph – Pirate attacks off Somalia dropped to zero for the first full month since the menace emerged more than five years ago, new figures show.
Air Warfare – A Day Job Waiting for a Kill Shot a World Away
– New York Times – An interesting look at the life of a Predator pilot.
Chinese Navy – Should China Fear RIMPAC?
– Diplomat – As a regularly scheduled biennial exercise, RIMPAC happens regardless of the extant political situation in the Pacific. However, the absence of the People’s Liberation Army Navy – and the participation of Russia and India for the first time – combined with new tensions in the South China Sea, leaves the unavoidable impression that these exercises are geared towards managing the increasing naval power of China.
US Navy – Intelligence sharing ahead for UAVs
– Flight Global – The US Department of Defense needs to develop new unmanned aircraft that can survive inside contested airspace, as it shifts its focus toward the Pacific – but the services must invest in new technologies to seamlessly share intelligence data.
US Navy – U.S. model for a future war fans tensions with China and inside Pentagon
– Washington Post – A very interesting look at how AirSea Battle is playing out in the Pentagon…
US Navy – The Navy's Moral Compass: Commanding Officers and Personal Misconduct
– US Naval War College Review – The U.S. Navy has an integrity problem in the ranks of its commanding officers (COs). Although (as far as we can tell) over 97 percent of the Navy’s commanding officers conduct themselves honorably, the increasing number of those who do not raises concerns that the Navy must address.
US Navy – Preparing for Today's Undersea Warfare
– US Naval Institute Proceedings – Undersea warriors must learn from the past while handling a sophisticated network of manned and unmanned platforms and sensors.
US Navy – The Incredible Shrinking SSBN(X)
– US Naval Institute Proceedings – The Navy must redesign a capable follow-on ballistic-missile submarine that it can afford.
Chinese Navy – Phase Zero: How China Exploits It, Why the United States Does Not
– US Naval War College Review – In October 2006 General Charles Wald, Deputy Commander U.S. European Command, brought “Phase Zero” into the joint lexicon with the publication of an article, “The Phase Zero Campaign.” Over the last five years the concept of taking coordinated action in peacetime to affect the strategic environment has become widely accepted and is now integrated into theater campaign plans. These activities focus on building capacity of partners and influencing potential adversaries to avoid war. In contrast, Chinese strategic culture has encouraged taking actions to defeat an enemy prior to the onset of hostilities for two and a half millennia.
US Navy – Rekindling the Killer Instinct
– US Naval Institute Proceedings – Today’s tech-dependent, risk-averse submarine culture keeps young officers from developing warfighting skills crucial to success in conflict.
US Navy – Winning the Battle, Losing the War
– US Naval Institute Proceedings – While the Navy appears to be doing a better job of selling itself to lawmakers and the American public, it still needs to improve its marketing, or the whole effort could blow up in its face.
NOSI - Naval Open Source Intelligence™ 
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