– DOD Buzz – The U.S. Navy is working with NATO allies and other countries to develop a next-generation ship-based Sea Sparrow missile engineered with an improved, high-tech guidance system.

– Los Angeles Times – The Pentagon is moving a fifth warship armed with cruise missiles to the eastern Mediterranean Sea, giving the U.S. more firepower for a possible attack on Syria in response to alleged use of chemical weapons, a defense official said. The guided-missile destroyer Stout is expected to arrive in the area Thursday, joining four other missile-carrying U.S. destroyers within range of Syria.

– Aviation Week – U.S. Navy officials acknowledge sailors are now getting better with Remote Multi-Mission Vehicle (RMMV) launch-and-recovery operations. LCS program officials say they are no longer seeing the damage they used to see. And the whole system is much more reliable, they say. All of that is important – the RMMV is one of the stars for LCS mine-warfare operations.

– New York Times – President Obama is considering military action against Syria that is intended to “deter and degrade” President Bashar al-Assad’s government’s ability to launch chemical weapons, but is not aimed at ousting Mr. Assad from power or forcing him to the negotiating table, administration officials said Tuesday.

– Washington Times – Four U.S. Navy destroyers remain ready in the Eastern Mediterranean for President Obama’s call to strike the Syrian regime’s military assets, each equipped with up to 90 Tomahawk cruise missiles, defense officials said Monday. The USS Mahan, USS Gravely, USS Barry and USS Ramage are “poised and positioned should any options be taken,” a defense official said…Defense officials say the aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman, which recently entered the Mediterranean, is not expected to be part of any military campaign on Syria and would focus on operations in Afghanistan. Also in the Mediterranean are submarines armed with cruise missiles. Their positions are classified because they carry special operations troops.

– Defense News – At first, the statement is shocking. “Reduce the number of carrier strike groups from 11 to 8 or 9, draw down the Marine Corps from 182,000 to between 150,000 and 175,000.” But those words July 31 from US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel brought into the open some of the behind-the-scenes discussions that have been going on at the Pentagon for months. Senior Defense Department officials continue to stress no decisions have been made out of the Strategic Choices and Management Review (SCMR), but the everything-is-on-the-table nature of the discussions is becoming clearer.

– War is Boring – Hopefully the first big wave won’t sink it.

– Breaking Defense – Just when the Navy’s surface fleet had started pulling itself out of a 10-year, $2 billion hole, budget dysfunction may kick it right back in.

– CNN – Late on Friday, a defense official said the United States had added a Navy destroyer to the eastern Mediterranean fleet. The USS Ramage arrived to replace the USS Mahan, but the Mahan is going to stay around a bit longer, so temporarily there will be four. The USS Gravelly and USS Barry remain. These ships are all equipped with the Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles, a long-range subsonic cruise missile used to attack land targets.

– War is Boring – Mothballed X-47Bs to resume testing for two more years.

– Aviation Week – Is mine warfare like ballistic missile defense? You betcha! And harder, too, the U.S. Navy brass says, because you have to do countermine operations in a more challenging undersea environment.

– Defense News – Unmanned systems are commonplace in the world of aviation. But it wasn’t long ago that they were more of an oddity for world militaries. That changed when technological developments finally let systems operate for long stretches of time, giving operators a near-permanent eye in the sky. Once that barrier was breached, UAVs could be used for all kinds of applications. Is a similar breakthrough coming for unmanned systems that operate underwater? Boeing believes so — and that it will happen within the next two years.

– Breaking Defense – The US Navy has decided to scrap the fire-ravaged USS Miami, whose repair bill from arson had soared to $700 million from $450 million. It’s the first time the Navy has written off a damaged sub since the USS Bonefish burned in 1988, and it brings the attack submarine force down to 54 subs. The most cost-effective way for the country to make up for the loss of the nuclear-powered Miami is to keep the rest of the fleet well-maintained and to keep buying two new Virginia-class submarines each year, the Navy’s director of Undersea Warfare said.

– The Diplomat – A look at the concept of Offshore Control by T.X. Hammes. Operationally, Offshore Control uses current forces and restricted ways to cripple China’s maritime trade and thus its economy. It establishes a set of concentric rings that denies China the use of the sea inside the first island chain, defends the sea and air space of the first island chain, and dominates the air and maritime space outside the first island chain. To reduce the possibility of nuclear escalation and make war termination easier, no operations will penetrate Chinese airspace.