The War Zone – Here is what the squadron commander and program manager said about the EA-18G’s new AN/ALQ-249 jamming pods, which were thrust into combat last year.

War on the Rocks – It’s time warships move into the software-centric reality of the 21st century. Should their designs continue to center on humans and hardware, they will not evolve fast enough and – as a result — will become steel tombs.

National Interest – James Holmes says that the White House should appoint some senior overseer, probably housed within the National Security Council, with the authority to manage all U.S. government endeavors relating to maritime strategy.

CIMSEC – Educational wargaming is not merely an exercise in concept development in the upper reaches of command. It is a crucible for forging the decision-making skills, adaptability, and intellectual overmatch required for contemporary naval challenges in the earliest stages of a young officer’s development. Wargaming, particularly at the pre-commissioning level, transforms the learning experience by engaging participants in narrative-rich, synthetic environments that mimic the pressures of real-world decision-making. Drawing on historical precedents and recent innovations, we see a central role of wargaming in cultivating the next generation of naval leaders at the U.S. Naval Academy. 

The War Zone – The Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) has helped develop an autonomous underwater float that can monitor and transmit oceanographic and underwater acoustic data near-indefinitely, and in near real-time. Known as the Persistent Smart Acoustic Profiler (PSAP) Voyager, it is powered by temperature differences in the ocean, providing enough energy to run its instrumentation for far longer than other non-wired undersea eavesdropping hydrophones currently in operation. Such an innovation could have big implications for undersea sensing and detection.

War on the Rocks – Decades of global policing and crisis response have taken a toll on the U.S. Navy. If the United States wishes to deter China, Beijing must believe Washington can fight a sustained, brutal war, one in which the U.S. Navy can take major losses and still fight on. Today, that is not the case, and the concept of “naval forward presence” bears much of the blame.

CIMSEC – An excellent series of short notes on what the new U.S. administration can consider to strengthen American naval power, reinforce alliances, and compete effectively against great powers. Authors examined a multitude of issues and offered recommendations for reform. From shipbuilding shortfalls to competing with China, to reinforcing alliances and strengthening logistics, the new administration faces many challenges and opportunities in the maritime domain. 

Naval News – Naval News catches up with Ledios Gibbs and Cox on their efforts to enhance logistics in the Indo-Pacific and speed up VLS reloading through the Mobile Depot Platform concept.

Breaking Defense – The three-month grounding of the Pentagon’s V-22 Osprey fleets last year had “considerable” impact on the Navy’s aviators and crews at a time when the service is transitioning to the Osprey as its primary aircraft for ferrying personnel and cargo.