USNI News – The Defense Innovation Unit has released a solicitation for the Combat Autonomous Maritime Platform, a large unmanned underwater vessel capable of supporting large payloads at range in contested environments.

National Interest – James Holmes writes that stakeholders in the maritime enterprise must think in grand Mahanian terms about rejuvenating U.S. sea power. Trump’s new executive order charts a path forward—but epoch-making trials lie ahead.

CIMSEC – If an unmanned hellscape is to move from fantasy to credible threat in the eyes of an adversary, the U.S. Navy, as part of the Joint Force, must take concrete steps to address weaknesses in its current conceptualizations of unmanned future warfare. To overcome these obstacles, the U.S. Navy can lead the way by appointing a robotics and autonomous systems czar to interface and invigorate industry, develop forward deployed naval robotics formations, and oversee a deeper investment in the forces needed to operate these systems.

National Interest – James Holmes writes that the U.S. Navy can learn much from the Russo-Japanese War—and from dueling interpretations of that conflict by naval theorists Alfred Thayer Mahan and Julian S. Corbett.

Naval News – The Hypersonic Air Launched Offensive (HALO) missile in development for the U.S. Navy’s high priority Offensive Anti-Surface Warfare Increment 2 (OASuW Inc 2) program has been cancelled.

CIMSEC – The United States has a shipping problem and everybody knows it. From combatant commands to congress and maritime security outlets to the White House, everyone is talking about America’s lack of maritime capacity.  America, it seems, is waking up to its maritime problem and is ready to roll up its sleeves and start solving it in the only way it knows how—mostly alone. While there have been some nods to bilateral cooperation in shipbuilding, the United States has not made a concerted effort toward a robust, multilateral counter-China maritime strategy. That needs to change. A coordinated, multinational approach is required to counter Chinese shipping dominance. The US and its allies should form a Multilateral Maritime Alliance to secure maritime trade and create critical sealift capacity to sustain expeditionary combat operations.