Removing the ghost fleet protects the ocean environment and innocent civilians from the dangers of the often illicit or poorly stored and maintained cargo.
Addressing concerns about the V-22 Osprey is a necessity. But so is preserving a platform unlike any other in the U.S. inventory.
The Trump administration argues the strikes are necessary to stem the flow of drugs to the U.S., but the law is not simply whatever the president deems it to be.
The Army-Navy rivalry points the way to a more civil and hopeful future of disagreeing better and working together for something worth defending.
The Navy currently is composed of approximately 290 ships centered around 11 nuclear aircraft carriers. The responsibilities outlined in the strategy suggest a larger Navy of approximately 350 manned ships and 12 flattops.
The U.S. Navy should pursue the concept of teaming manned units — like attack submarines — with unmanned units as the best method to maximize combat potential.
The aircraft carrier remains an incredibly flexible platform due to the infinite changes possible in its main battery air wing.
The Navy has other options for adding more firepower at sea rather than returning the battleships for yet another period of active duty.
An accurate digital twin could guide Navy maintenance and avoid the costly surprises often found when shipyard workers open sections of a ship below deck and behind bulkheads.
Problems arise when the military services become infatuated with advanced technologies regardless of their relevance.
Russia and China encourage the kind of dangerous behavior at sea not seen since the Cold War.
The emerging problem is that the data the Department of Defense plans to send to states is insufficient.
The Navy’s program executive office for unmanned systems and small combatants is potentially on the chopping block. That’s a bad idea.
When compared with similar and more expensive U.S. warships, foreign vessels have come up remarkably short in combat capability.
Introduction of smaller, unmanned ships as an adjunct to the existing Navy fleet solves the problem of large ships not able to distribute combat capability.
The military services are successfully embarking upon continuous improvement of the V-22, an aircraft absolutely essential to our military’s concepts of operation, especially in the Indo-Pacific.
A number of severe readiness challenges continue to affect the Navy, in terms of its vanishing cruiser force, crippling redesign of the Constellation-class frigate, poor readiness of the amphibious fleet and problems with the Landing Ship Medium program.
The Navy may need to produce prototypes and deploy them to combat zones like the Red Sea in order to make rapid decisions in shipbuilding acquisition.
The U.S. must conduct aggressive on hypersonic and counter-hypersonic weapons, especially since adversaries have adopted precisely this mindset. A risk-averse mentality that demurs on military development will lose the United States the next war.
The Navy has had long-established conventions for naming ships. But the Navy has increasingly named warships for living people, including political figures, which has become a divisive issue. The next Navy secretary needs to get control of the dysfunctional naming process and restore a sense of order.
With the looming prospect of war with China in the near future, it’s time to focus on what the U.S. Navy’s Littoral Combat Ships can do for the Navy and Marine Corps.
The next Navy secretary should create a group of upwardly mobile Navy, Coast Guard and Merchant Marine captains and Marine Corps colonels to experiment with new concepts of naval strategy and operations. The increasing tensions with China demand it.
President-elect Trump and his national security team want change in the U.S. military. They can score fast wins by correcting major defense program mistakes made by the Biden administration.
Among the first actions it takes in the Pentagon, the incoming Trump administration should commission a top-to-bottom review and reform of the Navy bureaucracy that develops new warships.
The next U.S. president will be faced with a stark choice – whether or not to rebuild what was once a vital commercial merchant marine fleet to support U.S. trade interests around the globe and buttress U.S. military operations when needed.
Every military aviation accident is a tragedy, and we must always strive to improve safety. But context is important, and the idea that the V-22 is more dangerous than other aircraft is just a myth, pure and simple.
Sending the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier at high speed to the Middle East has created an aircraft carrier gap in the Pacific. The carrier fleet is stretching to perform its global role.
The Navy’s more diverse ecosystem of maintenance has seen its shipboard, tender-based and local-homeport components decimated since the end of the Cold War. Bringing back a maintenance and repair system at multiple levels might ease the burden on shipyard-level maintenance and repair.
With the end of a cooperative framework, the Arctic is rapidly becoming the next contested area in great power competition, and the U.S. is in danger of being a day late and a dollar short.
Neither commission is headed by a senior retired military officer or a senior civilian who has the credentials to promote meaningful recommendations and persuade government bureaucracies to act. A senior leader is essential to spur change.
