Know Your Enemy. Know Yourself.

By Commander Kasper Hadi Moghaddam, U.S. Navy, and Jason Schoch
April 2018
To better understand the environment, reduce adversary surprise, and improve performance, the Navy’s maritime operations centers need a tighter partnership between intelligence and operational analysis.

Amphibs in Sea Control and Power Projection

By Jonathan D. Caverley and Captain Sam J. Tangredi, U.S. Navy (Retired)
April 2018
With modest innovations in aircraft, weapons loads, and operational concepts, the amphibious force can play a significant role in sea control and strike/power-projection missions. Amphibious warships can fill the gaps ...

We Can Fix the SWO Career Path

By Admirals Michael Mullen and Robert Natter, U.S. Navy (Retired)
April 2018
The “Fleet Review Panel of Surface Forces” (the Balisle Report, 26 February 2010) also set out problems that the surface Navy should address as a whole—not piecemeal. Our intent is ...

Russian Tactical Nukes Are Real

By Mark B. Schneider
April 2018
Russia has a much larger and more varied arsenal of tactical nuclear weapons than the West. This may tempt Russia into believing it can employ these weapons without the United ...

Combat Rescue Needs a Renaissance

By Lieutenant Ben Foster, U.S. Navy
April 2018
The Navy must revisit its surface combat rescue capability. For the first time since the end of the Cold War, the U.S. Navy faces real parity at sea. If war ...

Marines Need 360-Degree Evals

By Major William Schick, U.S. Marine Corps
April 2018
The Corps should implement a 360-degree evaluation system to ensure Marines are evaluated not just by their superiors, but also by their peers and subordinates.In the meantime, all Marine leaders ...

Childhood Adversity Impacts the Corps

By Lieutenant Jeremy Mandia, MD, U.S. Navy
April 2018
New findings suggest that challenging and traumatic experiences during formative years may lead to harmful outcomes as adults. Identifying at-risk Marines can both prevent misconduct and strengthen the Corps.

It's Not Just the Forward Deployed

By Vice Admiral Joseph Aucoin, U.S. Navy (Retired)
April 2018
Tragically, during the summer of 2017, we experienced the horrific collisions of the USS Fitzgerald (DDG-62) and USS John S. McCain (DDG-56). I am concerned that, in some quarters, these ...

Two Vietnams: Ken Burns’ & Ours

By Ed Bergin and Dan Daly
April 2018
For whatever reason, the discussion of the successful Market Time mission received less than two minutes of attention by Mr. Burns. We know something about this first-hand. In his Episode ...

U.S. & Japan Can Counter Chinese A2/AD

By Captain Takuya Shimodaira, Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force
April 2018
In the face of China's growing military capabilities and threatening behavior, Japan and the United States must cooperate together and with other partner countries to maintain a stable status quo ...

Where Have All the Warriors Gone?

By Admiral Richard Macke, U.S. Navy (Retired)
April 2018
Where have all the Navy’s warriors gone? Where are the officers who have faced an enemy on the field of battle and shown throughout their careers the ability to outthink ...

Leadership Forum: Breed Leaders of Innovators

By Commander Frank T. Goertner, U.S. Navy
April 2018
Prevailing research and evidence, however, suggest that organizations most capable of keeping pace in the modern era are diversifying their leadership paradigms. They are building and empowering leaders of leaders—many ...

The Navy Can Learn from Coast Guard Lessons

By Lieutenant Nicholas Monacelli, U.S. Coast Guard
April 2018
While history does not repeat itself, one can often hear its echo. The Coast Guard faced a similar reckoning in 1980, following the loss of three Coast Guard cutters and ...

Build an Island of Freedom

By Captain Sam J. Tangredi, U.S. Navy (Retired)
April 2018
To counter PRC claims and preserve a hope that international law and norms might be maintained in the South China Sea region, the U.S. Navy conducts freedom of navigation (FON) ...

CEO Notes: Come To Our Annual Meeting

Vice Admiral Peter H Daly, U.S. Navy (Ret.)
April 2018
The Naval Institute is 145 years old this month, and we will hold the organization’s 144th Annual Meeting on 2 May at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in ...
USS Ohio in South Korea, sailors standing on deck

Presence Is Not Deterrence

By Lieutenant Joseph Hanacek, U.S. Navy
April 2018
In pursuit of its sailing direction to “operate forward,” the U.S. Navy seems to have confused presence with deterrence and, in so doing, hampered its ability to maintain, train, and ...

XO–CO Fleet-Up Works

By Captain Jordy Harrison, U.S. Navy
April 2018
In December 2005, the surface force’s leaders decided to transition from a traditional executive officer (XO) and commanding officer (CO) model of separate tours to a fleet-up model where the ...

Leaders Must Build Individual and Group Self-Esteem

By Vice Admiral A. H. Konetzni, Jr. U.S. Navy (Retired)
April 2018
Good self-esteem allows an individual to face any challenge. Strong and balanced self-esteem makes the impossible task doable. Collectively, it makes a team unbeatable. Self-esteem is apparent when a person ...
U.S. Naval Academy Midshipmen

Rethinking the Naval Academy Curriculum

By Midshipman First Class W. Kirk Wolff, U.S. Navy
April 2018
If the U.S. Naval Academy’s curriculum were to be created today from scratch in a historical vacuum, the current course of study and requirements likely would be inverted. Rather than ...

Nuclear SWOs Are Ready to Fight

By Lieutenant Commander Desmond Walker, U.S. Navy
April 2018
A serving nuclear-option SWO argues that the case against his career path is based on faulty logic and that SWO(N)s are as ready as their conventional counterparts to be warfighters.

French Naval Aviation Trains with U.S. Navy

By Captain Jean-Emmanuel Roux de Luze, French Navy
April 2018
Beginning this week, the skies of Norfolk and Virginia Beach, Virginia, will resonate with the noise of the jet engines of naval aviation. However, the sound will be not just ...

Keep the Newest Frigate On Course

By Commander Daniel Straub, U.S. Navy
April 2018
The U.S. Navy recently released a request for proposals for design of a new guided-missile frigate, labeled the FFG(X). It follows the contentious littoral combat ship (LCS) program in an ...

Combat Fleets of the World

By Eric Wertheim
April 2018
The Peruvian Navy retired the world’s last operational gun cruiser, its historic flagship the Almirante Grau, in the fall of 2017. The 12,000-ton Almirante Grau was an ex-Dutch De ...

Nobody Asked Me, But... Beards Can Save Lives

By Senior Chief Hospital Corpsman Brian Jacobson, U.S. Navy
April 2018
Walk through any airport around the globe and you could, without much difficulty, point out almost every male U.S. armed forces service member by his haircut and clean shaven face ...

Bring Analytics Back to Theater ASW

By Lieutenant Michael Glynn, U.S. Navy
April 2018
For two decades at the height of the Cold War, the Navy used cutting- edge computing technology and operational intelligence to predict the location of, and search for, Soviet submarines ...

Malaysia Coast Guard Is One to Watch

By Jim Dolbow
April 2018
The Malaysia Coast Guard, also known as the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency (MMEA), is that nation’s 24/7 civilian maritime law enforcement and search-and-rescue organization. Located in the prime minister’s department ...

One Way Out of Afghanistan

By Commander Daniel Dolan, U.S. Navy (Retired)
April 2018
When do wars end? Prussian war theorist Carl von Clausewitz postulated: “Once the expenditure of effort exceeds the value of the political object, the object must be renounced.” What he ...

Naval Systems: Electric Drive Becomes Reality

By Edward J. Walsh
April 2018
The Zumwalt class represents many breakthroughs for the Navy, most conspicuously for hull and deckhouse design, but also for sensors, weapons, and computing infrastructure. On the systems side, the most ...

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