Welcome to the start of the new year and our annual surface navy–focused issue—packed with must-read feature articles and commentaries. Starting at the strategic level with “Project 33 Is Enabling Joint All-Domain Operations in the Indo-Pacific,” Navy Admiral Sam Paparo, Commander, U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, brings us up to speed on how the Chief of Naval Operations’ Navigation Plan 2024 and Project 33 are improving readiness in the Pacific. The Seventh Fleet Commander, Vice Admiral Fred Kacher—a surface warfare officer (SWO) himself—provides “A View from the Western Pacific,” in which he discusses what the Chinese are up to in the maritime realm and explains how Seventh Fleet is working to enhance and combine the capabilities of many allies and partners to deter and prepare for conflict.
In “Train at Sea to Win at War,” Navy warfare tactics instructor Lieutenant Kristen Ringwall Damico proposes ways the surface fleet could better prepare for combat while ships are on deployment—not just when undergoing workups. She raises the point that if a major war were to break out, many ships would have to surge immediately, and training self-sufficiency would be key to arriving in theater ready to fight.
Two former SWO navigators describe how the USS Essex (LHD-2) sailed from Hawaii to San Diego in 2022 using only celestial navigation techniques in “Ships Must Practice Celestial Navigation.” Yes, what is old is new again, and before saltier readers indulge in “back-in-my-day” stories, let us not blame the younger generation for decisions the Navy made more than a decade ago to forgo the stars for GPS. We applaud today’s junior officers and quartermasters for breaking out the sextants and relearning the ancient techniques.
Readers may have noticed more content related to the merchant marine, Military Sealift Command (MSC), and commercial shipping in our pages of late. That has been intentional, because the Navy’s success depends in many ways on MSC and the global shipping industry. In “The Risks of Decarbonized and Digitalized Shipping,” Matthew Collette and Paul Hess III describe changes in the commercial shipping industry that will affect the Navy in coming decades. And examining the rough state of the Navy’s logistics fleet, Andrea Orlowski writes, “MSC Could Use a Balisle Report of Its Own”—harkening back to a 2009 fleet review panel led by retired Navy Rear Admiral Phillip Balisle that uncovered serious problems in the surface force.
As always, challenges abound, but Proceedings kicks off 2025 excited about the constant stream of insightful ideas our contributors offer for how the Sea Services can tackle those challenges. Next month’s issue will be dedicated to shipbuilding, with prominent experts offering their views on the problems and how to fix them. We hope you will engage with that topic by writing letters for Comment & Discussion. Just send an email to [email protected] (400 words or less), and you can be part of the debate.
