Publication Release: The Future of Naval Aviation
Released: August 2016 In August of 2015 CIMSEC published a Call for Articles soliciting analysis on the future of naval aviation. The following month, contributors responded with submissions that...
View ArticleDistributed Lethality Week Kicks Off on CIMSEC
By Dmitry Filipoff This week CIMSEC is hosting articles exploring the U.S. Navy’s Distributed Lethality concept in partnership with the Distributed Lethality Task Force. The U.S. Navy is investigating...
View ArticleAfter Distributed Lethality – Unmanned Netted Lethality
Distributed Lethality Topic Week By Javier Gonzalez Distributed lethality was introduced to the fleet in January 2015 as a response to the development of very capable anti-access area-denial (A2/AD)...
View ArticleDistributed Lethality Week Concludes on CIMSEC
By Dmitry Filipoff This week CIMSEC featured a series of articles submitted in response to the Distributed Lethality Task Force’s Call for Articles issued at the beginning of this month. The Task Force...
View ArticleEnhancing Existing Force Structure by Optimizing Maritime Service Specialization
Alternative Naval Force Structure Topic Week By Eric Beaty The factors which color our view of the world have changed significantly since the end of the Cold War. That overarching conflict polarized...
View ArticleClosing Remarks on Changing Naval Force Structure
Alternative Naval Force Structure Topic Week By CAPT Wayne P. Hughes Jr., USN (Ret.) The biggest deficiencies in reformulating the U. S. Navy’s force structure are (1) a failure to take the shrinking...
View ArticleCommodore Dudley Wright Knox – Sailor, Writer, Sage
By Christopher Nelson The U.S. Naval Institute’s popular and well-reviewed 21st Century Foundation series continues to grow. This past May, Dr. David Kohnen added to the list with his 21st Century...
View ArticleMoving Forward: Evolution of the Maritime Operations Center
The following article originally featured on MOC Warfighter and is republished with permission. Read it in its original form here. By William Lawler, CAPT USN and Jonathan Will, CAPT USN (Ret.) After...
View ArticleAutonomous Warfare: An Operational Concept to Optimize Distributed Lethality
By LT Coleman Ward Introduction To better meet today’s force demands, [we must] explore alternate fleet designs, including kinetic and non-kinetic payloads and both manned and unmanned systems. This...
View ArticleNaval Strategy Returns to Lead the POM
By Steve Wills Introduction Newly appointed U.S. Navy Secretary John F. Lehman Jr. gave a signature speech at the Naval War College in Newport, RI in 1981. In his remarks Lehman hailed, “the return of...
View ArticleAn Interview with Vice Admiral Tom Rowden on the Future of the Surface Navy
By Dmitry Filipoff Vice Admiral Tom Rowden, Commander, Naval Surface Forces, spoke with CIMSEC about the future of surface warfare and how the surface fleet is supporting the Chief of Naval Operations’...
View ArticleU.S, Israel, and Seapower in the East Med
The following article is adapted from the Report of the Commission on the Eastern Mediterranean sponsored by the University of Haifa and the Hudson Institute. By Seth Cropsey Beginning on 9 October,...
View ArticleIs A2/AD Still Useful As Doctrinal Language? A CIMSEC Debate
CNO Admiral John Richardson recently struck the term A2/AD from Navy lexicon. The debate that follows aims to ascertain the value of the term and understand the context of the CNO’s decision. Bob...
View ArticleA New Administration, A New Maritime Strategy?
By Steve Wills Introduction The incoming Trump administration has called for a 350-ship navy as one of its core defense goals. This number is a good start for adding capability to the U.S. Navy after...
View ArticleSea Control 125: Bryan McGrath on Fleet Design, Distributed Lethality, and...
By Sally DeBoer The ushering in of a new administration on January 20th has many wondering what campaign promises will materialize and meaningfully affect the U.S. Navy. Is it reasonable to expect...
View ArticleWhat Does the New Administration Need to Know About the U.S. Navy?
By Dmitry Filipoff Week Dates: Jan. 16 – Jan. 20. Responses Due: Jan. 15 Response Length: 400 Words or Less As various bureaucracies orient themselves around the incoming administration, they must...
View ArticleNew Administration Topic Week Kicks Off on CIMSEC
By Dmitry Filipoff This week CIMSEC will be featuring brief responses submitted to our call for recommendations for the incoming administration. Below is a list of responses that will be updated as the...
View ArticleMercy of the Dragon
New Administration Topic Week By Joshua A. Cranford The next administration should be cognizant that when leading the Navy amateurs will think tactics, while professionals will think logistics. As the...
View ArticleA Strong Navy for a Strong Nation
New Administration Topic Week By Bob Hein The U.S. Navy provides the maritime superiority required to keep the homeland safe, preserve global influence, deter aggression, and win the Nation’s wars....
View ArticleBryan McGrath’s Handy Advice
New Administration Topic Week By Bryan McGrath The incoming administration must grasp two things about the U.S. Navy as it assumes power. The first is that the overarching purpose for the U.S. Navy is...
View ArticleThe Challenge: Rediscovering the Offense
New Administration Topic Week By Richard Mosier The Soviet Union was officially dissolved on December 26, 1991, leaving the U.S. Navy with no near-peer maritime threat for the past 25 years. The...
View ArticleThe Swiss Army Knife of Security Policy
New Administration Topic Week By Dr. Sebastian Bruns The incoming administration needs to know that the U.S. Navy is a forward-deployable and ready tool of statecraft for the United States. It builds...
View ArticleAn Open Letter to Our Negotiator-in-Chief: Fix Navy Acquisition
New Administration Topic Week By LT Travis Nicks The way we buy stuff is broken. The Department of the Navy (DoN) acquisition system buys things we don’t need at prices we can’t pay for products that...
View ArticleKeep It Simple
New Administration Topic Week By Brody Blankenship The Navy is the foundation of America’s expeditionary capability, therefore it will continue to be an integral component of military force in any...
View ArticleEnsuring a Strong Navy for a Maritime Nation
New Administration Topic Week By The Navy League The United States is irrevocably tied to the ocean and its international and domestic waterways militarily, economically, and politically. Since its...
View ArticleEnhance Maritime Presence in the Indian Ocean
New Administration Topic Week By Vivek Mishra The Indian Ocean together with the maritime area of the Asia-Pacific should be on the high priority list for the next Administration. The region has been...
View ArticleMore Than Just a Tool of Policy
New Administration Topic Week By Anthony Orbanic Much like any service of the Armed Forces of the United States, the United States Navy is more than just a tool of power projection. It is a projection...
View ArticleNaval Priorities and Principles for the New Administration
New Administration Topic Week By Anonymous Seek Navy Input. The Navy is a limited resource that is most effective when given clear policies and permissive rules of engagement (ROE) and when allowed to...
View ArticleNew Administration Week Concludes on CIMSEC
By Dmitry Filipoff Last week we featured short submissions that offered advice to the incoming administration on the U.S. Navy. Responses covered shipbuilding, foreign relations, applications of...
View ArticleA Cyber Vulnerability Assessment of the U.S. Navy in the 21st Century
By Travis Howard and José de Arimatéia da Cruz Introduction The United States Navy is a vast, worldwide organization with unique missions and challenges, with information security (and information...
View ArticleChallenges to Access: Past, Present, and Future
By Bob Poling Anyone who has followed the development of the Air-Sea Battle Concept (ASBC) turned Joint Access for Maneuver in the Global Commons (JAMGC) and the closely associated term, A2/AD, knows...
View ArticleThe Leader’s Bookshelf by Admiral James Stavridis & R. Manning Ancell
By Christopher Nelson The Leader’s Bookshelf by Admiral James Stavridis and R. Manning Ancell. U.S. Naval Institute Press. 288pp. $29.95. “Reading has the power not only to demolish time and span the...
View ArticleThe Middle Way: A Balanced Approach to Growing America’s Navy
NAFAC Week By Riley Jones During the 2016 presidential election, then-candidate Donald Trump made the size and strength of America’s naval force a key aspect of his defense platform, arguing that the...
View ArticleDavy Jones Isn’t Done with Us Yet
The following essay is the second place finalist for CIMSEC’S 2017 Commodore John Barry Maritime Security Scholarship Contest. By Chris Rielage Cheaper, deadlier A2/AD weapons make a strong Navy a...
View ArticleA Thoroughly Efficient Navy for the 21st Century, Pt.1
By David Tier America has grown weary of the post-9/11 wars. Long, drawn-out conflicts have worn down American resolve and left many defense officials nostalgic for “the good-old days” when adversaries...
View ArticleGame-Changing Unmanned Systems for Naval Expeditionary Forces
By George Galdorisi Perspective In 2018 the United States remains engaged worldwide. The 2017 National Security Strategy addresses the wide-range of threats to the security and prosperity of United...
View ArticleThe Navy’s New Fleet Problem Experiments and Stunning Revelations of Military...
By Dmitry Filipoff Losing the Warrior Ethos “…despite the best efforts of our training teams, our deploying forces were not preparing for the high-end maritime fight and, ultimately, the U.S. Navy’s...
View ArticlePublication Release: Alternative Naval Force Structure
By Dmitry Filipoff From October 3 to October 7, 2016 CIMSEC ran a topic week where contributors proposed alternative naval force structures to spur thinking on how the threat environment is evolving,...
View ArticleDid We Learn Anything From That Exercise? Could We?
The following article originally featured in the 1982 July-August edition of The Naval War College Review and is republished with permission. By Frederick Thompson Exercises are a source of information...
View ArticleThe Surface Navy: Still in Search of Tactics
By Captain Christopher H. Johnson A month before deployment, the captain of an Oliver Hazard Perry (FFG-7)-class frigate sits quietly in his cabin. With the long process of pre-deployment inspections...
View ArticleInnovative Thinking: The Role of Professional Military Education
By Mie Augier and Wayne Hughes “The society that separates its scholars from its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools.”1 – Variously attributed to Thucydides...
View ArticleIf You Build It, They Will Lose: Competing with China Requires New...
Naval Intelligence Topic Week By Andrew P. Thompson The Modern Fight Written into the most recent National Security Strategy is the principle that Great Power competition will continue to play a major...
View ArticleVirtual Training: Preparing Future Naval Officers for 21st Century Warfare
By Joseph Bunyard Introduction “[We must] embrace the urgency of the moment: our maritime supremacy is being challenged.” —CNO NAVPLAN 2021 The fundamental character of war is changing.1 Distributed...
View ArticleDistributed Maritime Operations – Becoming Hard-to-Find
By Richard Mosier The concept for Distributed Maritime Operations (DMO) is based on three bedrock tenets: the distributed force must be hard-to-find, hard-to-kill, and lethal. For decades, the Navy has...
View ArticleBinary Submarine Culture? How the Loss of the USS Thresher Hastened the End...
By Ryan C. Walker During my short tenure as a submariner in the U.S. Navy, from 2014-2019, I observed the friendly rivalry between sailors who serve on SSN (fast-attack boats), SSGN (frequently...
View ArticleA New DESRON Staff – Beyond the Composite Warfare Commander Concept
By Bill Shafley A destroyer squadron (DESRON) staff’s employment as a Sea Combat Commander in the Composite Warfare Commander (CWC) construct is unnecessarily narrow and prevents a more lethal and...
View ArticleDepth from Above: Reinventing Carrier ASW
By Ben DiDonato With the return of great power competition, the threat posed by hostile submarines has garnered renewed attention. Russia’s submarine fleet in particular has been regarded as a serious...
View ArticleWhat I Have Learned Teaching Ethics to Midshipmen
By Bill Bray For nearly three years now, I have taught “Ethics and Moral Reasoning for the Naval Leader” to sophomore midshipmen (“youngsters”) at the U.S. Naval Academy, my alma mater. This is a core...
View ArticleWhat We Can Learn from the Rickover Papers
By Claude Berube, PhD With nearly a dozen biographies, countless articles, and word-of-mouth stories, Admiral Hyman G. Rickover may be the most written- or talked-about flag officer in US naval...
View ArticleInformation Warfare is Integrated Warfare
By Corey Grey When the USS Carney (DDG-64) downed the opening salvos of Houthi land-attack cruise missiles and drones over the Red Sea in October, the Pentagon hailed the feat as a “demonstration of...
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