US Naval War College Review – U.S. sealift capability, crucial in the defense of allies in Europe and beyond, has withered over many decades. Recent developments have left European allies scrambling to provide their own defense, leaving some looking to Norway’s large merchant fleet to cover the gaps in U.S. sealift capabilities.

Defense News – A PLA assessment of the proposed Trump-class ships probes for weaknesses.

The War Zone – At least two Iranian oil tankers were struck by the U.S. as part of Trump’s new tanker-for-a-tanker policy.

The War Zone – A carrier drone with a heavy weapons capacity, long reach, and the ability to operate in heavily contested airspace is just what the junked X-47B was designed to offer.

CIMSEC – The United States Navy has set a course that will see it morph into an army on the sea. The differentiating factors between the sea services and its landbound compatriots are fast eroding, diminishing the value of the fleet as its capabilities are more constrained. Traditionally, the utility and strength of the U.S. Navy revolved around the supreme maneuverability of the fleet and its ability to pass without a trace, skills the U.S. Army could only dream of. Now, however, fleets have never been more visible or more movement constrained, exposing them to the same strategic limitations an army on campaign faces. Adding to these challenges is the development of a set-piece mentality within the force over the previous decades as the U.S. Navy acted as mobile strike assets for ground wars. Redressing this army-fication, however, will be key to ensuring the continued success of the sea services and ultimately the safety of the United States.

USNI News – The White House and U.S. Navy are considering frigate designs from South Korea, Japan and Turkey for a new class of warships.

Military Times – The Navy is exploring two options for its Silent Anvil Air-Launched Torpedo and is seeking contractors that fit the bill. The first is a new torpedo launched from an aircraft or drone that glides into the water and acoustically homes in on the target. The other is a glide kit affixed to an existing torpedo.

(Thanks to Alain)

USNI News – The U.S. Navy is looking to develop a next-generation standoff torpedo that can be carried by carrier-based aircraft and drones.

CIMSEC – The U.S. Navy does not need to match the People’s Liberation Army Navy’s local presence ship for ship in the South China Sea. Instead, the U.S. Navy needs access that links lawful operations at sea to port visits, exercises, repair arrangements, and partner relationships ashore. The human element of sea power, built on trust, access, and routine cooperation, turns ship presence into influence. The decisive factor in the South China Sea is not ship numbers or capabilities alone, but the human infrastructure of access, repair, and partner trust that allows ships to operate with purpose and endurance.

Center for Maritime Security – It’s widely established that near-peer adversarial actors have actively and clandestinely targeted the U.S. defense industrial base; notable actions include cyber operations and corporate obfuscation to embed itself within the lower tiers of the U.S. supply chain. This extends to the United States’ MIB, with a 2025 Section 301 Investigation Report by the Office of the United States Trade Representative indicating China’s multi-decadal systemic campaign targeting and marginalizing the U.S.’s maritime, logistics, and shipbuilding sectors to diminish the U.S.’s naval dominance and destabilize its maritime enterprise. Accordingly, the shipbuilding enterprise has evolved into a principal arena intensifying the active U.S.-China competition.

USNI News – The U.S. Navy is looking to develop a next-generation standoff torpedo that can be carried by carrier-based aircraft and drones.

CIMSEC – The Iran war was a failure of strategic understanding of the dynamics of asymmetric cost-tolerance in existential littoral conflict compounded by the absence of an alliance architecture that should have been the precondition for military action.

USNI News – The U.S. Navy received its final Lewis B. Puller-class Expeditionary Sea Base this week as Military Sealift Command prepares for the return of three sidelined ships.

RUSI – The US is exceeding its own plans for deployment of aircraft carriers, and the knock-on effects, and the strain, should be a cause for concern.

Defense News – The Navy’s top admiral says the service is changing how it does pre-deployment stocking and resupply and looking at different places to make port calls, including on the African continent, after the carrier Lincoln’s punishing 270-day deployment.

Army Recognition – On July 24, 2026, the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Benfold (DDG-65) suffered a four-day total electrical blackout during routine operations in the South China Sea. An engineering casualty involving its gas-turbine generators paralyzed propulsion, maneuvering, climate control, and life-support systems, requiring the warship to be towed to Subic Bay in the Philippines for repairs. The failure highlights acute maintenance and operational force-structure pressures on forward-deployed U.S. Navy surface combatants in the Indo-Pacific theatre.

(Thanks to Alain)

Naval News – Liberator has emerged from the U.S. Navy’s budget as a high-end standoff capability for uncrewed undersea vehicles (UUVs), enabling the deployment of heavyweight torpedoes on the seafloor.

The War Zone – The Navy’s newest extreme-range air-to-air missile is intended to be used by the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, F-35C JSF and the upcoming F/A-XX.

USNI News – Aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) has left the Middle East after almost seven months and is now in U.S. 7th Fleet.

Defense News – Vague operational planning and a lack of transparency during U.S. actions in Iran have exacerbated the U.S. Navy’s longstanding logistics, maintenance and manpower issues — and sailors are feeling the effects, congressional leaders, retired military officials and deployed sailors have told Military Times.

War on the Rocks – The ability to prepare U.S. naval forces today, at a deckplate level, for the resilience challenges that the large-scale combat operations against a peer-competitor will manifest cannot be overstated.

The War Zone – The Washington’s replacement of the Lincoln leaves no carrier in the Western Pacific and the Navy’s struggle to meet demand may get far worse before it gets better.

The War Zone – The U.S. Navy is reportedly evaluating a major change to the Ford class aircraft carrier design that would move the island superstructure further forward on the flight deck. President Donald Trump is said to be pushing the service to reposition the island on aesthetic grounds, to make the ships look more like World War II-era carriers.