The Marine Corps and Navy are moving past the insurgent wars of the past two decades and readying themselves to play a central role in countering China and Russia.

Katie Wheelbarger, the acting assistant Defense secretary for international security affairs, said Thursday that “Russia’s great power status still remains largely aspirational.”

The Pentagon’s new Special Ops leader is looking to the defense industry for help in meeting peer adversaries, but he also has a bone to pick.

“In the ideal world we would want our competitors to respond to our moves instead of us responding to them… We would want to make many of the first moves on our own.”

While two carriers attracting most of the attention, a smaller US footprint is being established between the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, where Russia — and Turkey — are raising concerns.

The Coast Guard wants to operate more consistently in the Arctic, but has a fraction of the icebreakers that Moscow can deploy.

WASHINGTON: The Navy is scrambling to write its new acquisition and operational playbook on the fly, a decision based as much on what US rivals are doing as it is on what the service hasn’t done in recent decades. The construction and innovation booms being undertaken by the Chinese — and to a lesser extent… Keep reading →

The Navy is set to release plans to buy an extra fast-attack sub, another destroyer, and a handful of unmanned boats. Next step: Congress.

Smart missiles to strike hard targets hundreds of miles away. Wireless links to pull data from stealth fighters and foot soldiers alike. Command posts agile enough to coordinate it all — not only in open war, but in the ambiguous “grey zone” of hacking, proxy warfare, and Twitter trolls. That’s just a few of the… Keep reading →

The Arctic will become increasingly crowded in the coming years, and the US Navy’s Second Fleet is making it a priority to get up there more often.