CORRECTED CAPITOL HILL: Debate over a little-known international maritime treaty is heating up on Capitol Hill in light of the Pentagon’s military buildup in the Western Pacific. Senate Armed Services Committee member Jim Inhofe said yesterday he plans to call formal hearings on the Senate’s decision not to ratify the so-called “Law of the Sea.”… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: The Navy has begun a critical phase in its quest for a revolutionary weapon that could reach out and touch someone with massive force at more than 100 miles, without using an ounce of gun powder or rocket fuel. The Navy has fired six test shots with the first of two industry prototypes of… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: The Navy’s push to become a more environmentally-friendly fighting force took a beating on Capitol Hill last week. But the tongue lashing delivered by House defense lawmakers has little chance of gaining traction on the Hill or inside the Pentagon, analysts say. House Armed Services Seapower subcommittee member Randy Forbes took Navy Secretary Ray… Keep reading →

CAPITOL HILL: The new 285-ship fleet the Navy plans in its fiscal 2013 budget plan may change, pending the results of a new service-wide force structure review, the Navy’s top officer said today. The review, expected to wrap up within weeks, will outline how many hulls the Navy will need to meet the national security… Keep reading →

THE PENTAGON: If there was one big takeaway from the Defense Department’s fiscal 2013 budget rollout yesterday, it was this: being forced to do more with less means having to take some risks. And the Navy has decided to is risk its future amphibious capabilities to cope with the fiscal realities inside the Pentagon. Navy… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: It looks like aerial drones are not the only unmanned systems the Pentagon is interested in arming. The special warfare branch of the Navy’s expeditionary warfare division is eying plans to arm its small fleet of unmanned boats with an long-range missile, branch chief Capt. Evin Thompson said. The missile — known as the… Keep reading →

CORRECTED WASHINGTON: The Navy’s venerable Scan Eagle unmanned drone could go global if service leaders can lock in agreements with a number of key European and Mideast allies. Navy leaders are considering foreign military sales of the Scan Eagle to Kuwait, Pakistan and the Netherlands, according to a presentation by Marine Corps Col. James Rector,… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: The Navy’s weapon of the future will take one step closer to reality this month, as service officials prepare to test fire the first industry-built prototype of its fabled Railgun. ONR testers will fire off a BAE Systems-built version of the weapon next week at the Navy’s surface warfare center in Dahlgren, VA., according… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: Despite the tremendous impact unmanned systems are having on the battlefield, military leaders still struggle to get intelligence gathered from these systems into the hands of those who need it. The systems designed to stream raw data collected by the diverse fleet of unmanned systems in the field continued to hamstring combatant commanders and… Keep reading →

ABOARD THE USS WASP: Navy and Marine Corps leaders involved with the huge Bold Alligator amphibious warfare this week will tell you it’s all about the lessons learned. And there was no bigger lesson in amphib combat ops in recent years than Operation Unified Protector, also known as Libya. “Libya [operations] played a huge role”… Keep reading →