News, Articles and Comment

Ed. The independent researcher provides a unique and comprehensive, based on open-source intelligence and source-audited, order of battle and assessment of deployability for the Russian Submarine Service. Now available in the NR‘s Briefing Room.

Ed. Britain’s maritime rise and fall holds urgent lessons for a United States losing ground to China at sea and in the shipyard. Originally published in the USNI’s Proceedings, August 2026. A 15 minute read.

Ed. This article explores some of the undiscussed issues and challenges facing the introduction of large-scale autonomous vessels under the ‘hybrid navy’ plan. The aim of this article is not to nay say and stick one’s head in the sand, but rather to identify the very real challenges facing implementation, their limits, and the importance of maintaining capable crewed warships to restore the RN fleet as a capable naval force. A 20 minute read.

Ed. With historical and contemporary examples in mind, the author reconsiders naval strike as an indirect method of pursuing sea control. A 20 minute read.

Ed. The author, with an appreciation for maritime globalisation and the nature of seapowers, argues for greater resilience and redundancy in the UK’s industry and shipbuilding networks, and recognition of the maritime sector’s vital national security role. A 5 minute read.

Ed. In the Sixteenth century, Portugal was a thalassocracy actively pursuing a strategy of maritime influence and control through the acquisition of strategic oceanic chokepoints – the kind Admiral Sir John Fisher would later describe as “the keys that lock up the world.” A 10 minute read.

Ed. Two letters highlighting institutional learning, whether for better in the service of ceremonial fleet reviews or for worse in terms of political-bureaucratic stagnation.

Ed. With his trademark dissident perspective, the author tackles what he describes as the long-term decline of European and British maritime power, and compares the present situation in the Middle East with the financial consequences of the outbreak of war in 1914. A 15 minute read.

Ed. As Operation EPIC FURY ebbs and flows, may I propose a new principle of war? Always follow the money.