Could be a combination of issues. Discipline/professionalism/training, etc.
Looking at the cargo ship's track prior to hitting Fitzgerald, I wonder if its navigation system was hacked. GPS spoofing recently occured in the Black Sea. Spoof the Fitzgerald's position while "guiding" the cargo vessel into it.
I suspect that there are several issues at play in all four USN collisions this year. My bet is that they are all progressive, and not merely coincidence. $.02
I can, without a doubt, say that ‘Chinese hacking’ had nothing to do with 4 Navy ships performing basic seamanship. There is no hack that makes a 8 story above the waterline tanker disappear. There is no hack that makes it invisible to the watch. There’s no hack that turns off passive sonar tracks nor any which can cloak it on navigational radar, much less the powerful radar arrays which can handle battle between a thousand ships and tracks for 48,000.
Arrogance, however, is a very common problem within the navy at the moment. You can look at shipper forums who constantly complain about US navy ships ordering other ships to change course when they are on a constant course. Get your massive cargo ship or tanker out of our path, we’re US Navy!
Yep, you’re US Navy with ships which can pop a rooster tail off the fantail and spin up past 25 knots, turn in less than a mile while at flank speed, and spin circles around every single cargo hauler in the Pacific. This event, like the others, are the equivalent of wrapping sports cars around trees.
But hey, the trees were hacked by the Russians/Chinese/PRNK/etc to stand in the way...
This is utter bullcrap. It does our sailors a disservice by distracting from the real leadership and training issues leading to poor seamanship.