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month into a maiden voyage that has seen a trio of drug-smuggling attempts thwarted, the commander aboard the Navy’s first littoral combat ship today described the vessel’s performance to date as “exceptional.” Now floating off the coast of Colombia, the USS Freedom received high marks from Navy Cmdr. Randy Gardner, who delivered an assessment to reporters today from aboard the ship via telephone. “The performance of the ship so far has been exceptional,” he said of the Freedom, which set sail Feb. 16 from Mayport, Fla. “We are learning a lot about what Freedom can do well.” Freedom and its...

The Navy’s first Littoral Combat Ship (LCS 1) has been quick out of the slips to score some major public relations points by seizing a few tons of cocaine on its first operational deployment in the Caribbean. The new fast, maneuverable LCS will excel at such peacetime operations, often called “Phase O,” writes the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessment’s Martin Murphy, in a new white paper (.pdf). Murphy has done some impressive work on the policy challenges of piracy and insurgents operating in littoral waters. In this paper, he turns his analytical focus towards one of the Navy’s highest...