Free Republic

As the U.S. withdraws from Afghanistan and Iraq and land forces encounter more and more obstacles to operating — fenced in by rising insistence on sovereignty — the U.S. Navy’s role will only grow in importance, says the chief of naval operations, Adm. Gary Roughead. Roughed, speaking at a conference hosted by the University of Chicago on Capitol Hill, offered new versions of the old Marine and Navy mantra that the littoral is where it’s at globally, with at least 26 mega-cities in the littoral zone and much of the world’s production and natural resources moving across the blue oceans...

must come from the sea,” said the chief of naval operations, Adm. Gary Roughead, recently about any new U.S. Navy procurement, leaving open to interpretation the programs and projects that will be included in coming budgets. The Navy is “reimagining naval power,” he said. “With cyber-power and unmanned systems we must ask ourselves fundamental questions.” If new capabilities proposed for procurement do not “come from the sea,” Roughead is not interested. The Navy no longer has the luxury of being interested in every new program or platform. The defense budget is getting slimmer. And pressure is coming from above to...

The chief of naval operations said last week that the U.S. Navy is the smallest it has been since 1916 despite being asked to do multiple missions and that further cuts in naval forces are likely. , the CNO, said in a speech to a strategy conference at the Naval War College that he continues to seek a strategy of “cooperation” despite the fact that China’s navy is a growing threat and Beijing has shown no willingness to cooperate with the U.S. Navy. In fact, Chinese naval vessels have stepped up harassment of U.S. survey ships in recent years in...

US Navy chief Admiral Gary Roughead arrived here on Sunday on a six-day visit to explore ways to bolster naval cooperation between the two countries. During his stay in New Delhi, Admiral Roughead will have discussions with Navy chief Admiral Nirmal Verma and call on Defence Minister A K Anthony, Chief of Air Staff Air Chief Marshal P V Naik, Army Chief General V K Singh and Defence Secretary Pradeep Kumar. Admiral Roughead, Chief of the naval operations of the US Navy, will also visit various naval ships and establishments in Mumbai and Goa and some training establishments in Kochi....

The top US naval officer has vowed to stop people lighting up in submarines, where the confined atmosphere has serious passive smoking implications, a report said Monday. "We are going to stop smoking on submarines," Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Gary Roughead told a recent meeting of senior submariners, according to the Navy Times magazine. Navy spokesman Lieutenant Commander Mark Jones confirmed a ban could be in the pipeline, telling AFP: "We are currently looking at changing the policy, but we have not changed the policy." At present, smoking on US submarines is up to the commanding officer's discretion and...