Panel: Trade Tensions May Complicate Delicate Security Environment in Indo-Pacific

Washington’s simmering trade war with and tariffs against China are creating some unintended consequences for the U.S. military and its relationships with partners in the Pacific, a panel said today.

Speaking Thursday at the Atlantic Council in Washington, D.C., Yuki Tatsumi, co-director of the East Asia Program at the Stimson Center, said President Donald Trump’s imposition of tariffs on steel and aluminum and threats to impose them on automobiles have made Japan and China “kind of strange...

https://news.usni.org/2018/09/13/panel-trade-tensions-in-the-pacific-may-complicate-delicate-security-environment-there

NORTHCOM: USS Kearsarge, USS Arlington Staged to ‘Chase’ Hurricane Florence for Relief Operations

NOAA Image

Amphibious warships USS Kearsarge (LHD-3), USS Arlington (LPD-24) and elements of the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit are positioned off the Carolina coast to offer disaster relief and search and rescue assistance, if requested, once Hurricane Florence makes landfall, the Pentagon’s top homeland defense officials said.

Standing before a map of the U.S. during a Thursday media briefing, Air Force Gen. Terrance O’Shaughnessy, commander of U.S. Northern Command, pointed to various...

https://news.usni.org/2018/09/13/uss-kearsarge-uss-arlington-staged-to-offer-hurricane-relief

U.S. Surface Warfare Officers Will Now Use Logbooks to Record Time at Sea

Photo of a sample page of the new Mariners Skills logbook for US Navy surface warfare officers. US Navy Photo

Surface warfare officers are borrowing a lesson from naval aviators and will now keep a logbook of their time underway throughout their career, according to a new Navy instruction obtained by USNI News.

Now, when new ensigns report to the Basic Division Officer Course they will now be issued a “Surface Warfare Mariner Skills Logbook” in which they will record everything from bridge time...

https://news.usni.org/2018/09/14/u-s-surface-warfare-officers-will-now-use-logbooks-record-time-sea

Wasp ESG Completes Typhoon Assistance to Northern Marianas, Guam

Marines with Marine Air Control Group 18 and Navy Seabees with 30th Naval Construction Regiment clear debris from Typhoon Mangkhut on Tinian. Marine Corps photo.

The Wasp Expeditionary Strike Group (ESG) has finished providing disaster relief to Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) following Typhoon Mangkhut.

Mangkhut passed through the region late Monday and early Tuesday, buffeting the islands of Rota, Saipan, Tinian and Guam with steady rain and sustained winds of...

https://news.usni.org/2018/09/14/36565

China Expanding Economic Influence in Americas, Research in the Arctic

China’s icebreaker Xue Long

China’s drive for influence in the Western Hemisphere has zeroed in on economic gain, making the current great powers competition significantly different from the Soviet Union’s attempt to assert military power in the Americas the during the Cold War, a panel assessing the American-Chinese relationship after 40 years of diplomatic recognition agreed.

Stapleton Roy, a former ambassador and now with the Kissinger Institute at the Wilson Center in Washington, D.C., said...

https://news.usni.org/2018/09/14/36564

Navy Pauses Operations of MQ-4C Triton Squadron After Crash-Landing This Week

The MQ-4C Triton unmanned aircraft system approaches the runway at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Md., after completing its inaugural cross-country flight from California on Sept. 18, 2014. US Navy photo.

The Navy’s Unmanned Patrol Squadron (VUP) 19 is temporarily standing down operations while it investigates the crash of an MQ-4C Triton in California this week.

A Triton conducting operational testing out of Naval Base Ventura County in California on Wednesday “had an issue during flight and...

https://news.usni.org/2018/09/14/navy-pauses-operations-mq-4c-triton-squadron-crash-landing-week