North Atlantic Ocean Strategy:NATO'S Dynamic Mongoose 22

NATO has announced that an iteration of its premier anti-submarine warfare drills,Dynamic Mongoose 22,will commence on 13 June.Maritime forces from nine NATO Allies will take part:Canada,Denmark,France,Germany,the Netherlands,Norway,Portugal,the UK and the US.Vessels will include three submarines;11 surface warships;and 16 Maritime Patrol Aircraft.The annual wargames provide complex,realistic and challenging warfighting drills to enhance proficiency in anti-submarine and anti-surface warfare disciplines in a context of safe operations.Submarines will take turns hunting and being hunted in coordination with air and surface combatants.The exercise will also demonstrate the readiness and mobility of the maritime element of the Very High Readiness Joint Task Force (VJTF),the spearhead of the NATO Response Force.According to Commander,Submarines NATO,Rear Admiral Stephen Mack,USN,the drils will enhance teamwork and improve knowledge of the operating area,the expansive waters of the Greenland-Iceland-UK Gap between Iceland and Norway.* The maritime warfighters will practise Anti-Access/Area Denial operations in the GIUK Gap,flexing critical skills at closing the Gap to naval forces from adversaries such as Russia and China.Indeed,the NATO maritime forces had assembled at Reykjavik,Iceland on 9 June.The exercise will thus consist of conducting sea control/sea denial-related naval tasks in preparation for future collective defence and crisis response operations,NATO noted.*

Navy Deploys New P8-A Aircraft to Tense Region

The US Navy has made the first deployment of its new P-8A Poseidon Multi-Mission Maritime Aircraft,or MMA,to Kadena Air Base,Okinawa,Japan.Two of the large,combat-ready reconaissance warplanes took off from Norfolk,Virginia recently,headed into a very tense East Asian theatre of operations.In light of China's new Air Defence Identification Zone over the East China Sea,the aircraft are now most welcome by Japan,a country that almost kicked the US out of Okinawa a few years ago.*
The Navy took delivery of the 12th P8-A on 31 October.It is a modified Boeing 737-800 ERX,featuring a fully connected,state of the art open architecture mission system that,combined with the next generation sensors and highly reliable airframe will dramatically improve Anti-Submarine and Anti-Surface Warfare capabilties.The nine-person crew will have at its disposal an internal,five-station weapons bay;4 wing pylons and 2 centerline pylons;a rotary reloadable,pneumatically controlled sonobuoy launcher;and a Net Ready suite of Link-11/Link-16,Internet Protocol,Common Data Link(CDL) that is FORCEnet compliant.*
The P8-A is armed with joint attack munitions;cruise missiles;mines;and torpedoes.The Open Mission System Architecture is a reconfigurable and expandable system facilitating easier,more affordable upgrades.*
The P-8A Multi-Mission Maritime Aircraft secures the Navy's future in long-range maritime patrol capability.It provides more combat capability from a smaller force and less infrastructure,while focusing on worldwide responsiveness and interoperability with both traditional manned forces and evolving unmanned sensors.*
The P-8 is a true multi-mission platform,according to Rear Admiral Matt Carter,Patrol and Reconaissance commander.The number of submarines in the world is increasing rapidly.Other countries are either building or purchasing advanced,quiet and extremely hard to find submarines and we need to be able to match that technology to be able to detect them.*
Boeing(BA)