Naval commands have improved the agility of their threat analysis through their work in the South China and Red seas, as well as assisting Ukraine.
The Pacific Fleet has had to learn fast as a team with transparent communications in the South China Sea because it’s a coastal environment. Thus, sailors operate inside a weapons envelope of ballistic and cruise missiles and unmanned weapons systems that can all reach their intended targets, said Vice Adm. Daniel Cheever, commander of the Naval Air Force, speaking Tuesday at WEST 2025 in San Diego.
Young warfare tactics instructors (WTIs) trained at Naval Air Station Fallon in Nevada are essential to these efforts.
“It’s basically real-time threat analysis and the team getting after the tactical adaptation and the sensors and the systems and updating them in real time,” Cheever said. “The speed of that is at an all-time high.”
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Real-Time Threat Analysis and Information Warfare
The integration that WTIs have developed is essential to the Navy’s readiness, given China’s public goal of being able to defeat the U.S. in a regional conflict by 2027.
“[It’s] something that we didn’t have two to three years ago, between the integrated warfare working groups and just the cohesive nature of it,” said Vice. Adm. Mike Vernazza, commander of the Naval Information Forces.
Information warfare teams afloat have also done a “tremendous” job understanding and characterizing environments for surface, air and undersea teams and sharing lessons learned with subsequent deployments, Vernazza said.
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Interoperability With Allies and Manned-Unmanned Teaming
Naval Special Warfare Command’s experiences in these same environments led to several key takeaways. The first is the criticality of relationships and interoperability with allies and partners, said Rear Adm. Milton “Jamie” Sands, commander of NSW.
“We are here to enable joint-force efforts,” Sands said. “Now we are doing that in Ukraine with allies and partners, as we assist … in training Ukrainian forces.”
Another lesson learned is to embrace the robots.
Already there are parts of the world where machine-on-machine fighting is occurring, and there are areas where humans simply can’t survive that could eventually see conflict.
“Manned-unmanned teaming is the future,” Sands said.
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