By Dmitry Filipoff

This week CIMSEC is hosting articles exploring the U.S. Navy’s Distributed Lethality concept. The U.S. Navy is investigating distributed lethality as a potentially game changing approach for the conduct of naval warfare. We at CIMSEC are grateful for the Distributed Lethality Task Force’s partnership in launching this topic week, for the thought-provoking insights of our contributors, and to the sustained interest of our audience. The Task Force’s call for articles may be read here. Below is a list of articles featuring during the topic week, which will be updated as the topic week rolls out and as prospective authors finalize additional publications.

A Tactical Doctrine for Distributed Lethality by Jeff E. Kline, CAPT, USN, (ret)

Distributed Lethality: Old Opportunities for New Operations by Matthew Hipple

Enabling Distributed Lethality: The Role of Naval Cryptology by LCDR Chuck Hall and LCDR David T. Spalding

Distributed Leathernecks by LCDR Chris O’Connor

The Legal Implications of Arming MSC Ships by Anthony Freedman and Mark Rosen

Distributed Lethality, Non-Traditional Fleets, and the Law of War by Chris Rawley

Implementing Distributed Lethality within the Joint Operational Access Concept by LCDR Collin Fox

Enabling Distributed Lethality by LCDR Josh Heivly

Reconfiguring Air Cushioned Vehicles to Enhance Distributed Lethality by John Devlin

The Elephant in the Room: E2-D and Distributed Lethality by LCDR Christopher Moran and LT Ryan Heilmann

Distributed Lethality: China is Doing it Right by Alan Cummings

Unleashing Unit Lethality: Revising Operational & Promotion Paradigms by ENS Daniel Stefanus



Dmitry Filipoff is CIMSEC’s Director of Online Content. He may be contacted at Nextwar@cimsec.org.