It appears that the US Navy will be shifting strategy away from littoral (coastal) operations.

The article makes some grandiose statements about how a new networked battlespace will require naval ships to operate further offshore, but I think that this is bunk. Rather there are two imperatives driving this decision:

• Having a ship run aground ends a career in the Navy, even if it was really unavoidable, and littoral operations, because they are in shallower water, increase the possibility of a ground by at least an order of magnitude.
• Because of the US history of separation from enemies by oceans, there is a myopic focus on a blue water navy