The Future Navy Will Be Nuclear

The following section was passed into law with the FY08 Defense Authorization Bill (PDF):

SEC. 1012. POLICY RELATING TO MAJOR COMBATANT VESSELS OF THE STRIKE FORCES OF THE UNITED STATES NAVY.

(a) INTEGRATED NUCLEAR POWER SYSTEMS. It is the policy of the United States to construct the major combatant vessels of the strike forces of the United States Navy, including all new classes of such vessels, with integrated nuclear power systems.

(b) REQUIREMENT TO REQUEST NUCLEAR VESSELS. If a request is submitted to Congress in the budget for a fiscal year for construction of a new class of major combatant vessel for the strike forces of the United States, the request shall be for such a vessel with an integrated nuclear power system, unless the Secretary of Defense submits with the request a notification to Congress that the inclusion of an integrated nuclear power system in such vessel is not in the national interest.

(c) DEFINITIONS.—In this section:

(1) MAJOR COMBATANT VESSELS OF THE STRIKE FORCES OF THE UNITED STATES NAVY.—The term ‘‘major combatant vessels of the strike forces of the United States Navy’’ means the following:

(A) Submarines.
(B) Aircraft carriers.
(C) Cruisers, battleships, or other large surface combatants whose primary mission includes protection of carrier strike groups, expeditionary strike groups, and vessels comprising a sea base.

(2) INTEGRATED NUCLEAR POWER SYSTEM.—The term "integrated nuclear power system" means a ship engineering system that uses a naval nuclear reactor as its energy source and generates sufficient electric energy to provide power to the ship’s electrical loads, including its combat systems and propulsion motors.

(3) BUDGET.—The term ‘‘budget’’ means the budget that is submitted to Congress by the President under section 1105(a) of title 31, United States Code.

When the President signed the Duncan Hunter National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2009 (PDF) today, the following amendment was added to the above section.

SEC. 1015. POLICY RELATING TO MAJOR COMBATANT VESSELS OF THE STRIKE FORCES OF THE UNITED STATES NAVY.

Section 1012(c)(1) of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008 (Public Law 110-181) is amended by adding at the end the following:

(D) Amphibious assault ships, including dock landing ships (LSD), amphibious transport-dock ships (LPD), helicopter assault ships (LHA/LHD), and amphibious command ships (LCC), if such vessels exceed 15,000 dead weight ton light ship displacement.

This amendment closes a loophole for the Navy regarding nuclear power in the development of new ships. It is now the law of the United States that all Aircraft Carriers, Submarines, Major Surface Combatants, Amphibious ships exceeding 15,000 tons, and Command Ships exceeding 15,000 tons must have "integrated nuclear power system, unless the Secretary of Defense submits with the request a notification to Congress that the inclusion of an integrated nuclear power system in such vessel is not in the national interest."

Of all the various discussions that we have had over the year regarding the Navy force structure of the future, in my opinion this requirement placed on the Navy over the last two years has the potential to have the greatest impact to the naval power of the United States. It is these types of changes that usually get overlooked and lost in the discussion when one political party takes power from the other in our democracy, but it is these types of details that have the most influence on the future. We won't know for decades if it was the right decision or not.

Just in case you have not fully thought this through, this means it is currently against the law to produce conventionally powered submarines, a LSD(X) replacement without nuclear power, a CG(X) without nuclear power, or a conventionally powered aircraft carrier. This would eliminate 99% of the force structure ideas you have ever read about proposed by the various Armchair Admirals of the world, but not all...

I will note, that technically, the fleet structure most advocated on this blog remains immune from this law. As I have laid out many dozens of times, the ID force structure for the Navy's Cooperative Maritime Strategy would call for the large mothership and the small combatant instead of the large combatant and small mothership force structure of the Navy's program of record.

The mothership in today's program of record is the LCS, which should stand for Littoral Combat, Support (not Littoral Combat Ship which is one damn lame as hell name, or its nickname among some critics: the little crappy ship), while the large surface combatant of today's program of record (DDG-1000) would be replaced by sixth-rate frigates (FFG).

Which only confirms my theory, you read here to see the 1% of ideas that will never see the light of day in the real world.