As we begin FY 2011 I want to discuss a few items that pop up frequently in discussions both inside and outside the comments section of the blog related to topics frequently discussed here. I have a fairly large address book and also have the luxury of knowing who some of the folks are who leave comments under certain nicknames in the comments - meaning the only person who gets to be clairvoyant within the context of the wide variety of commentary spawned from blog content is me.
When I look at the current state of the US Navy today I see and hear a lot of frustration regarding the decisions made by leadership over the last decade. Is the US Navy heading the right direction? Is the US Navy being a good steward of limited financial resources during a budget crisis? Is the US Navy aligned with the direction of global trends and domestic national security strategy? Is the US Navy working under the right assumptions, and making decisions with the right priorities in mind? These questions lead to very interesting debate and commentary, and there is no clear consensus among the variety of answers.
Lets examine a few of these issues.
Priorities
CDR Salamander had an interesting link in this blog post he wrote Monday. The link was a Google Search for the string "CNO Priorities." The first return was ironically - CDR Salamanders blog - but the second return was this Navy.mil news article titled Diversity Remains a Top Priority for CNO. I don't have the same reaction to this headline as some apparently do, but I will say this... I'd be kind of embarrassed and I don't think this reflects well on ADM Roughead.
It really has nothing to do with diversity specifically, rather it has everything to do with the top leader of any organization being tied to a fairly generic human resources issue one finds in any large public or private organization - rather than a priority specific to the business of the US Navy. It seems to me that as the leader of the Navy, in a time or war during a globalization period that includes several rising maritime powers, there are higher priorities for the CNO than a human resources issue one will find in every other large business.
It seems to me there would be more confidence in the decisions and direction of the US Navy today if the top priority communicated by the US Navy was more closely associated with a seapower specific issue that related intimately with the purpose of naval power. In the context of communicating strategic concepts that form the foundation of the Navy, the absence of a seapower specific issue as the top priority for the top US Navy leadership today has hampered the ability of US Navy leadership to articulate clear messages regarding intentions behind decisions to audiences both inside and outside the Navy.
Cooperative Strategy
The most visible issue of the US Navy today is shipbuilding, and it is also the issue the US Navy takes the most criticism about. Shipbuilding is both a macro and micro issue. At the macro level there are things taking place in regards to the direction of the future fleet the Navy is legitimately taking a lot of criticism for.
The biggest macro issue related to shipbuilding is the clear mismatch between the funding priorities of the shipbuilding plan and the maritime strategy. The US Navy's strategy is primarily focused on developing relationships with partners for dealing with shared security challenges, but at the same time the shipbuilding budget focuses almost exclusively on high end, high technology capabilities that have nothing in common with the vast majority of partners the US Navy states they want to develop better relations with. Yes, the US Navy's shipbuilding choices is well aligned towards a partnership with modern naval powers like South Korea, Japan, Australia, and European nations, but the vast majority of trouble spots at sea are in areas where nations have low end capabilities the US Navy has very little in common with.
The strategic message of the US Navy may claim cooperative security, but the signals to partners who operate in the troubled 'low threat spectrum' places globally all point to outsourcing and information collaboration - not collective responsibility. Either the US Navy needs to make the strategic commitment to the low end and have this reflected in shipbuilding with vessels more appropriately sized for engagement with Coast Guard sized fleets of regional partners, or advocate for a larger US Coast Guard to take up that responsibility as part of the National Fleet. Including smaller vessels as part of the US Navy fleet isn't a tactical choice as it is framed by Naval leaders; it is a strategic choice the US Navy decided against despite the rhetoric of their own strategy.
The Micro Issues
As we enter FY 2011, I may be the last sitting member of the DDG-1000 bandwagon. I am OK with that. Lets start with the facts. The decision by ADM Roughead to truncate the DDG-1000 down to 3 ships was a good decision. The cost of the DDG-1000 overwhelmed the shipbuilding budget, and before it is said and done the decision to build only three will insure the DDG-1000 is a very expensive investment. I believe it will also ultimately be worth every penny.
In previous periods where the world underwent fairly rapid technological advancement in military technologies during relative peacetime at sea, naval powers choose to build small numbers of unique classes of ships that incrementally added technology as new classes were produced. This is the model the United States followed in the interwar period between WWI and WWII, for example, when the US Navy built a series of cruiser classes that incrementally incorporated design changes and technology upgrades through experimentation. One can look at the Pensacola and Astoria classes and compare them to the post Washington Treaty cruisers like the Baltimore and Oregon City classes. If it had not been for the incremental approach and experimentation that went into the Pensacola and Astoria classes, the nation would never have been prepared to build the Baltimore and Oregon City classes.
It is very similar to how the Royal Navy incrementally upgraded their Navy throughout the 19th century adjusting for the introduction of steel and steam, among other technologies. This time tested incremental process of design experimentation and fielding small numbers of ship classes is in use today by China as they expand the PLA Navy.
As I look at the US Navy building the DDG-1000, I see the US Navy following a historical pattern of innovation through experimentation that dates back nearly 200 years. The DDG-1000 is less incremental than I would prefer, but in the context of tight budgets combined with longer construction cycles than in previous eras, the development of the DDG-1000 technologies still fits within an optimal approach with historical precedent. If the US Navy has the objective of maintaining technological superiority over emerging competitors over the next few decades, the US Navy needs several technologies that are part of the DDG-1000 program.
The bigger micro question is why the Littoral Combat Ship program isn't following a similar model of incremental experimentation? Look, the Littoral Combat Ship is a great concept that is being poorly implemented, and quite bluntly, if several major leaders in the US Navy didn't have their reputations on the line - the Navy wouldn't be producing Littoral Combat Ships the way they are under the current plan.
The US Navy has already learned a ton of lessons from the Littoral Combat Ships - for example, they now know that in the future the best motherships will be designed to insure that platforms have excellent payload capacity, will emphasize loading and unloading capabilities, and will be designed for endurance while the deployable systems will emphasize the characteristics like speed and stealth. That may sound self-evident in 2010, but when the Littoral Combat Ship concept was introduced the Navy knew they needed these characteristics at sea - just not exactly how. Like it or not, the US Navy had to build the Littoral Combat Ship to get it - and that is historically how evolution occurs among naval platforms.
Horizons
I believe there are 4 clear trends in the 21st century that holds promise for the US Navy as we move into the second decade of the century. This is old wine in old and new bottles.
First, as long as the US Navy builds 2 Virginia class submarines per year over the next decade, the US Navy will maintain its conventional military power edge on all competitors over the next two decades. Second, the SSBN replacement program is the most important strategic program for the United States in the next decade. Third, the aircraft carrier and the submarine are still kings of all warfighers at sea, and their strategic and tactical roles cannot be replaced by surface combatants, but even as the kings of warfighting platforms, submarines and aircraft carriers cannot replace many of the critical roles provided by surface combatants. Fourth, unmanned technology is the warfighting capability that can enhance the lethality of naval forces in the 21st century, but security is only achieved in the maritime domain by the presence of a well trained sailor. Clear understanding of the role of technology and the role of the well trained sailor remains critical to meeting the ends of maritime strategy.
When I look into the future towards 2025 and see rising maritime competitors, more technologically capable threats associated with traditional maritime problems like piracy and narcotics trafficking, access denial strategies to maritime geography, and political disputes over territories in the maritime domain - the US Navy as of today appears to be well positioned to address that future. I agree completely that there are plenty of specific issues that are subject to debate, but when simply observing trend lines I do not see a single trend line - including ship quantity - that is dramatically out of step with the current position of the US Navy today towards reaching the 2025 time frame. With that said, beyond 2025 everything becomes very blurry for the future US Navy.
As I see the strategic landscape today, I see a nation at a crossroads where decisions yet to be made over the next few years will determine the strategic position of the nation over the next few decades. The fundamental question of whether the United States will be a maritime nation in the 21st century must be addressed at the political level - because as of today the United States is not a maritime nation anymore.
The United States was a maritime nation from the signing of the Constitution until the end of the cold war, but over the past 2 decades the United States has operated politically under the belief that our nations strategic power lies in leveraging military power on the ground to adjust the behavior of people in far off lands. The strategic crossroads is the political decision of whether we want to be the nation of the first ~200 years, or the nation we have been the last ~20. Until we as a nation make a decision regarding which road we wish to take into the 21st century, the future of the US Navy beyond 2025 will remain very much unclear.
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