U.S. Seventh Fleet today "trained, ready, and focused", The

Sea Power, Apr 2000 by Doran, Walter F

During this time of dramatic change in the global political-- military landscape, the U.S. Seventh Fleet, with its 40 to 50 ships, 350 aircraft, and 50,000 Sailors and Marines, is playing an expanding role in maintaining stability throughout the Western Pacific region and promoting America's national-security interests abroad.

The Seventh Fleet, the Navy's largest forward-deployed force, has been operating in the Western Pacific for more than half a century, but it traces its mission to the U.S. Navy's first operations in this distant region during the early decades of the nineteenth century. Just as those generations of American bluejackets made important contributions to U.S. diplomacy and national interests, today's 21st-century Sailors and Marines are building a tremendous amount of prestige and credibility throughout the entire region.

Multiple Hats

Commander Seventh Fleet wears three hats-each reflecting diverse command responsibilities at the service component, joint, and combined level of operations. As a numbered fleet commander, I report to the commander in chief, U.S. Pacific Fleet, in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

During the past decade, there has been an evolutionary growth in the significance of my other two responsibilities. As the commander of a standing joint task force (CJTF), I have a responsibility to make sure that my staff and I are continuously trained and ready on short notice to stand up and execute joint task force operations.

Today's military operations almost invariably involve joint forces-a reflection on the unique and complementary capabilities we all bring to the military task at hand. We keep our joint-warfare capabilities honed to a sharp edge through a well-planned series of exercises throughout the year. Last year we capped this exercise program in the Tandem Thrust exercise in the Northern Mariannas. We do that every two years-a graduation exercise of sorts for the CJTF. In my joint task force commander's hat I work directly for the commander in chief, U.S. Pacific Command (CINCPAC).

My third function is to serve as commander of the Combined Naval Component Command (CCNCC) in time of conflict on the Korean Peninsula. This is a very important combined-forces responsibility, because Korea remains a very dangerous and potential regional flash point. The Seventh Fleet spends a great deal of time in the waters around Korea, and my Korean as well as U.S. military colleagues have been most receptive to what the Seventh Fleet and the Navy-Marine Corps team brings to their warfighting capability on the Korean Peninsula.

These three concentric circles of command responsibility represent different levels of my military and diplomatic responsibilities as one goes from circle to circle. The inner circle is the Navy and Marine Corps that I know so well. The next circle extends the operational art to joint interoperability, which is how U.S. forces will fight in the future and how we exercise. The third circle, which is a larger and even more complicated, entails the command of combined forces of more than one nation.

A Ready and Capable Force

Of key importance to the U.S. engagement strategy is the fleet's forward-deployed force of 19 ships, which currently includes the USS Kitty Hawk Carrier Battle Group (CVBG) and the USS Belleau Wood Amphibious Ready Group (ARG). Eighteen of these ships are homeported in Japan, at Yokosuka and Sasebo, and one in Guam.

As I travel around my area of responsibility-it encompasses more than 52 million square miles of the Pacific and Indian Oceans-and talk with naval leaders in the countries we engage with, they all tell me how highly they regard the Seventh Fleet as a stabilizing force.

We have long-standing security treaties with seven countries as well as security assistance programs involving nearly 20 more. Accordingly, our engagement and interaction across a broad range of military-to-military activities are very important-not only to the leaders of their democratic governments, but also to their nations' armed forces. We are often seen as an excellent role model and, perhaps more important, they understand that we can bring very significant and credible combat capability to bear anywhere in the area-and swiftly, should that become necessary.

If the National Command authority (NCA) called on the Seventh Fleet, there would be no question about its ability to carry out any mission given it. We are trained. We are ready. We are focused.

In March last year, the Kitty Hawk battle group was underway for Exercise Tandem Thrust. We happened to be in Guam on Easter weekend when we were notified that the National Command Authority had decided to send the battle group to the Persian Gulf. NATO operations in Kosovo were underway in strength, and additional forces were on the way. It fell to Kitty Hawk's air wing and its companion ships to assume nofly enforcement missions over Iraq and maritime-interdiction operations in the Gulf.

This was a no-notice deployment; the ships in the battle group, without any additional workups, turned their bows southwest and steamed to the Gulf for a combat deployment. The battle group completed its tasking and six-month deployment without returning home.