Teamwork, flexibility, & sustained combat power: Interview with Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Vern Clark

Sea Power, Oct 2002 by Peterson, Gordon I

I have testified to Congress that I fundamentally believe that it is our responsibility to level our investments and to commit and discipline ourselves to be a better partner with industry. You can't be a better partner with industry if you are spending $10 billion one year and $4 billion the next. They can't work their way through such a seesaw investment strategy. It is imperative for us to move to level investments in the shipbuilding and aircraft-production accounts.

We need to be spending a minimum of $12 billion a year in new ship construction. We need to be spending $8 billion to $10 billion a year in new aircraft procurement. We must find those resources and make it a reality.

Do you sense a growing awareness in Congress of the need to increase recapitalization funding if the Navy is to have the fleet of roughly 375 ships that you have identified as necessary for the Navy to be able to meet current and future national-security requirements?

CLARK: There is a great awareness in Congress of the need to recapitalize the Navy, and I am encouraged by those who speak out in support. My best estimate today is that we need a fleet numbering approximately 375 ships. We will continue to refine the number as we develop the strategy for Sea Power 21 and build the force profiles and force packages for the future. We are talking about new force-packaging concepts in Sea Power 21. They will be designed so that we can distribute combat power over a wider number of places around the world where it is necessary for the Navy to represent the vital interests of this nation. We are going to need to have more ships to do that, but ship numbers alone are not the only answer.

Credible combat capability is the requirement. You can only be in one place at one time with one ship, and so numbers do matter. Numbers do have a quality all their own.

New aircraft-procurement programs like the Joint Strike Fighter [JSF] are said to be critical to the future of naval aviation. Just how important are they-and what is your outlook?

CLARK: The Joint Strike Fighter is very important, but let me begin by discussing an airplane now making its first operational deployment on the [nuclear-powered aircraft carrier] USS Abraham Lincoln-the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet. We must field Super Hornets as rapidly as possible to allow us to eliminate the cost spiral with older aircraft that is robbing us of investment dollars. We now have the oldest naval air force in our history. The high cost of operating F-14s [Tomcat fighter aircraft] and EA-6Bs [Prowler electronic-warfare aircraft] is robbing us of dollars we could use for recapitalization.

I need more Es and Fs [Super Hornets] so I can rapidly reduce the overall age of our strike-fighter force. On the heels of that, just as quickly as JSF is ready to deliver, we will transition to that platform and retire older Hornets. The Joint Strike Fighter force is vital to our future. It will give us critical capabilities and characteristics that are required in the unknown and uncertain world of the 21 st century when we are called upon to bring power to bear. JSF will have the ability to reach out at extended ranges without refueling-longer than we have ever operated in the past. It will maximize the independence of maritime forces operating from the maritime domain. The operational reliability, stealth, payload, and "bringback" capability that are designed into JSF will represent a great improvement in combat capability that we desperately need in the 21st century.