Three options for change for the Navy's surface force

Sea Power, Sep 2003 by Labs, Eric J

The Bush administration came into office with the stated intention of transforming the military into a more effective and lethal force. Perhaps the most visible such effort for the Navy is the drive to modernize the surface combatant force. Over the next 10 to 15 years, the Navy plans to retire one class of destroyers, modernize its cruisers and frigates, and introduce three new classes of surface combatants. That planwhich is at the heart of the Navy's effort to expand the total fleet from a little more than 300 ships to 375-would produce a force of 160 surface combatants 25 years from now, compared with today's 115 surface combatants. Indeed, the Navy is the only service in which the linchpin of its transformation plan is a large increase in force structure.

The resources needed for that expansion, however, are much greater than what the Navy now spends on surface combatants. Without large budget increases, transforming the surface combatant force could crowd out funding for other ship programs.

To address that issue, one could limit the amount of money spent on buying and operating surface combatants to today's spending-about $6.6 billion in 2003 dollars-and devise several different alternatives to modernize the force.

After such an analysis, the conclusion one reaches is that the Navy could cap average spending at today's level and still have a larger and more capable force of surface combatants in 25 years. Of course, the additional money that the Navy would spend under its own plan would provide an even bigger and more effective force. But in the absence of any analysis to show why 160 surface combatants are necessary (as opposed to some other number), the options presented here would help address the Navy's coming funding crunch.

Modernization: A Matter of Resources

In spring 2003, the Navy's force of surface combatants comprised 17 Spruance-class destroyers, 27 Ticonderoga-class cruisers, 33 Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigates, and 38 Arleigh Burke-class destroyers.

With the demise of the Soviet fleet, Navy leaders have shifted their attention to influencing events on land and operating in crowded coastal regions. The Navy expects the next generation of ships to reduce the risks that U.S. naval forces might face in that operating environment (such as mines, quiet diesel-electric submarines, and small, fast attack boats armed with antiship missiles) and to increase the ability of those forces to attack targets on land.

The Navy's transformation plan would retire all Spruance-class destroyers and the five oldest Ticonderoga-class cruisers by late 2006-well before the end of their expected service lives. It would also upgrade the combat systems and reliability of the remaining Ticonderogas and Perry-class frigates. The Navy's main focus, however, is on buying 16 new, large multimission DD(X) destroyers, starting in 2005; 56 small, "focused mission" littoral combat ships (LCSs), also starting in 2005; and an undetermined number of CG(X)s, the future cruiser replacement, beginning around 2014. The envisioned inventory of 160 surface combatants would eventually consist of 88 cruisers and destroyers capable of providing long-range air defense, as well as the DD(X)s and LCSs.

This 160-ship plan would require greater resources than the surface combatant force has received in recent years or would receive under the president's budget request for fiscal year 2004. Under that plan, the Navy would spend $3.2 billion in 2004-or about 28 percent of its shipbuilding budget-to buy surface combatants. To implement the 160-ship plan, the Navy would need to spend an average of $5.9 billion a year (in 2003 dollars) on procurement between 2003 and 2025, and that amount does not include annual operating costs for surface combatants.

At the same time, other components of the Navy will also need greater resources. Meeting the Navy's expansion goal of 375 ships would require an average budget for ship construction of almost $20 billion in 2003 dollars a year between 2011 and 2020-or about $4 billion more than the average required for the period from 2003 to 2010 and more than twice what the Navy spent between 1990 and 2002. (The shortfall in the ship-building budget since 1990 relative to the goal of building a 375-ship Navy is about $67 billion.)

In short, the Navy is proposing a major expansion of the surface combatant force that will require considerable resources at the same time that other ship programs will need more funding if current force levels are to be maintained.

Future Force, Today's Funding

Transforming the surface combatant force need not be as expensive a proposition as the Navy's 160-ship plan would be, however.

Let us consider three different options to structure the force, each of which would require no more than an average of about $6.6 billion a year (in 2003 dollars) for procurement and annual operating costs between 2003 and 2025. The three approaches offer various tradeoffs between keeping the current generation of ships and transforming the force.