Fleet Size Must Be in Balance With Security, Mission Needs

Sea Power, Nov 2004 by McNeill, Sheila M

There is a vigorous debate under way in Washington about the numbers of new ships in a draft Navy spending plan leaked to the press in August. Members of Congress and the defense leadership are right to scrutinize the numbers. More advanced ships are needed to keep our nation safe and secure, and prosecute the global war on terrorism.

Unfortunately, much of the debate has been narrowly focused on the number of Navy ships purportedly to be purchased from 2006 to 2010, and possible cutbacks in the shipyards should the final plan contain reductions in ship procurement. But ships are a means to an end - to make our nation more secure - and other urgent priorities of equal importance must be part of this debate.

The Coast Guard also is engaged in the global war on terrorism, and has an acute requirement for additional ships and aircraft, as well as intelligence and communications systems. Its Integrated Deepwater System, a $17 billion program to upgrade its assets over 20 years, should be accelerated and enhanced. A range of assessments by a diverse array of analysts and organizations - including the Rand Corporation, the Department of Homeland security and Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine - support the restructuring of Deepwater.

An accelerated program would provide additional assets at little or no increased expenditure due to savings in unit costs and factoring for inflation. For example, an accelerated schedule in the Snowe report would raise the number of Maritime security Cutters, Medium, from six to 25 by 2015, and of Maritime Patrol Coastal boats from none to 58. Smart reprogramming and acceleration throughout the Deepwater project would bolster our national security and efficiently employ some of the excess capacity in the nation's shipyards, which has existed for many years.

Likewise, the needs of the Navy and Marine Corps are changing rapidly as we continue to transform our sea services to deal with an enemy unlike any in our history. As a part of that transformation, the Navy and Marine Corps have developed several ways to get more combat-effective, on-station time out of the fleet and direct more firepower at our enemies.

As noted in my President 's Message of October 2003, the Navy has adopted a new operating construct called the Fleet Response Plan that adjusted scheduled maintenance intervals and training periods to provide greater flexibility and responsiveness in times of crisis.

Under this new plan, six of the Navy's 12 Aircraft Carrier Strike Groups will be ready to deploy within 30 days of tasking, with two more ready to follow within 90 days. The Navy has institutionalized the ability to provide the nation with the kind of impressive naval combat power that performed so brilliantly in routing al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq. Our sea services have demonstrated that the United States can surge enormous combat power in a hurry, and that lesson was not lost on our enemies and potential adversaries.

In this issue of Sea Power, Navy Secretary Gordon R. England notes that the Navy and Marine Corps today are far more productive than in the past. When the Navy had 485 ships, it routinely deployed 98. Today, it has less than 300 ships but regularly deploys 92. Our carrier air units can hit four times the targets per day, relative to a decade ago, and their effectiveness continues to increase.

The Navy also has had some success with its "Sea Swap" program to change out the crews of its warships while keeping the vessels forward-deployed. This increases their sea days, in part, by sharply reducing the time spent transiting from homeports to the theaters of operations.

In the heat of debate, the Navy's fleet size of 10 or 20 years ago often is compared to that of today, but those comparisons have only limited relevance to present or future national security requirements. The Chief of Naval Operations, Adm. Vern Clark, is our nation's principal proponent of presence with a purpose - the ability to send the right combination of tactical resources to world trouble spots at the right time. The Navy is assessing the force structures that will be needed to execute today's missions and keep our nation secure throughout the 21st century. That assessment will support the need for a balanced force comprising different types of ships and aircraft with even greater combat capability than exist today.

We may not yet know the exact number of ships this nation will need in the future, but we do know it will be more than the 290 we have today. As the CNO likes to say, "at some point quantity has a quality all its own," and the world's oceans are not getting any smaller.

To lay the foundation for success throughout this century, Adm. Clark and Secretary England are asking Congress to adopt capital acquisition strategies that will stretch our dollars further. Shipbuilding and maintaining the maritime industrial base have been priorities for the Navy League for many years. But we must recapitalize our naval fleets in a way that is consistent with the overall security needs of our nation and the absolute requirement to execute today's missions with trained and ready forces.