Navy to Face Tough Issues As Strategic Review Takes Shape

Sea Power, Feb 2005 by Klamper, Amy

The Navy will be tackling a daunting list of questions regarding its future force structure and strategy as the Pentagon's long-term strategic review takes shape in the coming months.

The Pentagon this year will conduct the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), a major reassessment of the military's strategy, forces, capabilities and risks that is led by the Defense secretary and completed every four years. Past QDRs led to major changes in the Pentagon's tactics, planning processes and weapons requirements.

Rear Adm. Patrick Walsh, who will head the QDR process for the Navy, was slated to start work on the review in early January. Walsh previously served as deputy director for strategy and policy with the Joint Staff in the Pentagon and was special assistant to the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget.

Service officials say the preparation of QDR 2005 is expected to challenge Navy planners in several areas, including requirements dictated by the growing threat of terrorism, implementation of the Sea Basing concept, the Navy's role in missile defense, new approaches to crew rotation and forward deployment, and force structure and size.

"These are all things that have been considered in the budget in recent years," said one Navy official. "The QDR is a holistic perspective, but it's also really a balancing act where we look at our assets and where we should put our money."

One of the most fundamental issues to be dealt with by the Navy is the current lack of an officially approved plan for the size and structure of the fleet. Ronald O'Rourke, a senior analyst for the Congressional Research Service, a research arm of Congress, said that "absent that plan, Navy officials will have a hard time defending the need for specific numbers of ships in their conversations with [Office of the secretary of Defense] officials; Congress will have more difficulty in understanding and conducting effective oversight of Navy ship-owning requests.

"I don't think it's unreasonable to expect the Navy and DoD at some point to come forward with an agreed-upon consensus plan for the future size and structure of the Navy and a corresponding shipbuilding plan that supports that desired-for structure," O'Rourke said during a Seapower Forum on shipbuilding in early January.

Adm. Vern Clark, chief of naval operations, told lawmakers in November, "I'm convinced that we're learning things at sea that we will continue to fine tune and, in fact, alter our investments and potentially our strategy."

For example, initial results of the Navy's Sea Swap program indicate it may foster reductions in fleet size with no cuts in capabilities. Under Sea Swap, ships are forward-deployed for extended periods, such as two years, while different crews are rotated to the ships, generating huge reductions in time spent transiting between ports and forward areas.

Clark said the next QDR will assess the balance of new Navy investments for conventional and irregular threats such as antiterrorism, counterterrorism and force protection needs.

Former Pentagon Comptroller Dov Zakheim said the Navy and Marine Corps provide the ultimate initial hedge against the emergence of conflict against potential, or unexpected, adversaries. "The Navy's challenge is to maintain that hedge even as it constrains the size of the fleet," he said during a recent QDR panel discussion at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative Washington think tank.

Zakheim said the QDR should prompt the Navy to demonstrate a need for more large and costly submarines, amphibious lift and larger surface ships. "Aircraft carriers, on the other hand, proved their worth even in the war in landlocked Afghanistan, while the need for Littoral Combat Ships is reinforced daily by events in the Gulf," Zakheim said. "Finally, the Sea Basing concept is one that deserves serious support," as it embodies the flexibility required to support operations against irregular threats and buttresses the hedge against more conventional aggression.

The Navy is currently considering how to implement the Sea Basing concept for launching, conducting and supporting expeditionary operations ashore from ships at sea. The idea is to place more flexibility in the hands of commanders while avoiding a buildup of huge support facilities and forces ashore.

Another issue to be explored by the QDR is whether the planned Navy cost savings should be used in part to finance Army end-strength increases. As an incentive for generating savings, the services are supposed to be able to keep monies saved for their own purposes. But in an era of finite Defense Department resources, that might not be possible.

Although the Navy plans to achieve significant cost savings in part by reducing end-strength by about 25,000 through 2008, service officials say it is too soon to know whether the subject will be thoroughly explored in the QDR. "Cost savings are something that could benefit the Navy if we knew our topline [budget]," the Navy official said. "But the focus is more on how we can do business better, what assets are needed for that, not how much money from projected savings can we put here or there."