What the GAO LCS Report Reveals

Hopefully folks have had time to read the GAO Littoral Combat Ship analysis by now. When I read the report the first time, I made a list of specific details I wanted to discuss... but that discussion will have to wait. As I was going through the report the second time I found myself thinking about the bigger issue the report reveals; a problem Navy leadership can no longer ignore.

The US Navy is in decline because leadership has allowed the standards of the US Navy to decline. This is reflected in the way the US Navy treats equipment, technology, or the quality people within the ranks of the US Navy. I am talking about the decline of standards as an accepted culture in the Navy first hinted in the Balisle Report but clearly prevalent everywhere. The Navy has taken "product" out of productivity and has accepted a culture of churn that is incapable of producing results. The Navy is not results oriented - it is productivity oriented, and it is why the results being produced by the Navy both in terms of equipment and manpower reflect work, effort, and intent... as those are the activities that are measured. I also strongly believe the career path for officers within this culture brutally kills innovation and creativity in the development of officers in becoming leaders.

Yes, the GAO LCS report reflects all of this - because it reveals systematic problems previously identified and evident in other areas of the Navy.

What are the primary problems revealed by the GAO report? The first problem is that every mission module program is incomplete, and each of the three mission modules is currently pending a review towards building a currently non-existent piece of technology to meet the original requirements. The original requirements were written when? By whom? Where are those people now? If any of the folks who were part of the original requirement development process were promoted, it was because they were able to check a box after they produced a set of requirements that was left for the next guy to execute. In other words, someone moved on because they produced a concept that has ultimately failed to be executed into a program.

All of the productivity exerted by folks towards producing a Littoral Combat Ship has yet to result in a product with value.

Shore Churn.

The second problem is the Littoral Combat Ship will be fielded as a ship absent the capabilities to fully utilize the system constructed. The ship is an empty shell, a naval truck with no payload. This is not a problem exclusive to the Littoral Combat Ship though - the problem extends across the fleet. The US Navy doesn't have enough missiles for Ballistic Missile Defense, and yet the US Navy is building DDG-51s for Ballistic Missile Defense. The US Navy doesn't have enough missiles to fill the VLS cells on CGs, DDGs, SSNs, and SSGNs. The US Navy doesn't have enough aircraft to fill the decks of the existing or future aircraft carrier fleet. The inability to meet payload capacity on the Littoral Combat Ship isn't a problem exclusive to the Littoral Combat Ship, it is an accepted lower standard on all warship types across the entire fleet. US Navy leaders talk about needing 313 ships? How about buying enough weapons to fill the available weapon payload capacity on the 288 ships we have today first?

When was the Naval Operational Concept written and completed? I distinctly remember it being referred to as NOC 09, before it was released in 2010. Who worked on the NOC? When did they finish? Were the people who wrote the NOC around when the NOC was released, and where are those people today? Given the amount of time involved, my bet is everyone of them has moved on and there is a whole new staff in that N3/N5 now. Why does this matter?

Because a bunch of folks did their churn, checked their box for doing the churn, and the product likely sat in some flag officer Inbox for months. How important is a product that sits around in some flag officer Inbox for months? Accountability begins at the top, except it really doesn't, does it?

When I caught up with N3/N5 in Durham, NC nearly two years ago for the 'conversations with the country' regarding the release of the maritime strategy, it turned out most of the authors had moved on. Less than a year after the release of CS-21 everyone had moved on from N3/N5. No one in N3/N5 had a personal stake - ownership of the document, because those who were there at the time didn't write it. It wasn't their churn. Where the product went from there didn't matter to those in N3/N5 - it was their turn to focus on the next document. The new folks were tasked to produce their own personal churn towards a new document - the job necessary for them to check their box. What about the old document? It didn't matter. Foreign governments analyze every single sentence in our strategic documents, but have you noticed how after a strategic document is completed by the US Navy it often quickly disappears? When was the last time you heard about the NOC? These documents mean more to the CNO's speechwriter than they do the vast majority of sailors, or officers.

I have an email from a public email list from back in March how someone mentioned that Naval Doctrine Publication 1 has been updated, and is soon to be released. It's fucking September already, whose desk is that document sitting around on? It hasn't been updated since 1994, so a few months won't matter? It is a product, not productivity, and in the US Navy culture today that means NDP1 probably is not as important to the document producers because the churn today is now being dedicated to current processes like AirSea Battle - which matters more today because it means a check box, and the check boxes for something completed in March have probably already been passed out.

If product mattered to Navy leadership, Naval Doctrine Publication 1 wouldn't sit in some flag officers Inbox for 6 months. NDP1 only discusses trivial topics like Naval Warfare Doctrine for the US Navy. What is the message to the rest of the Navy when a Flag officer just sits on a final product for 6 months, even when the final product is Naval Doctrine Publication Number Fucking One?

That is to be expected though, because final products don't seem to matter in the US Navy; there is no follow through and attention to detail doesn't always come from Navy leadership. The result of the product doesn't really matter in the current Navy culture, only the churn contributed towards a product matters. That means the next group of folks who enter any department with the Navy begin their assignment with the absence of ownership of the product the last person produced, and if the productivity of the last person didn't go perfectly - often the new person would take the career hit for it unless they put out enough churn to fix the problems observed on their watch. It doesn't matter how bad something is, it only matters that the revelation of how bad something is doesn't take place on their watch, or doesn't reflect poorly on their churn.

The promotion culture is intended to develop well rounded officers who are "jack of all trades" types but master of none. If significant churn is provided during an assignment, you get a check box. If you stay on an additional tour to see productivity turn (churn) into final product - your career might actually suffer for that commitment towards completion of work. When a FITREP measures effort instead of result, there is no incentive for creativity or innovation - indeed those attributes are actively discouraged by such a system because they don't enhance the FITREP.

Where is the attention to detail at every level when it comes to final products? You can't tell me attention to detail regarding final products is a leadership priority when flag officers sit on the NOC for a year, or NDP1 for 6 months, or when the final product of a shipbuilding program as outlined by the GAO looks like the LCS. I'm the biggest fan of the LPD-17 you know, and that program is nothing short of a dumpster fire in trying to turn the churn committed to an entire class of ships into a finished product.

Have you noticed how fast everything must move ahead these days - the Littoral Combat Ship being the beacon of moving too fast to actually meet a schedule. The GAO report states the current US Navy plan intends to buy 17 ships and 13 mission modules by 2015, but by 2015 exactly 0 mission modules will exist across the final baseline. There are currently no plans to buy more anti-submarine modules, because the Navy hasn't decided what it will look like. The range of the best weapon system for the LCS ship itself in the current surface warfare module is 3.5nm with the 57mm gun - which isn't even a system that is specific to the surface warfare module. NLOS is gone, and no replacement has been named - the Navy is looking for a new alternative to that problem. Another study to produce a report for a new program that will be studied by the GAO regarding effectiveness as a replacement... - just churn baby, churn.

The mine countermeasures module is waiting on a UUV that current plans intend to field by 2015, and the Rapid Airborne Mine Clearance System won't be fielded until 2017 - and that assumes neither program suffers from further delays. Who is willing to bet on a Navy time line on any program right now? Who is going to be running the Rapid Airborne Mine Clearance System program in 2017 anyway? I think it is a safe bet that person will not be the same person who is running the program in 2011 or 2014.

Dear Congress, the Navy wants $10 billion for 15 vessels that come with limited endurance, a maximum combat range against other ships of around 20nm, and no completed payloads. K. Thx. Bye.

Between now and 2011 the CNO will be out doing his duty - his own churn and dance in public speeches and in front of Congress promoting the Littoral Combat Ship program. It is a program where productivity is evident by the consistency everyone appears to demonstrate working hard - but lets face it, the GAO report reveals just how little the final product actually matters to the Navy. $10 billion for 15 ships with uncertainty in the payloads for each mission requirement? I am estimating 15 ships at $550 million and $1.75 billion for module development = $10 billion.

Is there anyone in Congress going to call the Navy out on this bullshit? Hell, someone should call out the SecDef on this nonsense - it's his watch and he appears to be taking a nap while at the helm.

Read the GAO report again. Print the report and play with your yellow marker. Think about the problems discussed, and the underlining problems that brought us here - and are built into many of the potential solutions that still lay ahead. The way I read the report, the Littoral Combat Ship isn't the problem - it is a reflection of the big problem. Want to fix the Navy culture? It won't be easy, because the culture will fight the change. Figure out a better system to measure performance of both equipment purchased but also people, and put "product" back into the massive amounts of productivity that is evident - but evidently not producing final products all the way to completion (which extends beyond delivery). If the Navy can move the cultural goalposts just that much, it would be a running start towards a new, badly needed culture of becoming a results oriented organization.

I don't see any relief coming to any of the troubled Navy programs until the culture issue is addressed. The culture of churn that doesn't direct organizational priorities towards performance measurements and accountability for product or service delivery is issue #1 in the US Navy. The culture issue spills into everything else - if that doesn't get fixed then there is no reason to expect anything else getting fixed.

A Few Random Thoughts

First, I knew I was going to link this post when I first saw it in my RSS feed, and based on the updates since my first read I think it might be one of the most interesting discussions in politics today. Full disclosure: I have only watched the Glen Beck event and its aftermath 140 characters at a time from the folks I subscribe too via my Twitter feed, and would be dishonest if I said the event was something I cared about... but that Chicago Boyz post has merit beyond ones political opinion on the event itself.

Second, I read both of these articles (one and two) today about the end of 'combat operations' in Iraq, and all I can say is that the Center for American Progress should feel embarrassed - because you deserved the mocking and criticism you got from strategic thinkers all day. This is my tip for progressive think tanks: you are in dire need of better intellectual substance in your national security analysis and in particular: the progressive community needs more insight and creativity among your strategic thinkers. Find a narrative that inspires towards the future or the future of the progressive movement will forever live in the past. Conservatives may claim that progressives live in a pre-9/11 world, but my impression is progressives more accurately live in a pre-1/09 world.

Third, with the end of operations in Iraq I have followed some interesting discussions regarding the impact of the war on the American people. It has been suggested a generation has felt the impact of war in Iraq. I call bullshit. There has been little or no impact on the vast majority of Americans as a result of Afghanistan or Iraq - because the country was never put into a war footing and only a tiny percentage of Americans actually served in those war zones. The impact of war on a generation of Americans is negligible, if even measurable. "Generation Kill" is a slogan, not an applicable stereotype, and any argument that suggests otherwise is political nonsense.

Want to understand what the major influences are to the generation of the last decade, I would argue this news is more relevant:

After dominating the home video rental business for more than a decade and struggling to survive in recent years against upstarts Netflix and Redbox, Blockbuster Inc. is preparing to file for bankruptcy next month, according to people who have been briefed on the matter.

Executives from Blockbuster and its senior debt holders last week held meetings with the six major movie studios to discuss their intention to enter a “pre-planned” bankruptcy in mid-September, said several people familiar with the situation who requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of ongoing talks.

My 15 year old watches movies downloaded from Netflix via her Wii, and in a nutshell her access via the technology revolution of the last 10 years is why Blockbuster is going bankrupt. In a single day this summer she used a laptop plugged into the TV to create her own movie scene augmented by music recorded on her phone and select imagery taken by a digital camera to create a spoof video for fun; uploaded the video to Facebook to share with friends, and generated 70 comments by her classmates while school was out in July - all while I was at work - where I ultimately heard about the movie from her via a txt message.

The nation has been at war for over 60% of her life, and the impact of the war on her life doesn't exist despite the fact that the explosion of technology, access to information, and variety in new communication capabilities represents the most influential cultural impact on her generation. Did 9/11 impact a generation? Absolutely, but the military actions that followed have not.

When I was 15 years old the US fought a 100 hour war in Iraq, and only a few years prior the US had essentially won the cold war. Those two events - both of which happened individually in relatively short bursts - had more impact on my generation (GenX) than the long wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have had on this generation over the last decade.

I muse on this topic because I reject the premise behind the suggestion that the nation is engaged in a long war, no matter what very intelligent people say or believe, and regardless of the activities of the military. Reality is not the perception - and the perception almost always wins.

The government may be engaged, but the people are not. So for me, the impact of the Iraq war on the current generation can be summed up as such: The United States intentionally decided to demonstrate to a generation of Americans that protracted war can be conducted without influencing the lives of the majority of citizens at home. I think that represents a very dangerous idea.

Finally, a few questions for the comments.

Did you read the GAO report on the LCS or simply read the news articles?

The last sentence on the first page says "The Navy plans to complete a more comprehensive cost estimate before award of additional ship contracts in 2010." In your opinion, is this the reason why the LCS draw-down decision was delayed?

Does anyone know why FSF-1 has apparently not been used to test mission modules?

I have read the report and have plenty of thoughts, but want to give everyone a chance to read the full GAO report before I discuss it on the blog.

A Most Interesting Debate

The Germans are talking about military reform and to be honest, it is actually a very interesting issue to follow. This article can bring you up to speed on some of the issues if you are interested, but for more depth to the debate you'll need to look elsewhere (and most of it is in German). There are two main points that I think are worth noting.

First, Germany is ready to discard their conscripts.

The rationale behind this bold yet highly controversial push to suspend the draft is two-fold. First, the Bundeswehr needs far less conscripts than are theoretically required to serve in the armed forces, thus raising serious concerns about a lack of “Wehrgerechtigkeit” (“draft equity”). After all, how can the government justify drafting tens of thousands of young men for a nine-month military service while simply letting many of their friends off the hook? Second, the Bundeswehr’s conscription-based system is not only more expensive than a purely professional/volunteer force, but has also proven to be ill-equipped to deal with the growing demand for expeditionary military action in countries ranging from Afghanistan and Sudan to the coast of Lebanon.

Second is the idea that Germany would become more expeditionary in structure than its current cold war era territorial defense structure.

The proposed Bundeswehr reforms (including a suspension of the draft) are not only better suited to deal with today’s complex security threats, ranging from terrorism and WMD/missile technology proliferation to global crime networks and piracy. They would also be welcome news for Berlin’s allies, who could, in principle, count on the support of a militarily more capable Germany, both within NATO and within the EU context (the required parliamentary approval for each Bundeswehr deployment abroad notwithstanding). In the wake of the recent economic crisis, huge fiscal deficits are putting severe pressures on defense budgets across Europe, especially France, Germany, and the UK (London might be forced to cut its annual defense spending by up to 20 percent). If Germany can lead the way in terms of adopting politically controversial yet ultimately indispensable military reforms – thus generating more bang for fewer bucks – there is indeed at least some hope that European/NATO members in general can create much-needed synergies in defense procurement and force restructuring based on the notion that not all allies require the full spectrum of defense (industrial) capabilities.

The United States is too interconnected to the global security environment to ignore military reform debates in other countries, and this debate in particular represents one of the few reforms in Europe where a military power is expanding its capabilities to forward deploy, even as the total number of military personnel would be reduced. Regardless of country however, the trends for 21st century military reform seem to take on the same character: expeditionary.

We will have to wait and see what Germany ultimately decides to do, but in reading military reform arguments from various nations across Europe, including Russia, the 21st century Army models of expeditionary forces most often include discussions regarding amphibious lift capacity and numbers of medium and heavy lift helicopters. In other words, the capabilities that most mimic the US Marines are more desired by the rest of the world than the capabilities of a large standing Army.

It is a noteworthy contrast of strategic thinking how in the US, we seem to have this in complete reverse as we debate what the US Marines will be in the future while speaking of the enormous challenges towards recapitalizing the Army in DoD budget discussions. With Iraq combat operations now over, it is time to keep an eye on what narrative emerges in Washington.

How long before think tanks start talking about recapitalizing the Army, and how long before those think tanks that have been Army focused due primarily to Iraq and Afghanistan are ready to examine broader strategic alternatives for the future that include an emphasis on airpower and seapower? These will be interesting time tables, because the think tank community in Washington is packed with Army strategic thinkers right now - and if the conversation stops being about the Army, their job might be in jeopardy.

Yep, it is parochial, but it needs not be. I consider the 101st Airborne Division as an airpower capability in dire need of a maritime enabling component, and the US Marines represents both an airpower and seapower capability that needs better options for forward deployment. On this blog we cannot limit our viewpoints to the parochial traditions of inter-service rivalry (even if they do in Washington).

When Bad Policy Gets Worse

I have never been more excited to attend an event like I am for attending the United States Naval Institute History conference this year. While the contractors have been working on my home office I had a chance to read RADM Joseph F. Callo, USNR (Ret.) book John Paul Jones - which is remarkably well written and applicable for the US Navy today. Actually, I'll be talking about many of the folks who will be at that conference over the next several blog posts - but in this blog post let me just say that I hope when Stephen Carmel of Maersk Line gives his luncheon keynote address he speaks to this rather incredible issue nobody seems to be talking about.

The Suez Canal Authority’s decision one month ago to no longer allow commercial vessels with onboard firearms to transit the strategic waterway is causing severe complications for some ship owners and operators trying to protect crews, cargo and assets from Somali pirates.

Maersk Line Ltd. learned about the new policy by surprise when one of its ships was prevented from entering the Suez Canal until it surrendered its supply of weapons to Egyptian authorities, Stephen Carmel, the company’s senior vice president of maritime services, said during an interview...

This article by American Shipper's Eric Kulisch is almost certainly going to end up in a CRS report very soon, because the article goes on and on with incredible moments of hand to forehead frustration - read the whole damn thing!

Are the ships chartered to bring home US Army equipment from Iraq - with tanks, vehicles, etc... having their security personnel disarmed when passing the Suez canal? YES.

"The real ridiculous part of this is we’re on some ships that have military hardware and we have to take our little M-4s and 9 mms off," Rothrauff said, referring to the rifles and pistols stored on board the cargo vessels.

I'm not even going to touch the firearms export rules, because the article suggests the State Department has a good understanding of the problem - and I know there is at least 1 CRS report about it because that is where I first learned of the firearms export issue a few months ago.

But still...jeeez.

The real problem here is that the US government forced a policy of self protection on the maritime shipping industry outside of any international regulatory framework. The complex nature of global maritime trade can make unilateral policies of any individual country even more dangerous than the problems they are meant to correct due to secondary and tertiary network effects. On one hand the Navy and Congress is telling the industry to put armed security on ships, and on the other hand nations - including the United States - are legitimately enforcing firearms export laws preventing ships from bringing guns into ports.

Neither Congress nor the US Navy are providing an alternative that represents a well thought out security solution to ships moving in and out of the pirate areas. Both the Navy and Congress have instead been pushing bureaucratic paper shuffling alternatives intended to inefficiently circumnavigate the complex system that has ultimately only further increased the cost of trade above and beyond the original costs of hiring the security in the first place.

And in the places where a ship is most vulnerable - like a Persian Gulf port or the Suez canal - the weapons are being removed by the local state - who has a legitimate right just like our own Coast Guard does to remove firearms from ships approaching ports. The solution to this problem is not easy, and by no means do I think the US government should put security on every ship - but can we at least protect the billions in Army equipment returning from Iraq with something a bit tougher than a hired gun whom another nation can disarm at will, or do we have to be like Canada and take action only after there is a problem.

The American Shipper article is fantastic, and discusses many points not covered in this analysis.

I will say this though... the timing is very interesting because the Egyptians began the enforcement just prior to the beginning of Ramadan. There is a lot of internet chatter about Al Qaeda affiliated groups in Yemen doing a lot of research and talking about efforts towards sinking a US flagged ship. The action by the Egyptians could suggest Egypt is very aware of this threat and is taking necessary steps to prevent such an attack from taking place at their strategically and economically important choke point. I imagine to an extremist organization looking to make a big splash in the maritime domain, a US flagged ship with unarmed security team on a ship carrying the equipment of an US Army combat brigade returning from Iraq, sitting off the Med side of the Suez canal waiting for Egyptians to return firearms - looks like a much easier target than a US Navy warship on pirate patrol.

Hopefully folks outside the State Department are aware of the Egyptian policy change, and aren't stupid enough to trust in security through the obscurity of the issue.

Imitation is the Sincerest Form of Flattery

Were you paying attention to Pacific Partnership 2010? If you weren't, it is OK... but the Navy PAOs out in the Pacific did a fair to good job getting the word out what the USNS Mercy (T-AH 19) was out there doing. The ship deployed back on May 1st and wrapped up business on August 24th, and is expected to return to San Diego later this month.

These naval medical diplomacy deployments are interesting to observe because the success of these types of deployments are very difficult to measure. I have been sitting on some outstanding information provided to me regarding the USNS Comfort (T-AH 20) deployment to Haiti earlier this year - contemplating how to measure success or failure. Both missions are different of course, Comfort responded to disaster while Mercy is a diplomatic mission part of a larger soft power strategy. The bigger question that lingers over any US Navy hospital ship deployment is whether or not we are getting value for the effort - a return of state investment if you will. I understand the polling methodology the Navy uses, but I also find any kind of polling measurement to be questionable, at best.

Until today, I have had a hard time finding some piece of tangible, meaningful evidence that the US Navy should be doing this. Like i said - until today when I saw this.

A Chinese navy hospital ship will leave China for the Gulf of Aden on Sept. 1 to offer medical services to Chinese escort missions in the waters, the Chinese Defense Ministry said here Monday.

The People's Liberation Army (PLA) hospital ship Peace Ark will also provide medical services to officers and soldiers of other countries conducting anti-piracy activities in the waters.

The ship will also call at Djibouti, Kenya, Tanzania, the Seychelles and Bangladesh.

There is even a mention of the deployment on the official Chinese government website. Andrew Erickson provided his thoughts on his blog today:

This promises to be an extremely positive Chinese contribution to regional security, and illustrates the increasing potential of Beijing to serve as a responsible maritime stakeholder.

I'm not sure I would go that far, but it is certainly an interesting development and could indeed end up as Andrew describes. I see the event itself differently though.

The forward deployment of a PLA Navy hospital ship is the best affirmation I have seen to date regarding the success of our own naval medical diplomacy deployments for the purposes of soft power to specific regions - and in particular the Pacific. While the PLA Navy has grown fairly rapidly over the last decade, the PLA Navy has not actually attempted to mimic US Navy patterns in any meaningful way in terms of deployment patterns or even operational methods. Sure they sent ships to Somalia, but the PLA Navy has almost exclusively been involved in convoy escorts - which is not similar to US Navy anti-pirate operations. I also do not consider PLA Navy deployments of a few surface vessels around the world that make port appearances for domestic political propaganda a compelling comparison to US Navy activity.

The key to this deployment for me is how this represents the first time during the rise of the PLA Navy where we can legitimately claim the PLA Navy is imitating the behavior of the US Navy. The imitation by the PLA Navy of US Navy medical diplomacy deployments is the strongest indication I have seen to date regarding the positive perception of influence a proactive hospital ship deployment is producing - because imitation does represent the sincerest form of flattery.

From a perspective of justification to Congress, I think the PLA Navy hospital ship deployment represents a much stronger indicator of our own success than polls do, or at least the regional perception of our successes with this type of activity in the Pacific.

Western European Navies (week 34)

Denmark
HDMS Esbern Snare, the current flagship of SNMG1, averted a pirate attack off the coast of Somalia last Saturday. SNMG1 is currently involved in NATO operation Ocean Shield.

The exercise DANEX 2010 has ended.

HDMS Søløven, the newest ship of the Flyvefisken class patrol vessels, will be converted to a training vessel for divers. She will replace the much smaller HDMS Læsø. The ship is expected to rejoing the fleet mid-2011.

Finland
One of the new minehunters of the MITO class has been christened.

France
A Lynx from the Royal Navy was stationed aboard a french frigate, during exercise DANEX 2010.

Germany
The political discussion about the future of the German defence forces has officially started.

The Netherlands
HNLMS Amsterdam has left for Somalia to join Operation Atalanta.

HNLMS De Zeven Provincien has left operation Ocean Shield in Somalia and to join Operation Active Endeavour in the mediterenean.

If the current coalition talks will actually result in a new government, the military will be happy. The parties involved in the talks have agreed upon a €300 million cut for defence. This is only a fraction of what people feared.

UK
The 7,400t HMS Astute, the UK's newest nuclear submarine, has been commissioned.

Four MCMV's from the UK, together with four from the US, will do a 10 day exercise in the Gulf. RFA Lyme Bay has joined as an afloat headquarters.

Other
Open Spirit 2010, the mine clearance exercise in the Baltic Sea has started and will last until September 8. A 2008 survey estimated there are still 80,000 mines in the Baltic Sea.

The Stack of Stuff

Due to a slight delay in the schedule of the good folks working on my house, my internet access is currently very limited at the moment - meaning I am blogging from my phone (not cool).

Hopefully the huge stack of articles on my laptop will start publishing over the weekend. Sorry for the unexpected break in blog content.

-Raymond

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A Brit Responds...

I received the following via email from a knowledgeable Brit overnight, and I contacted the author and received his permission anonymously to post his view of my post yesterday on the RUSI article.  My responses are interspersed in bold.



Dear Mr McGrath,

I read your comments on the Information Dissemination website regarding the RUSI paper on the future of the Royal Navy and I have to disagree with your suggestion that the authors, Blackham and Prins, failed to make the case for the size of the fleet.

You seem to be assuming that because the US Navy is now the primary naval power in the world that other nations should just rely on them to keep the seas open. But as you say geography matters, the UK is an island nation, its security depends on trade via the sea, is this not argument enough to have a strong navy irrespective of the strength of its allies?

It is an argument--but is it sufficient argument to obtain the funding required?  And I'm prepared to listen to an argument that says the UK shouldn't depend on the US to keep the seas open--but I'm not hearing that argument.  If I did, I would then hope that the force structure requirement put forward would be substantially larger than the one discussed in Blackham and Prins article, because keeping the seas open is a much bigger job than the even Blackham and Prins are resourcing.

The comparisons with Australia are ones that should be made because Canberra has recently gained an appreciation of what seapower can do, something that the British hierarchy has forgotten. Just because the UK is farther away from the Asian region does not mean its security is not affected by events there. 




I don't disagree that the British hierarchy has forgotten its appreciation for what Seapower can do, I just don't get a sense of how the RN will use it to contribute to security and stability in Asia.  What is the requirement?  An Asian squadron, forward deployed 365 days a year?  Presumably though, the Australian Seapower requirement would differ--greatly--from the UK requirement because of proximity.

As Blackham and Prins point out there are various choke points through which seaborne trade has to pass and these must be kept open. As an island nation to leave this job to other powers would be irresponsible.


Again, I'd like to see this argument made--the argument that the UK can't leave the protection of the world's sea lanes to the US.  But it isn't being made because protecting sea lanes these days is as much a power projection mission as a sea control mission, given the proliferating ability of coastal nations to exercise sea control from the shore (the return of shore artillery, so to speak).  Making a freedom of the seas argument requires a vastly larger force structure than the Exchequer can provide, and politically, it doesn't hold water given the fact that your closest ally is currently doing the job.  

Ultimately the US does not rely on overseas trade as much as the UK. Geographically the US has the capability to feed its own population and produce its own materials, and if it likes can reduce its navy to a coastal force and disengage from international affairs – which is what it did successfully until the early 1900s.


Shhhh.....be quiet or the US Army might hear you...here our interlocutor has stumbled onto an interesting argument--that there is a certain "Seapower hedge" that must be maintained on the chance that the US walks away from its role as guarantor of the global system.  Yes--on this basis (UK as an island nation, imports lots of stuff by sea, what if America became isolationist?)--there is a rationale for maintaining an RN with the capability to guarantee movement of materials necessary to support its economy.  It is however, one that UK politicians simply don't seem to be buying; for the moment, the US seems to be quite happy spending $600B a year (base budget) on defense including roughly 28% of that on Naval power.  Absent additional signs of the US walking away from its role, UK politicians have ample reason to turn the RN into a domestic bill-payer. 

In deciding the size of the Royal Navy you must take into account what jobs it is expected to do. Securing global trade routes (with or without the US) requires X number of frigates. Providing a carrier strike and an amphibious assault capability requires X number of destroyers and support ships etc. Protecting overseas territories, patrolling the Horn of Africa, providing minesweepers for the Gulf and other tasks all require more frigates and OPVs.


I agree--however, I see neither a "with or without the US" argument being put forward or the force structure to back it up.

The case for the nuclear deterrent is again that the UK does not want to rely on the Americans, it is also about industrial capabilities, independence of action, a seat at the UN Security Council and all manner of other influences that are not just purely military.


The wag in me would suggest that maintaining the nuclear deterrent is driven as much by the French (having one) as it is by any deterrent value.  But if maintaining it is the table stakes for playing as a permanent member of the UNSC, it should (as the RUSI authors indicate) not be funded out of the RN's budget to the detriment of its other responsibilities.

The Strategic Defence and Security Review will look at all the above mentioned tasks and undoubtedly will make some hard decisions about what the UK should and shouldn’t do. Ultimately the question will be asked about what the UK wants to do by itself and what it wants to do with allies. 


I agree.  Much of what you've written seems to indicate that some in the UK want to be able to keep the sea lanes open without the US, but the force structure put forward is pitifully underweight for such a mission. 

What Blackham and Prins are saying is that the Royal Navy is under strength for its existing commitments and that cuts under SDSR should fall on the other services. This is a document designed for the eyes of decision-makers in Whitehall and a way of attempting to show the Ministry of Defence that the navy is the best tool for a cheaper and flexible way of providing defence for the UK.

We are in perfect agreement here.  I do believe that the RN is under strength for its existing commitments.  I do believe it is less capable of protecting its overseas possessions than it should be and I do believe that cuts should fall more heavily on the other services (an argument I've made here in the US).  I do not however, believe keeping the world's sea lanes open is an RN responsibility; if the UK wishes to carve out a portion of it (some percentage, perhaps), I think that would be more effective that the politically dead in the water option of saying "well, what if the Americans go away?"

Bryan McGrath

On the Continuing Decline of the Royal Navy

RUSI has a new paper out by Vice Admiral Sir Jeremy Blackham and Gwyn Prins, in which they take on the unenviable task of advocating for Seapower in the UK.  This isn't the team's first crack at the subject, as their paper "The Royal Navy at the Brink" made quite a splash in early 2007.  I say unenviable, as the budget crunch facing much of Europe and the US is putting a good deal of pressure on the UK defense establishment, especially the Royal Navy.

There is a lot to like in their narrative--I find myself often wishing more American Seapower advocates wrote like this--but I have a tough time getting my mind around the logic. 

What I don't get from their analysis is "what size Navy does the UK need?".  I understand that they believe the one they have is too small and aging; but what I don't discern is a solid understanding of how to appropriately size the UK's fleet?  I have some passing familiarity with the logic of US Navy fleet sizing--but if anyone can lay out how the UK's fleet size is determined, I'd be grateful.

I ask, because if I were a subject of the Queen, I'd wonder what it is our (the Royal) Navy does.  I'd ask this, because I'd have some sense of that behemoth across the Atlantic--the Americans and their Navy.  Doesn't the US guarantee the passage of goods on the worlds oceans?  Isn't it American Seapower that serves to regulate the global system?  While we do some important things, aren't those things mainly in support of the Americans?  Can the Royal Navy make an intellectually coherent argument for itself as a "sea control" fleet?  If so, how much sea should it control, and where?  Just why is it that the UK has a strategic deterrent force on ballistic missile submarines?  Does the money the RN spends on that deterrent interfere with its ability to do other naval missions that it considers important? 

Put another way, I think Blackham and Prins do a fantastic job in justifying American Seapower--they simply don't make a persuasive case for UK Seapower.  Their comparisons to Australia and its rationale for enhanced Seapower are undercut by the plain fact that Australia is sharing a hemisphere with the most important geo-strategic challenge to the Anglo-American world since the fall of the Soviet Union.  Geography matters.

I'm not saying there isn't a compelling case for the RN--just that these authors aren't making it. Only one great power at a time gets to make the "sustaining the global system" argument, and at the moment, it is the US.  The RN needs to define itself differently.

Bryan McGrath

Colonel Gentile and Professor Layne On Our Afghan Strategy

I almost hesitate to post this, as I want to do nothing to discourage Colonel Gentile from continuing his lonely "Jihad" against the COINistas in the Army.  His arguments about the strategic emptiness of our current COIN fascination are at the heart of  the emerging Seapower/ Maritime Grand Strategy debate.

Of interest also is Christopher Layne's excellent editorial questioning the current strategy in Afghanistan, which includes this insightful closing paragraph:

"On its own terms, COIN is a problematic policy. Even more worryingly, it sets exactly the wrong grand strategic priorities for the United States. In an ironic coincidence, the same morning leading newspapers carried reports of Gen. Petraeus' remarks, another headline announced that China has overtaken Japan as the world's second largest economic power and is on track to overtake the U.S. by 2030 (indeed perhaps as soon as 2020, according to many leading experts). In the early 21st century, East Asia is becoming the world's geopolitical and economic fulcrum, and it is U.S. air and naval power that will be needed to meet the emerging challenge from China. That is where America's long-term grand strategic interests lie —- not in fighting futile Eurasian land wars in places like Afghanistan and Iraq."

Bryan McGrath