Admiral Cebrowski's Advice on Naval Requirements

On Monday I said. "In our opinion the requirements, developed before the Maritime Strategy, is where the review needs to take place."

On Tuesday, Admiral Roughead is reported to have said, "We have to do all we can to make sure we are setting the requirements right - that we are not just putting things on that we want - [and] that we monitor the cost and construction in such a way that we don't lose control over that cost and we are able to deliver the ships to the country."

Admiral Cebrowski offered his thoughts in 2005 on this subject.

Setting requirements for naval capabilities and investment must take into account both that we are transiting from one global security era, the Cold War and immediate post-Cold War, to a new era and that the new era is more dynamic and less predictable than the old. Reference is made to the Cold War because the current fleet and its design logic represent the overhang or “fossil remains” of that earlier era. This distinction between era transition and era instability is important. The shift from relatively clear requirements to different, but also fluid and less clear requirements, implies a change not only in what future fleet architecture will be needed by the U.S. Navy, but also in how it should be built and kept relevant.

However, the technological and geopolitical dynamism unleashed by the information revolution, the end of Soviet communism, globalization, and “9/11” are likely to be with us for some time. This militates against reliance on experience-based forecasts of how the new era will unfold. Thus, for all the recent emphasis on preparing for a long-term “global war on terrorism,” using the intervention in Afghanistan and counter-insurgency operations in Iraq as the principal basis for planning could prove to be a grave miscalculation.

Generalizations about the new security landscape based on the first Gulf War were largely demolished by the Balkan wars of the 1990s and the long-term peacekeeping and peace enforcement missions that followed, which required the stationing of U.S. and multinational ground forces in Bosnia and Kosovo. Similarly, projections for the new era based on these recent Balkan wars were shattered by 9/11 and the lightning U.S. attacks on the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan that followed in 2001-2002. The successful U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the rapid overthrow of Saddam Hussein’s Baathist regime have been followed by an extended period of combat, beginning in May 2003 and continuing to the present, between U.S. forces and our multinational partners and a potent combination of Iraqi insurgents and foreign terrorists. These new threats to the stability of Iraq and the nature of this insurgency, located mainly in the cities and towns of the Sunni Triangle, led to a growing requirement for U.S. and multinational ground forces to conduct urban operations against enemy cells. The experiences of our forces in Fallujah and other predominantly Sunni towns would suggest still different generalizations, no less likely to be invalidated by events to come. In sum, treating the last decade as prologue to the decades ahead is fraught with peril in setting requirements for military capabilities—even moreso for the Navy than for the other Services, given the capital intensity and life expectancy of a fleet.

Because of era instability, however, it would be a mistake to count on this assumption for a matter as weighty as preparing the U.S. Navy for the future. Even if the coming decade resembles the last one, it would be foolhardy to forecast that the challenges of 2020 or 2030 come only from rogue states, global terrorism, and humanitarian interventions. The future Navy must be far more versatile than what is implied by either the old era or the period since then.

For example, take the impact of the current conflict in Iraq. In the best case, it could make interventions in Southwest Asia and elsewhere less necessary by setting in motion positive regional political trends, deterring other hostile states, inducing regime change and isolating terrorists. In a less good case, it could set the stage for similar interventions against intransigent dictators seeking weapons of mass destruction and harboring terrorists. In a third case, international and domestic backlash against the Iraq war, if it does not go well, could militate against overseas military interventions generally—a phenomenon known to have happened before in modern American history. The post-Cold-War era of U.S. interventionism could end.

Or, consider China. If Taiwan’s status is resolved peacefully or at least managed skillfully, the logic of cooperation between China and the United States could prevail over the logic of rivalry. Or vice versa. The Chinese have intensified investment in modern, advanced-propulsion submarines, ballistic missiles, and extended range sensors. Depending on Sino-American relations and what becomes of Taiwan, these investments could prove benign or become menacing to the freedom of the U.S. Navy to operate in the Western Pacific. In one case, China might expand investment in area-denial and its own power-projection capabilities, seeking to deny the United States control of and extend Chinese influence across East Asian waters. In another, China might conclude that national success depends on avoiding confrontation and competition with the United States.

In a sense, experience since 1989 has been so varied as to argue against forecasting a future based on that experience. Flat predictions of decades more of intervention against rogue states and terrorist cells seem as shaky as predictions of Sino-American confrontation. At the same time, failing to predict at all would leave naval investment adrift against currents of bureaucratic inertia, special-interest politics, and technological randomness. Moreover, failing to develop adequate capabilities to intervene abroad would foreclose U.S. options, and failing to prepare for a confrontation with China could invite one. So we must make a concerted attempt to peer into the future, or futures, as the basis for conceiving the capabilities of the future fleet and shaping an investment strategy with those capabilities in mind.

Admiral Roughead is touring the shipyards talking about requirements, He is also basically saying that he believes the $3+ million dollar DDG-1000 we will build 1 each year for the next 5 years matches the Navy requirements of today.

Are the naval requirements today really the same requirements established in reports like 1993 RAND Study called "The New Calculus" that built the case in the early 90s for what has become the DDG-1000? Perhaps it is time to evolve naval requirements, or at minimum review those naval requirements and insure the Navy is getting it right.

HT: CDR Salamander