6th Fleet Focus: Where are the Amphibs?

In the cold war, the phrase asked by Presidents was "Where are the Carriers." Much to the chagrin of folks like Mike who believes that big deck amphibious ships are no longer necessary, in the Long War the phrase has changed, the question now asked is "Where are the Amphibs?" There are events taking place in the world, and it appears the question has been asked again. Welcome to the Long War.

The U.S. Navy has replaced two ships it sent off the coast of Lebanon last week amid political deadlock there to send a signal to Syria, officials said on Tuesday.

The cruiser USS Philippine Sea and the destroyer USS Ross replaced the destroyer USS Cole and a refueling ship over the past day, U.S. Navy officials said.

Another refueling ship remained in place, meaning the United States continued to have three warships in the area, said the officials, speaking on condition of anonymity.

It is one thing to sit the USS Cole (DDG 67) off a coast to cover operations other than war in a potential war zone. In fact it's smart to do so, rapid response for civilian evacuation is part of what the Navy does. It is an entirely different thing when major elements of an Expeditionary Strike Group begin patrolling off a war zone. The Nassau Expeditionary Strike Group consists of:

USS Nassau (LHA 4)
USS Ashland (LSD 48)
USS Nashville (LPD 13)
USS Philippine Sea (CG 58)
USS Ross (DDG 71)
USS Bulkeley (DDG 84)
USS Albany (SSN 753)

The election in Lebanon is March 11th, this upcoming Monday.

Stratfor has interesting analysis regarding the Israeli military operations in Gaza. They speculate that Israel is weakening Hamas because they believe they are about to fight a war with Hezbollah in Lebanon very soon. Stratfor notes an important detail, in the Winograd report which laid out the failures of the 2006 War, Israel was said to suffer from slow decision making in dealing with Hamas in Gaza as they also fought Hezbollah in Lebanon. If Israel believes they are about to be attacked by Hezbollah, in that context the military actions against Hamas sooner rather than later tend to fit perfectly as a lesson learned from the 2006 war. We note the allegations of Iranian supplies for both groups have already hit the media.

There is one thing that should be noted. The Lebanese press is going nuts over the possibility of amphibious ships off their coast. The threats are mostly in regards to the "last time Marines were in Lebanon" and other such rhetoric. One problem with the rhetoric, there are no Marines on board the Nassau ESG, the MEU was sent to Afghanistan as part of the Marine surge in the headlines recently.

While we have stated in the past we hope the Navy has deployed the ESG with a number of maritime toys within the big spaces of the amphibious ships; we honestly have no idea what the ships deployed with. In observing these developments, we can't help but notice the obvious. While there are discussions of wargames and studies regarding the roles of Sea Bases, what they are, and what they can be/do; the Navy is in a unique position to set up one right off the coast of Lebanon leveraging the best of what amphibious ships and the MSC can do for operations other than amphibious assault. We hope they give great consideration in finding useful ways to leverage this capability (ie think Joint, and International), but also protect it should hostilities break out.

Finally, we have not yet identified what aviation squadrons are deployed with the Nassau ESG, but in noting the type of aircraft that were on board as of last week we are hoping Springboard can tell us. He is our go to guy for that particular aircraft. Click the photo for a better look.