4th Fleet Green Water Strategy

Today, I observed the winds of change. In today's blogger roundtable, SteelJaw Scribe was unable to attend, but he had submitted his questions and it was read anyway. The response captured the various angles of 4th Fleets Green Water Strategy.

Q: "With the decline of the supporting infrastructure in the region and the closure of naval stations Roosevelt Roads and Rodman, et cetera, how sustainable do you see the Fourth Fleet's small unit presence in the AOR, particularly outside the Caribbean?"

A: I would think that if you do an analysis of the countries -- I mean, 15 years ago, there wasn't any democracies in Central or South America, period. And this year, if you look, you'll see just about all democracies with the exception of one and a couple that are very, very far left. But that is the good thing. And the good thing about that is that they welcome the United States into their ports, and so the at-sea sustainment really isn't an issue.

However, if you look at, you know, the capabilities that the United States have -- has if you have have a big-deck amphibious ship, if you have aircraft carriers, if you have high-speed vessels, then essentially you can kind of have your own afloat staging base, where, you know, acting as mother ships and can refuel ships, and we can maintain our presence down here, and we can maintain our cooperation through exercises and training venues and what have you.

So I think it's dependent, and I think that's the huge value that our Navy brings in some of its core competencies, which is its forward presence and the ability to sail anywhere, any time and sustain itself.

(PDF Transcript)

Our initial impressions of the Navy standing up 4th Fleet was one in the context of leadership and strategy. After participating in today's blogger roundtable on the subject, I think our instincts on this was right. Rear Adm. James Stevenson is very impressive, after speaking with him I admit a bit of frustration that he is retiring, and hope that in his next profession he finds a useful medium to articulate his strategic ideas regarding leveraging the Sea as Base as clearly as he did today. The strategic vision for naval Sea Basing he discussed during the roundtable regarding operations for the 4th Fleet could have been ripped right from the content of this blog, and there were a few times that I had a huge cheesy grin on my face listening to him speak.

Based on our observations of previous deployments for SOUTHCOM, the leadership style and priorities of Adm. Stavridis, and the appointment of Rear Adm. Joseph Kernan, we believe 4th Fleet is about to execute a very unique Green Water Strategy that may serve as a model for peacetime strategy in the 21st Century. Adm. Stevenson continuously highlighted the value of amphibious forces during today's roundtable, but when speaking of them in an operational context outlined the strategic value they bring to peacetime operations. With access to regional ports, with good relations with many regional neighbors, 4th Fleet is taking an engagement approach across the spectrum ranging from security cooperation to proactive humanitarian impact while it deals with the low end naval requirements of dealing with illicit trafficking.

The engagement by the US Navy to the 4th Fleet AOR is well known historically for response to natural disasters. Whether hurricanes, mudslides, earthquakes, forest fires, or flooding; the 4th fleet AOR brings a range of peacemaking challenges to the Navy to be responsive in peacetime. The value of amphibious forces for meeting these challenges was continuously articulated by Adm. Stevenson.

While this sounds good, we foresee some major challenges in execution here. We do not believe the Navy will be able to sustain forward deployed amphibious ships to 4th Fleet, there simply aren't enough amphibious ships to do that. We would also note that every metric Adm. Stevenson listed regarding why he likes amphibious ships is virtually every metric the Littoral Combat Ship doesn't offer for peacetime missions in the future. In that context, we see the 4th fleet strategy having well defined ends and ways but lacking the means either presently or in the future to execute strategy. It will be interesting to observe how the Navy addresses that issue, or even recognizes it as an issue before it is too late to do something about it.

During the roundtable the only issue discussed that really bothered me is that 4th Fleet is commanded by a 2-star billet, not a 3-star billet like other fleets. I missed this during the announcement, and I think that decision sends the wrong message. It is something that should be addressed, although I think there may be a Congressional requirement for that. It doesn't make sense to elevate a peacetime strategy to equal levels of wartime strategy as stated in 21st Century Seapower, stand up a new fleet with the peacetime strategic purpose in mind, and then fall short in equality for leadership billets. Consistency is important, and when there is evidence of a lack of consistency in regards to maritime strategy, in serves only to weaken the strategy.

4th Fleet represents the first major decision for CNO Roughead, as all other major initiatives have been inherited. While we think the decision to go 2-star is one in need of correction, we see the establishment of 4th Fleet as positive for the Navy. We believe the strategic vision 4th Fleet will execute for peacetime sustained presence and engagement will be quite different than what is traditionally associated with the deployment of naval forces to other regions, and will be more evident compared to the token SOUTHCOM deployments of the past. We look forward to observing the strategy for leveraging maritime forces in what is primarily a green water operational theater, and believe we will get a good early peek into the strategic vision for 4th Fleet this summer as hurricane season approaches.

There was some other news from the roundtable, including Unitas Gold (50) next year being hosted off the Jacksonville coast, the next Global Fleet Station to South America using a diving ship as a platform, and more information regarding the Kearsarge/Boxer deployments to South America. We got the impression the Kearsarge deployment will be timed with Hurricane season in mind prepared to respond to any potential disaster zones. In all it was an interesting conversation.