Pondering the Navy of the Future

I am giving thought to writing a book, and have been given an amazing opportunity to do so. Nothing is definite yet, and if it falls through then lesson learned. The idea is one that was actually promoted by the publisher in the comments a couple weeks ago, The US Navy in the Age of Obama (or McCain). I do expect Obama to win though.

As I have made clear on the blog, I'm not very political, so the book will attempt to take a politically neutral look at what the US Navy under an Obama presidency would look like. In thinking about it, I've been taking a look at articles like this LA Times article, that focuses in on what the Pentagon is saying about the two presidential candidates.

Perhaps unlike other civilian leaders, McCain would be able to draw on his experience and knowledge of the military to reject the advice of generals and admirals.

"He is more feared in the Pentagon because he is impervious to the usual methods the military uses to roll the civilian leadership," a senior Defense official said.

Past presidential hopefuls have pledged to reorder military spending and alter war preparations. But McCain "knows where the bodies are buried," the senior official said, referring to the Republican nominee's understanding of weapons programs.

The range of views within the Pentagon about the GOP candidate is surprising and shows a complex culture struggling with the effects of waging two protracted wars while grappling with rivalries among the military branches.

There is a lot of truth to this, and I do believe the Pentagon is more worried about what a McCain presidency than an Obama presidency. I don't think that means large voter turn out in the military for Obama, but it does reflect that in almost every agency in government there is a look forward taking place.

For the Navy there isn't as much difference between the two as one might assume. Both will probably look to cut the DDG-1000, and neither is going to be very happy about the Littoral Combat Ship. Both men will take the shipbuilding problems seriously, and neither man is going to be in a hurry to make China enemy #1. McCain, as a member of the SASC, will understand the politics of the services better than Obama, but Obama will have advisers with that knowledge, and there are plenty of scores to settle regardless of what camp you are in.

The question therefore becomes, how will core philosophy guide either man as president on naval issues? If we use the last 16 years as a guide, both parties have gutted the Navy, bringing about 16 straight years of the lowest shipbuilding numbers for the Navy since the early 19th century, and this has brought us to a fleet struggling to stay above 280 ships.

I think pondering what the Navy will look like under Obama is an interesting question when given serious consideration, because one can easily be trapped by a partisan view based on a conventional wisdom theory. George Bush walked into the White House with a proclamation that the DoD would not be doing nation building on his watch, and thus transformation was born. The reality is, we have done nothing but nation building on the George Bush watch, and transformation has largely been a bridge to nowhere.

Will Barak Obama walk in with his own preconceived notions based heavily on the opinions of advisers to guide him? Repeating George Bush mistakes doesn't seem to be the Obama template. There is barely anything written from a liberal think tank regarding naval power, and yet, in many ways I find myself thinking that much of the strategic thinking coming from the Navy today would fit very well into a liberal core view of how naval forces should be postured, deployed, and operated. Ultimately, the progressive political view regarding the nations seapower will have to be developed. As one who has no idea what that would be, I'll stick to sound strategic thought and history as a guide, after all, one could hardly accuse that approach as being the Republican view today.

With a lack of information, I intend to use the 2008 National Defense Strategy (PDF) developed by Robert Gates, the 2007 Maritime Strategy, and some older research produced during the 1997 QDR that was ignored by Rumsfeld to develop what I think would be a wise US Navy in the Age of Obama.

I tend to think of Obama as a president who will enter office with low expectations but high potential for the Navy, mostly because his core values on maritime issues remain an enigma. I'm still developing my ideas, but my ultimate intent is to align the book as a guide for the Navy for America in a World After Bush.

In the end, we'll see what happens. I've never written a book before, but I figure it has to be easier than writing ~25,000 words a week for this blog.