Was That a Rhetorical Question Admiral?

Vice Adm. Barry McCullough, deputy chief of naval operations for integration of capabilities and resources, was busy last week talking to the media. He is trying to tell us something...

From Navy Times:

“I’ve got a lot of people sitting on the fourth deck and the fifth deck in my wedge of the Pentagon, and they’re spinning like tops” working to account for all the factors, he said...

“Last July, I crawled under my desk when I looked at the cost of a … barrel of oil,” he said. Yesterday the price was about $41 a barrel, “so now I’m dancing on my desk. But I have no idea what it’s going to be next week.”...

From Aviation Week:

“You’ve got to be able to maintain the high end capability because if you lose it, the cost to recoup it is incredible, not only in dollars, but in other things. So you have to be able to maintain the industrial base, and a capability at the high end, if you choose to be a high-end Navy.”

"When we developed our fleet response plan, the goal was to meet our global commitments and have a surge-ready force," Vice Adm. Barry McCullough said Jan. 14 at a Surface Navy Association symposium near Washington. "Based on requirements from the combatant commanders, we're using that surge capacity."

The monetary draw against procurement from operations and maintenance accounts keeps rising, McCullough continued, pointing to what he called the "Triangle of Death:" personnel, procurement and readiness. "There isn't enough money in the topline budget to meet the [National] Maritime Strategy," he declared.

Today's Navy is not large enough to meet demands from the theater. "We are not everywhere we need to be," McCullough said. "There's a deficit for naval forces globally. How do we move ahead and get the force structure we need?"

And finally from Government Executive:

McCullough reiterated that Navy leadership regards a 313-ship fleet and a certain number of aircraft as minimum requirements to meet the increasing demand for naval forces. But, he continued, "when you look at the budget, you can't buy them all. There's not enough in the top line to buy them all."

The difference between operational requirements and what the Navy can afford "is where you take the risk," he said.

Essentially, I read the following bullets:

• Operational Costs are High and Inconsistent
• The Navy Lacks Enough Ships to Meet Requirements
• Not Enough Funding For Current Plans, Risk Will be Accepted

Vice Adm. Barry McCullough asks a question, "How do we move ahead and get the force structure we need?" Allow me to offer 10 suggestions.

1. Instead of bigger ships with smaller crews, design and build smaller ships with smaller crews.
2. Instead of metrics like speed and stealth at sea, emphasize seakeeping and survivability
3. Reorganize the Surface Action Groups into Littoral Strike Groups
4. Embrace the lessons of counter terrorism and prepare for hybrid warfare
5. Build Maritime Domain Awareness into Littoral Strike Groups
6. Take a Strategic Approach to Sea Basing
7. Expeditionary Warfare doesn't have to mean amphibious warfare
8. Institutionalize the idea of the National Fleet into procurement
9. Resource the NECC appropriately with emphasis and purpose
10. Apply lessons properly*

*This is not complicated. For example, the Navy requires fewer ships to address the high end of war, and more ships to address the broad demands of peace. Airpower and submarines will determine who establishes command of the sea in the next major war between any two major powers, so the surface navy should embrace its role as the global guardian of the sea in peacetime, and ships should be designed accordingly. That means 86 the battleship, we can accept far fewer than 86 top of the line battleships to protect our high value units and maintain our high end capability, and by accepting fewer than 86 we can begin building a true fleet of smaller "frigates/cruisers" in numbers to address the combatant commanders requirements for presence.

I believe a good strategic narrative for shipbuilding, if the Navy actually desires to develop one, would be to explain why we need more ships to manage the peace than to fight a war, which btw, is easy to explain today by noting we need more troops in both theaters of war to manage the peace than we did to defeat the military power of the governments defeated. This is important, because I think people like this guy who thinks he is making a really good point.... is missing the point instead. China isn't building a larger fleet to go to war, they are building a more numerous fleet to protect their continuously expanding global interests in peacetime.

Which is exactly how we need to be thinking in regards to why we need more ships, but also allow that concept to influence what types of ships we need.