Take a really good hard look at the plan Chris Cavas linked in his article. Note the budget figure used to produce the ships in that plan is $18.9 billion annually. Well, get ready folks, because it is beginning to look more and more like the Obama administration budget number for Shipbuilding and Conversion, Navy Appropriation (SCN) is going to be closer to $14 billion annually, and I'm not kidding. Chris Cavas actually covered this contingency in his article when he says:
Adding to the intrigue, other sources have spoken of an alternative Navy force structure plan prepared by OSD in the late fall, elements of which could appear in this draft plan.It is absolutely accurate to suggest $14 billion dollars would represent a continuation of the Clinton/Bush decline of the last 16 years, and evidence that the Navy has completely failed to establish relevance in discussion regarding what they intend to be in the 21st century. It has been suggested the lack of a peer competitor for war is the problem. I disagree, the inability to articulate the strategic role of naval forces and align the naval service towards balancing requirements for war and peace is the real problem.
"They cut the total numbers of the plan," said one Capitol Hill source who reviewed the draft. "But the numbers mask a deeper cut - they buy smaller, cheaper ships, not the high-end combatants like aircraft carriers and cruisers."
Another source who reviewed the draft agreed.
"It's pretty clear people are looking for money and ways to get numbers," the source said. "They need to change the complexion of the force structure because they have to say they restored the Navy, and they just can't get there with the prices of ships today."
Do I disagree with $14 billion as the top number for shipbuilding? Based on the way the Navy has managed their way into this mess, not really. $14 billion could mean a deep cut into the capabilities of the fleet, and will require the Navy to spend every single shipbuilding dollar wisely to field an effective force. It means we will see a lot of cost certainty stressed in plans, which immediately eliminates the DDG-1000 and perhaps even any DDG-51 mods. Any new plans will stress JHSVs, Littoral Combat Ships, LPD-17s, and T-AKEs. CG(X) will be pushed to out years, and the Ford class aircraft carrier is in a ton of trouble unless EMALS gets fixed very quickly.
The problem with the $14 billion dollar annual SCN budget isn't the hard choices it forces the Navy to make; it is the lack of innovation in surface vessels that comes with it. The real problem facing the Navy is that innovation and design for surface vessel capabilities are absent, while innovation and design in submarines is perhaps in the best condition it has ever been in. If the Obama administration wants to keep the Navy SCN budget at $14 billion, how do they do so without obviously gutting the force and leaving the Navy woefully unprepared for the future? Expectations that House and Senate Democrats will simply roll over for $14 billion SCN is somewhat crazy. Maybe it could be done this year, but no chance in hell will it happen in an election year.
The solution seems pretty obvious. Both the Senate and the House, since they are constantly being given bad choices from the Navy, should grab the $14 billion ball and run with it, but insist on an "innovation fund" to fix the blatant, obvious problems that have the Navy treading water in the 21st century. This innovation fund would be $1 billion annually over a period of 10 years, roughly a $10 billion dollar 'stimulus' if you would to get the Navy on a 21st century heading. What would the $10 billion be for?
One example would be to invest in research towards a new technology that can identify submarines without creating an environmental lawsuit during every training evolution.
Another much needed innovation the Navy needs to tinker with is a littoral corvette that can actually fight in the littoral while supporting manpower in the littoral for the low intensity, irregular security challenges that unmanned systems can't do and restrictive RoE makes difficult without effective platforms. You know, lets build a ship that can do what the LCS can't do.
There has been so much talk about the necessity of and the rejection of small ships, so why not design and build a really good small ship that can actually fight in the littorals. The Stiletto is a great example where innovation produced a ship that is evolving into a model likely to be fielded in decent numbers in the near future. Why not build a corvette to tinker and innovate at the small platform level? It may lead into a well thought out replacement for the Cyclone class. Sea Fighter is a lot of things, but first and foremost it exists and has been used to test future technologies. Once upon a time building prototypes kept costs down, where did that model for developing new naval systems go?
What about T-Craft? ONR is in phase II now but one wonders, how in the hell does an innovation like this survive budget cuts? An innovation fund would prevent that from happening.
The Navy talks a good game when it comes to modularity, but we never seem to discuss articulated tug and barge vessels as a way to create a modular logistics capability, never mind the application such a system might have in a Sea Base.
Another smart use of innovation fund budget money would be to build a modern submarine or LCS tender prototype. Unmanned systems are changing the requirements for forward deployed naval forces, where will the repair facilities for these robotic systems come from? Without an innovation fund, it is going to come from some foreign port in the 3rd world, bet on that.
$14 billion dollars is going to strain the Navy, no question about it. It will hurt the industry more, and ultimately raise the cost of even small ships that aren't built in large numbers. Most of all though, $14 billion dollars is going to kill innovation in the Navy; leaving the Navy in exactly the same boat they are already in.
A $1 billion annual innovation fund would not be specific to shipbuilding, as clearly corvettes do not represent a Navy shipbuilding program (that statement probably has some saying wtf). A $1 billion innovation fund would be for testing new concepts of surface warfare, maneuver warfare, and allow true experimentation for innovative littoral warfare capabilities. This fund would not represent the Navy's BMD rainy day fund, nor would the funding be used to fix cost overruns of SCN funded ships.
Maybe an innovation fund does build a high speed shallow draft ship, a tender prototype, a new corvette, a frigate mod based on the LCS (or even the Visby!), or even an AIP submarine. Maybe it does develop a new alternative energy or nuclear powered reactor for a surface vessel, at least that would be innovative. Whether this adds significantly to shipbuilding production isn't the point, and yes I understand $14 billion annually could put a shipyard out of business, but the key is to improve the design base and invest in innovation looking towards the future while teaching the Navy how to build a fleet on a budget with the $14 billion cap.
And in the process... retire as few ships as possible, hope someone in the Obama administration learns to appreciate the Navy, and the Navy learns to articulate their reason to exist in a way that people actually listen.
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