I got wind of a bunch of RUMINT this week about amphibious ships, indeed I began hearing from a bunch of folks I usually never hear from on this subject. I see this story as part of the RUMINT surrounding the QDR debate, a not so well kept secret that OPNAV is looking to cut into the amphibious force in order to push forward large surface combatants. Nothing has been decided, but in my book this so clearly screams cold war it is somewhat surprising that this is thought to be the default position of many in Navy leadership.Lets look at Phillip Ewing's Navy Times article.
In appearances at the trade show and since, Marine officials have changed the tone of their remarks from growing the amphib fleet to keeping it in existence.Bottom line, if the Navy builds big surface combatants in any number over the next decade, the amphibious fleet becomes unaffordable. The plan suggests that if the Navy cuts the LSD(X), they can build more battleships. I've been saying this was coming since I started the blog, I've laid this out in dozens of posts noting how the 10 years between 2010-2020 the Navy must concentrate on amphibious ships and logistics ships, because there will be no SCN money for much more than surface combatants from 2020-2040. If the plan ahead is to build DDG-51s of any type, the Marines become incapable of a major assault beyond a single MEB, and become limited to assaulting actions only where access is assured.
“There’s a problem when things start getting simplified to an ‘up or down’ type of language,” said Marine Lt. Gen. Duane Thiessen, deputy commandant for programs and resources, even as he acknowledged the U.S. might not need to invade a contested beach in the near future.
“Forcible entry, [to] naysayers, has taken on this image of Iwo Jima and those types of scenarios. Again, the likelihood of that is almost nil, but there are many other scenarios where you would want to be able to bring forces ashore by a number of different means, … and you would want to do so in a way that protected those people, and allowed them to operate in something other than in an exposed, administrative manor. So the idea of amphibious forces, I think, is defensible.”
Although the U.S. almost certainly won’t give up all its amphibious ships, they’re elbowing for a place in the budget against several other big-ticket projects, a competition made fiercer by a shrinking bottom line, said Dakota Wood, a defense analyst with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a Washington think tank.
“The money piece is really driving it,” he said. “You have so many other programs across the two services, and specifically the Navy. They have a number of programs most people are familiar with — DDG 1000, [the littoral combat ship], the retention of carriers — competing for a rather limited pool of funding.”
But the ramifications are much broader. People say I am crazy because I oppose building Burke's. Lets take an accounting of what building DDG-51s means vs what not building them means.
1) If the Navy builds more major surface combatants of existing technology, the Obama administration engages in a naval arms race with China. No matter how one looks at it, if you look around the world and tell yourself you need more than the existing 22 CGs, 65 DDG-51s, and 3 DDG-1000s already in the pipeline, and want to build new ships equal to the level of modernization for the existing 65 DDG-51s, the only way to read that globally is the expectation the Navy will be used to fight China sometime before 2025. Why? Because none of the 22 CGs, 65 DDG-51s, or 3 DDG-1000s will retire before 2025, so why in the world would we need to spend up to and perhaps over $4 billion annually to increase that capability that the US Navy already has the broadest possible superiority with.... unless it is to fight China?
In my opinion, if the intention is not to war China anytime soon, the only strategic reason to build major surface combatants anytime before 2020 is to upgrade a major capability over existing systems. The DDG-51 without a significant and expensive redesign cannot do that. This is one of many reasons I support bridging the DDG-1000 to the CG(X) in Bath, and buying relatively few DDG-51s and quite a few small ships at Ingalls while upgrading that shipyard.
2) If the Navy does not spend shipbuilding funds over the next 15 years on Amphibious Ships and Logistics, either Logistics or Amphibious Ships must be sacrificed after 15 years. Beginning in 2025 the rate of retirement for major surface combatants is going to be very high, sometimes as high as 4-5 ships annually. Logistics cannot afford to be sacrificed, so if the LSD(X) is not built before 2025 it will not be built.
In other words, the administration is going to increase the size of the Marine Corps as a priority, but OPNAV wants the Navy to reduce the number of amphibious ships that can deploy the larger Marine force. Why would we increase the Marine Corps at all if we are going to reduce the ability of the Marine Corps to engage from ship to shore? Why not just expand the Army even more, and optimize one land Army instead of supporting two land Army's?
3) I believe we have three ideas of strategic vulnerability that distract from our strategic thinking in developing force structures. Too many people believe:- Small ships can do what big ships do, and big ships can do what small ships do.
- Small ships can control the hybrid air battlefield of the maritime domain, and big ships can control the surface battlefield of the hybrid maritime domain.
- Either big or small ships can control under the sea as well as submarines.
We consistently see several types of small, inexpensive vessels slip past our most technologically capable surface combatant forces today. Indeed the entire international community is unable to effectively distinguish what small forces are hostile off Somalia. Why? Several reasons. First, the hostile population looks like the non-hostile population at sea, and few efforts are made to inject broader human interaction between the US Navy and local population at sea. The Navy is heavily reliant, as a choice, on technology solutions in populated seas. The US Navy accepts that there are not enough ships to be interactive with a local population, and does not see value in smaller ships. Littoral warfare doctrine is an aviation solution, whether helicopter or UAV, and to suggest a small manned ship is necessary is to called out and flogged for playing to the capabilities of the enemy. Too bad that argument fails to admit the bad guys are already flanking our maritime forces all over the globe, and even an unrestricted RoE doesn't change the Navy's inability to identify friend and foe until after the enemy has engaged in hostile action.
While I am in favor of building small ships to deal with the low spectrum threats in the maritime domain, I do not buy into the theory we can replace the roles of the large vessel AEGIS fleet with some smaller vessel, or somehow build more vessels on a budget that comes with an equal or greater capability than our AEGIS destroyers. 90+ VLS destroyers are economy of scale when it comes to pairing with modern fire control and tracking systems. The US could never buy two FG(X) with 48 VLS with the same technologies and at the same cost as 1 DDG-51 Flight IIA. That big battleship is as good as it gets right now at the high end, which is why it sounds so appealing to build more.
Big ships and small ships are not mutually exclusive directions, rather a recognition that function of small ships and large ships towards forwarding maritime objectives are distinct. Right sizing the fleet to be more effective on the low end gives us greater numbers of large ships able to support major surface combatant operations without having to build more. Balance has a meaning, and I don't think balance means sacrifice the ability to influence operations on land from sea with anything short of an air strike or cruise missile.
4) Building more Burke's now means we invest in a design prior to 1990, unable to be deployed until after 2015, and expected to be relevant after 2040 and until as far as 2057+. Not a single ship designed before 1890 that was active in the US Navy in 1915 was relevant in 1940, indeed nothing at sea during WWI was relevant in WWII.
This week the Navy issued a $150 million contract to Raytheon for lasers on the DDG-1000, and we believe what,that the 5 inch gun and MK41s on a DDG-51 are going to support the technologies of naval warfare 3 decades from now? Does anyone realize that a DDG-51 purchased in FY12 will be commissioned in 2017, and be expected to serve 40 years until 2057. That is the investment we make with 13% of the SCN budget to build 1 major surface combatant. Insert history of 4 pipers getting creamed in WWII here. Insert why history should be ignored with claims why it will be different this time...
5) Why is it strategically wise to sacrifice the incredible advantage the US enjoys today with surface combatants by taking a risk adverse approach towards the future? If we know the surface combatant fleet will need a replacement beginning in 2025, why not invest and plan the budget accordingly to position the Navy, the Industry, the Congress, and the American people with an objective to commit budget resources at that time towards a 21st century fleet that replaces the existing 20th century fleet? What strategic logic suggests we sacrifice other capabilities for the immediate goals of expanding the surface combatant force, which is by far and away the largest, most capable aspect of the US Navy in comparison to any potential competitor? Even the most ambitious plan for the PLAN results in China being more competitive with Japanese Navy in 2020, not the US Navy. We should be moving into the next generation as we have always done, by evolving the latest technologies and the strategic ideas of our time into a new hull, rather than trying to push the very limit of the last generation while sacrificing major capabilities that have traditionally been part of the Navy's arsenal.
6) What if the amphibious fleet is like our national nuclear deterrent, and it is because we have it that we never have to use it in its intended role? Even though the US has never conducted an amphibious assault since the Korean War, we have always had that capability, which means it was always an influence in the strategic calculus of our adversaries. I do wonder how those calculations change when our opponents know the US can no longer engage directly into the battlefield from the sea with more than a single brigade. Iraq demonstrated how easy it is to keep a single brigade off balance with irregular warfare on the ground, and when combined with littoral actions in a populated coast against a Navy that lacks small vessels to screen ship to shore surface logistics.... Well, game that and see what happens to your single brigade.
7) The DDG-51 is one of, if not the most capable warship class in the world today. In a comparison of DDG-51s and any other combatant in the world, the DDG-51 class is a battleship. It is one of the most armed ships in the world in any Navy, just like a battleship is in previous eras. It is expensive to build and operate, just like a battleship is in previous eras. It is capable of influencing maritime operations today just as every battleship has been in history during their respective eras. The reliance on battleships is why the US Navy does not do the small stuff very well, and may be a strategic blind spot in our naval force. Unless the RoE becomes unrestricted, the US Navy will never have enough ships to both take Command of the Sea and use Command of the Sea to forward national strategic interests.
8) Amphibious ships are versatile vessels that allows the US to fill up and send out customized packages for strategic gains, and we do that all the time. While they may be designed for amphibious assault, the space and capabilities of amphibious ships enable US Navy forces to do so much more, whether it is a humanitarian function or disaster response function or a security training engagement or developing partnerships with other nations. In addition to their wartime capabilities, I believe amphibious ships give the US Navy more capabilities in peacetime than any other platform, and as such add enormous value in preventing war and forwarding US interests globally.
Bottom line. OPNAV believes they are going to design a fleet specifically to go to war against the United States #1 economic and trading partner China, during tough economic times and in a year our reliance on China for loans is at an all time annual high no less. This fleet plan would suggest the Obama administration needs to completely change its economic policy in relation to China, and perhaps OPNAV can inform all those American businesses invested in China that they should be concerned that factories owned by US companies that could be dual use facilities may be targets of the US Navy during war.
To meet the objective of starting the next cold war, obviously OPNAV will have to sell their plan as anything but a fleet to fight China, hoping nobody cares, an emphasis on more battleships, and a reduction of amphibious ships while increasing the size of the Marine Corps is celebrated as a wise move for the Navy.
But you know what I find sad about the whole thing? A big surface combatant heavy force that downsizes the amphibious fleet optimizes the Navy to fight China in a direct war, but in truth I believe a war with China is entirely possible.... I think an indirect war against China in other places is very likely sometime over the next few decades, and I think amphibious ships will be very important in that conflict.
Honestly, I don't get OPNAV at all. It is as if the decisive battle mentality rules the strategic view of OPNAV, and they honestly do not believe how silly their view is in the context of the Navy's own maritime strategy, and the world that most Americans see every day as part of the domestic economic policies of the Obama administration. I don't understand the OPNAV vision, and see it as a failing option in the QDR debate. I also think it has a very high possibility of success.
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I'll be heading to the Current Strategy Forum this week at the Naval War College to observe the activities there. Based on what I have seen from the reading lists, what will be discussed in the context of strategy will have absolutely nothing to do with building a fleet of aircraft carriers, major surface combatants, and submarines; rather will discuss the irregular/hybrid challenges that threaten global stability in a world of rising great powers and a multi-polar future. ADM Roughead is one of the speakers as is Commandant Conway, so it will be interesting to see what they say. The same RUMINT Phillip Ewing is reporting in the above article has been telling me this is ADM Rougheads official position, which may or may not be true.
Last week I said Roughead has a 50/50 chance of getting fired as a result of the QDR, but I'm thinking I may be short changing the Admiral and his chances are much better than that. When I lick my finger, I feel no wind at all regarding any political pressure against this type of anti-Corbett fleet idea, which means I don't think there are any political consequences of building a fleet solely to fight China. I just don't think the Democratic Party progressive base sees the Navy as anything other than a budget cut right now, and I don't think the US Navy will try to make any sort of case that would change that political condition. With that said, I'm also pretty politically tone deaf, so I could be very wrong about which way political winds are blowing.
For the record, I see this OPNAV fleet idea as justification for the budget cut Progressives have been calling for in the US Navy. Sorry, but it just is. If we can't find anything better to do with our Navy than prepare to go to war against our largest economic and trading partner, then maybe a smaller fleet is smarter until people with better ideas come along.
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