Observing Rumors and Reality

Colin Clark of DoDBuzz is talking to folks in the halls of our nations Capitol, and comes away with this tidbit to start the conversation:

Word on Capitol Hill is that the Quadrennial Defense Review should result in the demise of two Navy carrier groups...

I don't know much about the details of the rest of his article, but the part I just quoted is not true. No one in the Navy expects the QDR to recommend an aircraft carrier cut below the Congressional mandated number of 11 anytime in the next 3 decades, the drop to 10 only happening in about 30 years (a result of a build rate of one aircraft carrier every 5 years). This decision was made by Secretary Gates in April, and whoever Colin Clark is talking too is pushing an aircraft replacement agenda. This is an obvious rumor, because it would be against the grain of the AirSea Battle doctrine being developed by the Navy and Air Force.

If the folks on Capitol Hill are focused on these types of things, they are stuck on parochial and missing the bigger picture. The Navy spends on average about $5 billion more on aircraft annually than they do on ships. In other words, the Navy is slowly becoming the nations second Air Force at about the same pace the Marine Corps is slowly becoming the nations second land Army - and Congress has a major oversight role in determining why. This should logically lead to a number of questions for the budget priorities of the US Navy, and the direction of the future Marine Corps. Ironically, the complaint later in that DoDBuzz article regarding the Marine Corps is the EFV - a platform the Marines want primarily to maintain their unique sea based capabilities. The Congressional complaint? The EFV isn't ideal for land warfare...

Well, uhm... they are Marines sir/ma'am, not the Army.

The story in InsideDefense today regarding submarine number reductions and slow downs in submarine production is much bigger than rumors being reported from DoDBuzz. For over a decade Congress has worked their ass off to get the submarine shipyards in shape while addressing a number of workforce issues to insure submarines could be built with the cost savings of 2 per year. The entire world is participating in the enormous growth in submarines globally, indeed the last decade at sea has seen a reduction in every single type of naval sea platform - except submarines. Now the Navy is ready to tell Congress "thanks for nothing?" That is not likely to go over very well.

After working over the industry regarding submarines, maybe Congress needs to work on the Navy a bit. If the Navy wants to reduce the number of nuclear submarines, maybe Congress should impose a new law that requires the US Navy to maintain 8-16 non-nuclear submarines. The world is building conventionally powered submarines at prices 1/10th the cost of a Virginia class, and the often used endurance argument for submarines is a load of crap when one considers how Germany operated off the US coast in WWII with submarines that came in at less than 1000 tons. Congress has already legislated the Navy to only use existing hulls for surface combatants with their nuclear power requirement. There is nothing restricting Congress from making an energy initiative out of the submarine community to forward battery and hydrogen power technologies.

So what is really happening here? For FY 2011, The Navy plan will not reduce the number of aircraft carriers as DoDBuzz suggests, but does expect to reduce the number of nuclear attack submarines. Furthermore, there is no apparent increase in funding to reflect the enormous ballistic missile defense changes announced earlier this year - meaning fewer surface combatants will be available to escort the aircraft carriers, and more money will have to be dedicated to large surface combatants.

This comes while the administration moves forward growing the size of the Marine Corps to 202,000 Marines, but the Navy intends to cut the Sea Basing plan while sticking with a 33 ship amphibious force - a force that is barely capable of carrying two Marine Expeditionary Brigades. The previous number of amphibious ships was 31, so all the Navy really did was add 2 amphibious ships while cutting 15 Sea Basing ships.

The Obama administration has made their naval policy clear. The Navy of the Obama administration will be focused on nuclear deterrence by focusing budget resources towards the nuclear ballistic missile submarine replacement program SSBN(X) and turning the surface fleet into their ballistic missile defense program. The Obama administration also favors the conventional warfighting capabilities of the aircraft carrier, which is why they are sticking to 11. This is where the budget priority is, thus this must be the direction in policy of the Obama administration. There has been no additional funding to the Navy to support the ballistic missile defense decision, thus the number of escorts for aircraft carriers will be reduced while the number of sea platforms supporting the larger Marine Corps will remain relatively constant, below planned levels that included the MPF(F) developed during the Bush administration.

This leaves the LCS, which now runs around $600 million per ship. Not only will the LCS be tasked to take up the slack for the protection of high value assets as larger, more capable ships are serving in BMD roles, but they are so expensive it is questionable how much they will be used in environments of even moderate risk. Remember, these things are for carrying stuff, and do not represent a warfighting capability capable of deterrence patrols against other naval vessels. In other words, instead of being a flexible platform able to exploit its unique characteristics for the massive number of peacetime roles we expect our fleet to perform (and the LCS specifically to perform), it will be forced into escort duty for high value units. If that turns out true, and we are going to run low on escorts because of the BMD mission, shouldn't we be building frigates?

The folks working in Congressional offices on Capitol Hill have a lot to be concerned about regarding information breaking from the press when applied to announcements already made by the DoD, but rumors of fewer aircraft carriers? Nope, those rumors were likely passed on to staffers from a nervous aviation industry.

Is there a fighter gap in the Navy? You bet there is, but when the naval aviation budget is on average $5 billion dollars greater than the shipbuilding budget, you already have a problem. I don't know what the Navy will do about the fighter gap, but my bet it won't be decided until they get their plans for unmanned aviation programs in order. In other words, decisions regarding tactical aircraft may not even happen this year (pushed to POM 12).

The Navy has a budget of around $118 billion, and only about 11% of that goes towards building ships. Most of the money goes into readiness, but the Navy needs to ask if they are actually getting their money's worth in readiness? All this domestic shore based infrastructure in trade for reduced presence operations at sea, and the worst part is the IT infrastructure will never support the links between ship and shore should an actual war break out against a capable adversary. Does the Navy have any redundant shore commands that need to be consolidated? How efficient is the organizational chart, and is the work being done by these commands redundant?

The Navy is really damn proud of their contributions to both wars (and should be btw), but when you hear the CNO speak with pride about having more sailors on the ground in the 5th Fleet AOR than at sea, isn't that also a siren speaking to something being not quite right for the "sea" service?