It began with the littoral warfare focus before the 21st century and never ceased when Seapower 21 revealed 3 future ship classes: The future Cruiser replacement CG(X), the future land attack destroyer DD(X), and the Littoral Combat Ship. It has been two years since we saw the last shipbuilding plan from the Navy, and in two years a great number of things have changed. Before looking at what has changed within the Navy's plans, it is more important to review what has changed that influences the Navy's plans. From where I sit, these factors must guide analysis.
- The United States has serious economic challenges. This is bigger than saying the nation is simply broke, because the leadership in Washington continues, even with the latest budget, to fund the government with money loaned from other nations. The national debt is north of $12 trillion and there is no single piece of legislation that can be highlighted to suggest the debt will come down. Each citizens share of the national debt is now more than $40,000, and the national debt increases more than $3.88 billion per day.
- The United States has the most capable military in the world. This isn't in debate, and in ten years the United States will still have the most capable military in the world. While there are other nations rising in economic and military power, China would have to sustain record economic growth for the entire decade to pass the United States as the worlds largest economic power. While anything is possible, this is one of the most predicted and optimistic yet least likely scenarios when applying economic history.
- The United States enjoys excellent relations around the world. Relations between the United States and most of the worlds economic and military powers is very good right now. While the Obama administration has not released a National Security Strategy or National Defense Strategy yet, the QDR does suggest CS-21 got it right - and cooperation with global partners will be the strategic guidance and policy that the United States will execute over the next decade.
The Old 5 Year Plan
The last 5 year shipbuilding plan before last week was provided for FY 2009, way back in February of 2008. This plan is so old and outdated many may not realize just how much has changed, so let us look back before looking forward.
Under the old plan, in FY 2011 the Navy was going to build 2 Virginia class submarines, 1 DDG-1000, 1 CG(X), 3 Littoral Combat Ships, and 1 JHSV for a total of 8 ships.
Under the old plan, in FY 2012 the Navy was going to build 1 CVN-78, 2 Virginia class submarines, 1 DDG-1000, 4 Littoral Combat Ships, 1 new Command Ship, 1 JHSV, 1 MPF(F) LMSR, and 1 MPF(F) MLP for a total of 12 ships.
Under the old plan, in FY 2013 the Navy was going to build 2 Virginia class submarines, 1 DDG-1000, 1 CG(X), 6 Littoral Combat Ships, 1 JHSV, and 1 MPF(F) MLP for a total of 12 ships.
If you add in the MPF(F) LHA(R) that was going to be built in FY 2010 under the old plan, there are 6 ship classes (DDG-1000, CG(X), JCC(X), MPF(F) MLP, and MPF(F) LMRS) in the FY 2009 shipbuilding plan (the last one released prior to last week) that the Navy does not plan to buy at anytime in the new shipbuilding plan.
The New 5 Year Plan
Under the new plan, in FY 2011 the Navy plans to buy 2 DDG-51s, 2 Littoral Combat Ships, 2 Virginia class submarines, 1 LHA(R), 1 new MLP, and 1 JHSV for a total of 9 ships.
Under the new plan, in FY 2012 the Navy plans to buy 1 DDG-51, 3 Littoral Combat Ships, 2 Virginia class submarines, 1 LPD-17, and 1 JHSV for a total of 8 ships.
Under the new plan, in FY 2013 the Navy plans to buy 1 CVN-78, 2 DDG-51s, 4 Littoral Combat Ships, 2 Virginia class submarines, 1 new MLP, and 2 JHSVs for a total of 12 ships.
Under the new plan, in FY 2014 the Navy plans to buy 1 DDG-51, 4 Littoral Combat Ships, 2 Virginia class submarines, and 2 JHSV for a total of 9 ships.
Under the new plan, in FY 2015 the Navy plans to buy 2 DDG-51s, 4 Littoral Combat Ships, 2 Virginia class submarines, 1 new MLP, 1 T-ATF(X), and 2 JHSVs for a total of 12 ships.
Observations
The FY2011 - FY 2015 New Construction Shipbuilding Procurement and Funding plan would purchase 1 CVN-78, 8 DDG-51s, 17 LCSs, 10 SSN-774s, 1 LPD-17, 1 LHA(R), 3 MLPs, 1 T-ATF(X), and 8 JHSVs for the Navy. The following chart highlights some historical trends that can be associated with this plan:
| Ship Type | Last 30 Years (1980-2009) | Reagan Buildup (1982-1989) | Last 15 Years (1994-2009) | Next 5 Years (2011-2015) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Surface Combatants | 36 | 34 | 36 | 35 |
| Aircraft Carriers | 16 | 14 | 19 | 16 |
| Submarines | 30 | 34 | 27 | 38 |
| Amphibious Ships | 11 | 9 | 14 | 7 |
| Other Ships | 8 | 10 | 4 | 4 |
| Total | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 |
A lot of folks are going to keep up a steady argument that force structure must be changed, but where they argue for change may indeed make their arguments appear disconnected from reality. There is no money for new surface combatant designs of any size, and there is no chance in hell Congress is going to allow the Navy to acquire foreign surface combatant designs. The decision to build CVN-78s at a rate of one every 5 years and build 2 SSN-774s a year for most of the next decade during a tight economic period has left very little room for adjustment.
Whether one agrees with the DDG-51 or LCS as the platforms that should be built over the next 5 years is almost irrelevant at this point, because there is no money whatsoever for an alternative designed force. In many ways, circumstances and the presentation of an actual shipbuilding plan, combined with the cancellation of the CG(X) and truncating the DDG-1000 has decided the near term future. There are still plenty of issues, but whether or not the Navy should execute the 5 year plan as outlined doesn't appear to me to be one of the ones in question.
The lack of consistency in surface combatants over the last decade would make it almost criminal at this point to modify the build request for 8 DDG-51s or to modify the plans to build 17 LCS over the next 5 years. What the Navy needs more than anything right now is stability. This is going to be difficult for people to accept, because surface combatants have been the primary debate in the Navy for over a decade. Continuing focus on this aspect of shipbuilding however distracts from many more important debates emerging in the Navy today, based primarily on the times we live in and developments throughout the world.
What looks to me to very much be in debate is the record high spending on submarines and the record low spending on amphibious ships. As I look at these two budget figures, two things come to mind.
1) I have never been an advocate of a submarine force powered by anything other than nuclear power, but with a full understanding the nuclear force is shrinking below minimum requirements anyway while also noting that spending on submarines is at an all time high, ignoring alternatives strikes me as increasingly foolish. It is time for serious discussions relating to the future of the submarine force being all nuclear powered. In a time the nation is in dire need of an energy transformation, perhaps it is also time to build a submarine class that can help develop technologies like advanced battery power. The all nuclear submarine force has become, based on the data, fiscally unsustainable.
2) The 3 ship Amphibious Ready Group construct is not working. We have gone from 5 ships to 4 ships to now 3 ships in an ARG consolidating Marine Corps expeditionary power at sea, while the Marine Corps on land has gone from consolidated constructs of regiments to battalions down to companies in Afghanistan and Iraq. As the Marine Corps is getting better at distributed operations on land, the 3 ship ARG construct is becoming a barrier to enabling distributed operations from the sea. Peacetime maintenance at sea in the littorals is a manpower intensive operation, and the only excess manpower within the Department of the Navy one might find for operations in the littorals is within the Marine Corps. These disconnects need to be addressed moving forward.
The Big Issues
The biggest issue facing shipbuilding is the crunch of the 2020s when bills are due for the SSBN(X). If the Navy is forced to fund the SSBN(X) as part of the SCN, the fleet will fracture and shrink at a remarkable rate. Debates on Capitol Hill related to funding the SSBN(X) outside the SCN and as part of national strategic funding is the most important discussion related to the future fleet today. It is hard to imagine the industry surviving without massive consolidation if the SSBN(X) is paid for with the SCN budget.
The second biggest issue is related to the Marine Corps. Based on the budget numbers for Marine Corps vehicles, it looks to me like the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle is going to consume about 85% of the Marine Corps total vehicle budget over the next several years. In my opinion, this is an entirely unbalanced and unreasonable approach to planning Marine Corps capabilities in the future. The Marines face several challenges, beginning with the Navy not willing to make commitments in realistically addressing the challenges of littoral warfare. That is not an excuse to blow the budget to close at speed from further at sea to shore and stress the entire logistics of an amphibious operation - other alternatives must be considered. This suggests a larger, much more comprehensive approach to the challenges of Marines at sea must be considered, and Congress must force the Navy to be more involved in the development of a Joint Expeditionary capability.
The third biggest issue is the apparent ass kicking someone in NAVAIR needs for completely forgetting to include Rotary Wing aircraft in the Navy's 30 year aviation plan. On one hand we have the QDR stressing the importance of Rotary Wing, and on the other hand we have this quote from page 7 of the 30 year aviation plan:
The majority of modern platforms have the ability to perform across many traditional mission sets (e.g. the surveillance and strike capability of the MQ-9 and the cargo and aerial refueling capability of the KC-130). The multirole nature of our assets makes them highly adaptive, fostering significant mission flexibility for the joint force. For the purposes of this report, the aviation plan groups aircraft into seven categories according to their primary mission: fighter/attack; unmanned multirole surveillance and strike; ISR/command and control (C2); intratheater lift; strategic lift; aerial refueling tankers; and bombers. Rotary wing, tilt-rotor, and trainer aircraft are not included.This is the kind of overwhelming stupidity one finds when Fighter Jocks are the only aviators who make Flag officer. Helicopters matter to the Navy at least as much as other aviation, and in just about every aviation capability from the sea short of land attack - they matter most to the fleet. Rotary Wing aircraft are not only the most important aviation capability in HA/DR, but make up the only organic aviation capabilities in a strike group today that can provide ASW from the air. Are we not adding Romeos and Sierras into strike groups having previously recognized that we had not originally planned enough Rotary Wing capability? Remember what I said about littoral warfare? Rotary Wing is littoral warfare to the Navy, and is the most important aviation asset in small wars. Afghanistan proves this.
We are deploying ships with hangers to fight piracy without helicopters, USS Bainbridge (DDG 96) being a perfect example, because we want them to have ScanEagles. In the meantime the amphibious ships don't have the ScanEagles they need for the Marines at sea, and when the Navy looks at aviation with a 30 year plan they forget to include helicopters?
It reminded me of something that annoyed me a bit while I was at West. I think it was Rear Admiral William J. Holland who asked a question of the panel on Thursday afternoon asking the panel "If you were required to cut something from the force to save $2 billion, what would it be?" Bob Works answer was legacy ISR - which to me says P-3s. We have already retired the S-3s, so why not?
The US Navy may have a fighter gap, but they have a serious strategic planning gap in the aviation community when priorities like the P-3 and Rotary Wing are considered back of the bus capabilities of the Navy. Leadership in Navy Aviation is too busy trying to be the Air Force instead of emphasizing missions and capabilities that are core Navy missions. This is a troubling trend that suggests a complete lack of clarity towards ones primary mission; the kind of trouble that I strongly believe is worth cutting an aircraft carrier or two to fix if necessary.
The fourth biggest issue is the battle network challenge. There is a "ForceNET on Steroids" philosophy emerging in the Navy that will likely come together as part of the Air-Sea Battle doctrine that is going to require a great deal of discussion. I used to believe ADM Roughead had the hardest job in the Navy, but I am now convinced VADM Dorsett does - because he is going to be asked to do what may not be possible. I'm going to have to throw another 10,000 words at this subject to fully explain it, but I see the Navy building something that is very much possible in peacetime and very much unrealistic right now in wartime. There is no way around it, industry is going to have to step up here, and investments by the Navy are going to be made. It may be that by 2020 the Navy will require a completely new type of ship in order to fight - some sort of Joint Network Control Ship - because I don't know that the Navy will actually be capable of fighting under their new philosophy without rethinking what must be organic to the strike group.
The fifth biggest issue is the numerous questions regarding future platforms, systems, sensors, and weapons. The Navy talks about Cost of Ownership a lot now, but how does one plan for the total cost of a ship when we update software every two years and hardware every four years? The CNO flat out asked the audience at West 2010 for an energy innovation in battery power that would allow UUVs to operate for at least 24 hours. A concern I continue to find is how worried people are about existing US Navy torpedoes not able to effectively target catamarans - like the Type 022. Are we building enough SM-3s to support the new focus on BMD? Does the Navy need medium lift helicopters, and should the Navy take a fresh look at their existing heavy lift rotary wing capabilities? The DDG-51 is going to be around a long time, is the Navy sufficiently invested in R&D to support this direction? When does the Navy begin to take advantage of the investments made in the DDG-1000 technologies?
The sixth biggest issue is that the Navy stump speech doesn't have a compelling vision. After hearing Bob Work's "boxes" presentation the first time in person, and the CNOs post budget speech, I can tell you the Navy doesn't have a compelling vision that they can articulate their budget decisions with. I find this somewhat frustrating, because the results of getting such a favorable budget this year and with the QDR basically reinforcing the vision of CS-21, one would think otherwise. While the Navy can legitimately claim to be riding a favorable wind out to sea right now, I do not believe this can be sustained without a credible vision that can be articulated in explanation of the current direction of the Navy.
I think it is necessary for a lot of reasons, but first among them should be people. You know what I found a bit too common for my taste while at West 2010? A huge number of officers at the LT. Commander, Commander, and Captain level who had retired in the last 2 years working in industry. There were a bunch of those folks there, and it was a visual reminder that the track record of the Navy 'taking care of people' is not all that great in recent history.
Lots of Discussion Ahead
It is going to take awhile to unfold the budget, but these are some of the main issues that I see emerging from the FY 2011 Navy budget discussion. The shipbuilding debate on force structure relating to surface combatants, at least for the near future, is over. It is about performance and executing the 5 year plan, and hopefully getting some consistency that translates into cost savings in shipbuilding over that time. With that said, everything but surface combatants is on the table. The fighter centric focus in the navy 30 year aviation plan is a serious problem, because when one notes the absence of Rotary Wing aircraft and combines that with the Marine Amphibious Assault issue and the Littoral Combat Ship, it is still absolutely clear that two years later the Navy has no littoral warfare strategy - and is basically nothing more than a 20th century thinking fleet looking at some mythical future decisive battle scenario as a planning metric, but claimed to be new because it will utilize a 21st century networked capability.
The surface navy remains focused on land attack and blue water. Navy aviators are still focused on their carrier fighters. Submariners are still focused on their nuclear power at all costs, despite those costs reaching a level of dubious affordability. In the meantime, we ask for more NECC without proper budget while noting that adding a 4th Riverine squadron isn't compelling when the investment in the first three squadrons has been mediocre at best; and we ignore how vital rotary wing is to the Navy.
At the end of the day, there is very little new in FY2011; it just has a fresh polish and that new car smell. I like polish and the new car smell, but I like substance more.
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