The F-35B, The Naval Services, and Modern American Seapower

Modern American Seapower, comprised largely of the forces managed by the Secretary of the Navy, provides the United States with an on-call, forward deployed, ready subset of the larger Joint Force. The land power (projected from the sea) of the U.S. Marine Corps, the world’s most lethal and mobile tactical air force (the carrier air wing), and the unmatched power of the surface and submarine force of the U.S. Navy are well-suited to protecting and sustaining the nation’s interests where they predominate, and that is—generally speaking—near the coastlines of the world.  This is not to say that the Navy and Marine Corps can do it all; only that the day-to-day business of presence, conventional deterrence, and support to diplomacy has a ready-made organizational provider in the Department of the Navy. That this case has been poorly made is largely a function of the rounding of sharp corners brought on by Goldwater-Nichols and its elevation of consensus as the primary organizational attribute of the Department of Defense.  Jointness run amok is however, not the only reason that American Seapower’s role in national defense has been sub-optimized. Of equal status is the failure of the Department of the Navy to organize, train, and equip as the single provider of the conventional deterrence bound up in integrated maritime power. In order for the promise of American Seapower to be achieved, the Navy and the Marine Corps must more closely integrate—operationally and organizationally—with the provision of such a force as its single organizing principle. The introduction of the USMC F-35B provides an interesting catalyst for closer integration, and if the nation is wise, it will seek additional ways to integrate the activities of these maritime services.

The F-35 program has been justifiably maligned, in the press, on Capitol Hill, and in the think-tank community. It has taken forever to field, it is expensive, and it has had its technical challenges. Its Air Force variant—the F-35A, has been criticized as not being up to the job currently carried out by the A-10, and its Navy version—the F-35C—has been criticized for not adequately addressing the most pressing issue of Navy power projection, the reduction in striking range of the carrier air wing. Yet hidden among these programs is the F-35B, the VSTOL variant built for the Marine Corps, which will deploy from U.S. Navy amphibious assault ships of the LHD and LHA classes. It replaces the AV-8B Harrier, and even the harshest critics of the F-35 program have a hard time not acknowledging the significant performance upgrades it brings to the Marine Air Wing, as it brings both considerably more range and ordnance carrying capacity. Yet if these performance increases were all the F-35B fielded, there would be little to support the argument for increased integration. What drives it, and what offers the truly revolutionary opportunity for closer integration, is its radar and electronic warfare system, the APG-81 Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radar system.  This radar is capable of air-to air operations, air to surface operations, and a wide range of mostly classified electronic warfare and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance missions.  Simply put, if this airplane is—as was the case for the AV-8B’s—primarily reserved for the support of Marines ashore—it will be represent a colossal lost opportunity to dramatically increase the reach and effectiveness of modern American Seapower.

From the decks of eleven Navy amphibious assault ships, the Marine Corps will operate fifth generation fighters nearly as capable as those that will operate from (eventually) eleven Navy aircraft carriers (range is the main deficit, as the VSTOL F-35B must “bring its runway with it”). And while some suggest that this fact means the distinctions between amphibious assault ships and aircraft carriers is blurring, the fact that the amphibious assault ships cannot  accommodate a long duration airborne early warning capability and are dramatically less capable of independent operations (fuel and ordnance storage being the primary culprits) limits the utility of this view. Rather than focusing on the “how can the LHD replace the CVN” question, planners should be considering how to more closely integrate the operations of these platforms so that the highly capable aircraft on the amphibious assault ships are used as weapons in the broader maritime fight, rather than simply as expensive close air support. And here—as Hamlet would say—is the rub.

In order to capture the promise of the F-35B’s capabilities, the Marine Corps is going to have to view its tactical air arm much differently than it currently does.  Simply put, the afloat F-35B’s should belong to the Joint Force Maritime Component Commander (rather than to the Marine Expeditionary Unit commander) to be employed in accomplishing the JFMCC’s objectives. These will invariably include offensive sea control and integrated air and missile defense, missions that have not been featured prominently in the training syllabi of Marine Corps Harrier pilots, but which MUST become part of the program for F-35B pilots. The capabilities of the APG-81 AESA radar demand that this aircraft contribute to both the surface battle and the outer air battle as part of integrated fire control networks. This is essentially what the Navy’s F-35C pilots will be doing, and it seems obvious that harnessing the power of an additional squadron of fifth generation fighters from the amphibious group adds necessary combat power to the broader force.  In fact, the Navy should consider organizing for combat in a return to the “Expeditionary Strike Force” concept of its past, one built around a nucleus of a large, nuclear powered aircraft carrier and an amphibious assault ship, each of which would be capable of networked IAMD, SUW, Strike, and Close Air Support (CAS) missions enabled by other elements of the Strike Force. 

The concept of “losing” the Marine Air Wing to the JFMCC rubs some Marines the wrong way, as the historical (and proven) concept of a combined arms fighting force has served the Marine Corps well. There is a reasonable argument to be made for depriving the JFMCC of this capability (or at best, loaning it to the JFMCC on a “not to interfere basis” with planned or ongoing ground force operations), but that argument is one of the primary hindrances to closer integration of the Sea Services. What I am arguing for here is a new way to look at the “payloads vs. platforms” approach taken by the recently replaced CNO, ADM Jonathan Greenert.  In essence, the “platform” for maritime dominance becomes the sea itself, and all elements of the Navy and Marine Corps become “payloads”; payloads to be employed against the appropriate target, at the appropriate time. In some cases it will be Marine infantry operating ashore. In others, it will be a stealthy attack submarine.  In still others, it will be F-35B neutralizing adversary surface units. 

More closely integrating Navy and Marine Corps operations would have other applications. None of this is original thinking, and much of it has come from within the Marine Corps itself. For instance, why not put a squad of Marines on a maritime security variant of the LCS? Why not employ USMC attack helos from Navy ships to counter the small boat swarm threat? Why not equip the Marine Corps with an expeditionary anti-ship missile capability that could create nightmares for an adversary attempting to operate in the littorals?

For those Marines asking “Hey, what do we get out of this?”, my answer is this: command of expeditionary strike forces and numbered fleets would be available to Marine Corps officers in competition with Navy Aviators, Submariners, and Surface Warriors, and those staffs would be truly naval in nature. At the operational level of war, American Seapower would provide the Expeditionary Strike Force as its unit of issue and it would be an integrated force of land, sea, and air power.  

All of these (potentially) good ideas face bureaucratic and cultural hurdles, chief among which would be two Services already jealous of each other now being asked to turn over market share to the other.  This reaction is predictable and human, but rather than seeing this as a zero sum, the blending and blurring should be viewed as a powerful contribution to an energized and revitalized American Seapower that can be relied upon more heavily to protect and sustain America’s global interests.

Bryan McGrath