“What’s Driving the Navy?”
Captain R. Robinson Harris, U.S. Navy
(ret)
Captain Glen Sears, U. S. Navy (ret)
Mr. Michael Venn
Note from Lazarus: Robby Harris, Glen Sears, and Michael Venn are strategic planners with Lockheed Martin’s Missions, Systems, and Training (MST) business area. Last year they guided a yearlong study designed to gain a better understanding of the “drivers” that characterize today’s U.S. Navy and possibly will characterize the U.S. Navy of tomorrow. In a nutshell, they sought to understand why the Navy looks the way it does today and how it may look tomorrow. This article summarizes their study.
It is
something of an understatement to observe that today’s national security
environment is dynamic. To gain a better
understanding of the environment and particularly the “drivers” that define today’s
U.S. Navy and might impact the Navy of tomorrow, a team of Lockheed Martin
strategists earlier this year launched a new assessment. Our team sought to understand why the Navy
looks the way it does and how it may look differently tomorrow in terms of
overall force structure and capabilities.
Our study included detailed and comprehensive quantitative and
qualitative research. We analyzed budget
documents to understand where the Navy allocates its resources. We examined public reports where the Navy
explains its programs, plans, and strategies.
We also commissioned an independent team to conduct numerous interviews
with Navy leaders and defense experts.
Our research
suggests there are really only four broad categories of “drivers” that shape
Navy force structure and capabilities today and tomorrow. These “drivers” are depicted below and will
be explained in more detail in this paper..
As discussed
below, the Navy seems unlikely to change its Deployment/Operational Strategy.
And, both the budget/fiscal and threat environments are outside the Navy’s control. The technologies employed to effect combat
capable forward presence, however, offer some agency for the Navy if they can be deployed to the fleet in a
cost effective and timely fashion.
Navy Deployment/Operational Strategy
In one of
the early interviews conducted by our team an academic opined that if one
wishes to understand why the Navy looks the way it does, one has only to
understand that at least since World War II, the Navy’s operational construct
has been premised on “combat capable forward presence,” i.e., the “Away Game.” The Navy does not operate in its own “back
yard,” rather it operates continuously overseas and the fleet’s characteristics,
especially the size of its ships, reflect that geographic fact. The logic follows that although small craft
and small ships may be perfectly suitable for a Navy that does not deploy far
from its home waters, such ships are not suitable for the U.S. Navy that must deploy
at far distances for long periods of time.
Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert Work has emphasized this point, “Now,
the…Department of Defense has a pretty simple mission…It has one key
business. That is to organize, train,
and equip an American joint force that is ready for war and is operated
forward (emphasis added) to preserve the peace.” Work continued, “We generally fight away
games… So our ability to project dominant military forces across the
trans-oceanic distances underwrites U. S. conventional deterrence.”[i]
DSD Work
wasn’t the first to note the importance of the “Away Game.” Founding father Alexander Hamilton was an
early proponent of the Navy. In one of
his “Federalist Papers” he wrote about the benefits an American navy would
afford: “A further resource for
influencing the conduct of European nations toward us…” Hamilton believed the
Navy was an instrument to influence the behavior of other nations and would
accomplish that goal by being forward.[ii]
To that end, the Navy normally is deployed (the away game) to be seen by
nations which the U.S. wishes to influence.[iii]
Professor Robert Rubel observes
that by being forward, the Navy provides, “…U. S. voice and influence…”. Professor Robert Rubel concludes:
“In any case, there seems to be no suitable strategic
deployment option that involves keeping the nation’s sea services in home
waters; the nation’s character and its role in the world require that its naval
forces be forward to the extent feasible, though their exact disposition and
composition will be a function of technology, threat, and cost.”[iv]
The
roots of current U.S. Navy deployment strategy can be traced to the late 1940s,
when
Secretary
of the Navy James Forrestal, Admirals Forrest Sherman, Arthur Radford, and others
deployed what became the U. S. Sixth Fleet to the Mediterranean Sea and later a
re-born U. S. Seventh Fleet in the Western Pacific, as combat-credible forward
presence forces. At the end of the
1970s, a third combat-credible forward presence "hub" - was created
in the Arabian Sea. Meanwhile, precedents of intermittent forward presence were
established and maintained in other forward seas, and continued in America's
"near abroad" in the Caribbean.[v]
A recent Center for
Naval Analyses study emphasized the continuing validity of a forward deployed
Navy. “A major transformation of the Navy's deployment strategy does not appear
to be on the horizon. There have not been recent or contemporary changes in the
three important variables - domestic interests, international environment, and
naval capabilities - revolutionary enough to change U.S. Navy deployment
strategy…”[vi]
Writing about the sea
services new strategy “A Cooperative Strategy for 21 Century Seapower: Forward, Engaged, Ready” (CS-21R) the
Commander of the U. S. Sixth Fleet, VADM James Foggo states,
“Distinct from CS-21, forward presence
is not just articulated as an essential function of the Sea Services. In fact, in CS-21R, forward presence is in a
category all its own. It is an
‘enabling function’, one that makes possible all the rest.” [vii]
(Emphasis added)
Thus, the
characteristics of the fleet designed for the “away game” are unlikely to significantly
change any time soon. The “Away Game”
operational concept, “Operate Forward” per former-CNO Jonathan Greenert, seems
to be the foundational “driver” for force structure characteristics impacting
both capability and capacity. Those
characteristics include an ability to self-deploy across the Atlantic and
Pacific oceans, to remain deployed for lengthy periods of time, and to possess
combat credible capabilities that ensure the transmission of U. S. “voice and
influence.” Small craft and small ships
do not seem to meet those requirements although some experts argue that they
might be more affordable and increase Fleet size and effectiveness.[viii]
Threats
Our
interviews demonstrated that military threats also “drive” the Navy’s force
structure and capabilities. In a recent
USNI Proceedings article VADM Tom
Rowden, and RADMs Peter Fanta and Peter Gumataotao reflected on “threats” and
how those threats affect Navy’s capabilities,
“First, when the Cold War ended, our Navy emerged
unchallenged and dominant. No power
could match us at sea and that dominance allowed the Navy to focus on
projecting power ashore…The surface force began to shift its expertise to
launching Tomahawk missiles from uncontested sanctuaries at sea. If U.S. naval power is to reclaim maritime
battlespace dominance in contemporary and future anti-A2/AD environments, the
surface Navy must counter rapidly evolving
missile, air, submarine, and surface threats that will challenge our
ability to sail where we want, when we want.” [ix]
As discussed
by Admirals Rowden, Fanta, and Gumataotao, the Navy is transitioning from a
predominantly threat-free post-Cold War maritime environment in which support
of land operations in Afghanistan and Iraq was the rule to a new environment
with challenging Anti-Access/Area Denial (A2/AD) threats posed by near-peer
competitors. China’s aggressive
activities in the South China Sea and the Senkaku Islands, and Iran’s actions
in the Arabian Gulf have awakened naval strategists and planners for warfighting
technologies and operational methods to counter A2/AD and asymmetric
threats.
Rowden, et
al. continue,
“…the shift to the offensive responds to the
development of increasingly capable A2/AD weapons designed specifically to deny
U. S. naval forces the freedom of maneuver necessary to project power…it is
important to remember that as our interests lay thousands of miles from our own
coastlines, sea-based power projection is both our main competitive advantage
and an absolute necessity to retain influence and to exercise global
leadership.”[x]
Admirals
Rowden et al clearly consider “threats” as a “driver” which will influence capability
and operational concepts for the surface Navy.
The
development of the Air Sea Battle operational concept, now called the Joint Concept
for Access and Maneuver in the Global Commons (JAM-GC)[xi] demonstrates the growing shift in
the maritime threat environment which is leading to fresh thinking regarding
needed capabilities for the Fleet. The
Navy has embraced former Chief of Naval Operations’ Greenert’s number one
tenant, “Warfighting First”, and there is a notable shift in the naval dialogue
to lethality and offensive capability with added emphasis on survivability and
operating in denied environments.
Similarly,
A2/AD threats are influencing Navy’s air and undersea capabilities and
operational concepts. A number of the
interviews our team conducted pointed to the need to integrate unmanned air and
undersea vehicles to counter A2/AD threats.
Other interviews pointed to the need to accelerate fielding of the Naval
Integrated Fire Control-Counter Air (NIFC-CA) capability.[xii]
Navy has
limited ability to control threats, but possesses far more control over the
types of capabilities required to respond, manage, and possibly deter threats
with the careful application of affordable technologies. The challenge in a constrained budget
environment centers around threat risk management.
Technology
Our research
revealed that technological innovation also “drives” the Navy’s current and
future capabilities.
The
Acoustic Rapid COTS Insertion (ARCI) program was highlighted in our interviews as
an example of a technology paradigm shift for the submarine Navy.[xiii]
The ARCI process started in the 1990s as the Submarine Force’s
innovative answer to maintaining acoustic superiority in the face of severe
cost pressures and the lessening of the U. S. Navy’s acoustic advantage. ARCI continues to be exemplar of efficient,
effective, and rapid acquisition response to emerging submarine warfighter
needs. Testifying to Congress Navy
Acquisition chief Sean Stackley commented,
“The Navy is pursuing
fair and open competition in the fielding of open, modular, and extensible
systems. This strategy enables the Rapid
Capability Insertion Process (RCIP) and the integration of new technology
without costly software changes, helps to manage COTS obsolescence, and
encourages commonality and reuse. The
RCIP builds off the successful submarine Acoustic Rapid COTS Insertion program.”[xiv] (Emphasis added)
The ARCI
program’s flexible methodology enables the rapid introduction of new fleet requirements
and capabilities via an alternative biannual hardware and software
modernization process. This continuous
modernization process transitioned all classes of Navy submarines to a common
baseline and provides the submarine force with enhanced warfighting capabilities
while avoiding significant research, design, acquisition, obsolescence, and
training costs.
Congressional Research Analyst (CRS) Ronald
O’Rourke writes,
“The ARCI program was instituted to reverse deterioration in the
submarine force’s acoustic edge over improving foreign submarines that had
occurred by the mid-1990s…The continuous improvement in capability among
existing submarines achieved through the ARCI program might be considered
equivalent to adding some number of boats to the force...”[xv]
The first ARCI installation was completed in
1998. Under the ARCI program 10 to 12 submarines
are updated each year. O’Rourke observes,
“The ARCI program can be viewed as an early example of ‘walking the walk’ on
open architecture.”
Technology also impacts surface warfare capabilities. Precision guidance technology in the Tomahawk
Cruise Missile in the 1980s led to a dramatic new role in land attack for the Navy’s
surface combatants.[xvi] Before the advent of Tomahawk, the Surface Navy existed principally
to protect (AAW, ASW, etc.) other assets like Carrier Strike Groups ((CSG) and
Amphibious Ready Groups (ARGs) and to transport Marines to the fight. Before Tomahawk the surface Navy had no strike
role. Discussions of maritime strategy
and naval force structure in the 1980s reinforced the perception that the only
general purpose naval forces with strategic significance were carrier aircraft
and nuclear-powered attack submarines. Surface combatants were simply considered
integral parts of larger, carrier-dominated forces. The fielding of new Tomahawk-armed cruisers
and destroyers, however, provided an unprecedented offensive anti-ship and
land-attack capability. Tomahawk provided
unique warfighting capabilities and new possibilities for force employment not
resident in a carrier-dominated force.
Tomahawk transformed the Surface Navy.
Thirty years later, precision tracking and weapon technology once again is
transforming the surface Navy with Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD)
capability. The ability to station a
ship off the coast of any nation and neutralize a number of ballistic missile
threats to the region not only reinforces U.S. regional relationships but also
makes the region overall more secure from rogue regimes.
More
recently, the “modularity” concept has been identified as a new enabling technology. After a tour of the Littoral Combat
Ship (LCS) USS INDEPENDENCE in Florida earlier this year, former CNO Greenert
remarked, “The thing that is of value about the LCS is that she has great
volume, high speed, and is modular (emphasis added). What that means is
you can change out packages to perform different missions.”[xvii]
The
recently updated CS-21R also emphasizes modularity as an example of force
employment innovation to, “Employ modular designed platforms that allow mission
modules and payloads to be swapped instead of entire ships, saving time and
money. Littoral Combat Ships…are an
example of this capability.”[xviii]
Our interviews suggest that modularity, open architecture,
directed energy, and cyber/electronic maneuver warfare technologies are
ascendant. Moreover, the technology
driver is the one in which the Navy has the most control over, and which offers
the potential to mitigate the negative effects generated by budget and threat
environments.
Budget/Fiscal
Climate
Nearly every Navy official testifying
to Congress in 2015 emphasized the unstable fiscal environment and its negative
effects on current and projected Navy capabilities. As CNO Greenert testified before the Senate
Armed Forces Committee on 10 March 2015;
“But, Mr. Chairman, as I have testified before, the continuing
resolution and the sequestration of 2013 degraded our readiness and our
capabilities, and we have not recovered.
Budget reductions have forced reduction of afloat and ashore operations,
generated maintenance backlogs, and have compelled us to extend unit
deployments…this degraded readiness has reduced our ability to respond to
contingencies…We’ve been forced to slow Navy modernization. The overall impact of the budget shortfalls
in the past three years has declined our relative warfighting advantages in
several areas, notably anti-submarine warfare, anti-surface warfare, air-to-air
warfare and what we call Integrated Air and Missile Defense…”[xix]
More
recently the leaders of all three maritime services stated in CS21R that they
will:
“Prioritize affordability in
every aspect of our acquisition process by controlling costs throughout the
system lifecycle. For example, we will
expand Open Architecture initiatives to improve the use of intellectual
property and increase competition. This
will drive down total ownership costs, improve warfighting capability, and lead
to sustainable future programs.”[xx]
Moreover, a recurring theme emerging
from our team interviews was the importance of budget constraints as a “driver”. The following comments are highly representative:
“…the
principal threat is our inability to control costs. We are pricing ourselves out of
business. We need to find the right mix
between the cost to modernize and life cycle costs.”
“… the
lack of resources is the principal threat to the U.S. Navy.”
“…the biggest
disruptor has been costs of US weapon systems - out of control and forcing a
‘straight jacket’ on how Navy tries to acquire.”
“We have become a military in
which budget drives policy which impacts force structure.”
“…the biggest disruptor or disruption in the
next 20 years will be budget pressures in an environment of diminishing
industrial sources.”
Once again, our interviews identified the ARCI
program as a successful example to control the cost of modernizing the force
while significantly
enhancing submarine and undersea warfare capabilities. O’Rourke opines, “The (ARCI)
program can be viewed as an example of a Service responding to a reduction in
funding by finding a new and less expensive approach to accomplishing its
objective.”[xxi]
Modularity also was often cited as an approach to
control costs. By specifying common standards and
interfaces the modularity approach provides navies with benefits in mission
flexibility, upgradability, and overall costs.
The benefits range from the ease of technology refresh to decreased
total ownership cost, to increased operational readiness. The Navy’s LCS program
leverages the modularity approach with its flexible, reconfigurable space and
stern ramp for launch/recovery of mine countermeasures unmanned vehicles,
swimmer delivery vehicle, and special operations forces. Former-Rear Admiral Don Loren summarized it several years
ago:
“Its (LCS) modular design will allow for mission modules to
be replaced without putting the ship in dry dock, cutting holes in the side of
the ship, or running lengths of cables, and piping throughout the ship…this
plug and play process will facilitate incremental upgrading of installed
systems, but will also enable complete change out of entire systems. Such an approach will reduce the risk of
investing in new technology by not jeopardizing an entire acquisition program
on the success or failure of a single technology or developmental capability.”[xxii]
The Adaptive Force Package Concept is another example of how cost and
affordability are influencing the characteristics of the Navy. Adaptive Force Packages make it possible to
provide warfighting capabilities on ships and aircraft that typically are not considered
combatants. The three maritime service chiefs
state in CS21R that they will, “expand the practice of employing adaptive force
packages which tailor naval capabilities to specific regional environments,
thereby ensuring that our assets are located where they are most needed….We
will provide naval presence in Africa with adaptive force packages such as the
Joint High Speed Vessel or Afloat Forward Staging Base with embarked Sailors,
Marines, and Coast Guardsmen.”[xxiii]
Although the Navy has limited control over the budget/fiscal
environment, by emphasizing affordability, cost controls, and employing
innovative approaches such as the ARCI model, open architectures, and expanding
the use of modularity, it can better manage the impact of the budget/fiscal environment
driver.
Summary
Our study discovered that four
“drivers” have and will continue to define the characteristics of the U. S.
Navy: Deployment Patterns (the “Away
Game”/ Combat Credible Forward Presence), the Threat Environment; Technology; and
the Budget/Fiscal environment. These
four “drivers” are all interrelated, but as pointed out, foundational is the
emphasis on combat credible forward presence which influences the size of
platforms. Because size affects the cost
of platforms, the deployment patterns driver also affects the number of
platforms in the fleet and therefore capability and capacity. That is, because larger platforms are more
expensive than smaller ones, fewer larger platforms can be acquired than would
be the case for smaller less expensive platforms. With the exception of the number of “hubs”
serviced, e.g., 6th Fleet, 7th Fleet, 5th
Fleet and the level of presence in each hub, the U. S. Navy’s deployment
pattern seems unlikely to change. So, one might conclude that the “Deployment
Pattern” driver is a constant.
Similarly, given concerns for the
national debt, annual budget deficits, demands of federal entitlement programs,
and support for an aging population, one might also conclude that the
budget/fiscal climate driver is also a constant and unlikely to improve barring
another “9/11” like tragedy.
One might also conclude that the
“threat” driver is a constant, but if not a constant, it is a strong “driver”
that is likely to become more challenging, especially because of the growing concerns
for cyber warfare. Thus, threat as a
driver is unlikely to make life easier for Navy planners and programmers. Rather, in a constrained budget environment,
Navy must manage threat risks.
That leaves the last driver,
technology, which need not be a constant, and which may mitigate some of the
challenges posed by other three drivers. Technology has proved to be able to
impact both capability (e.g., improved processors to maintain acoustic
advantage; data fusion for improved situational awareness) and capacity (e.g.,
precision weapon technology makes it possible to service more targets per
sortie; netted forces result in a force in which overall capability is greater
than the sum of its parts, directed energy may provide “bottomless magazines”). Moreover, technology has proved to offer both
cost avoidance (e.g., ARCI model for submarine modernization) and as well as
increased costs (new platforms cost more than the ones replaced, as a rule). Given the expected fiscal environment, the
emphasis today must be to use technology for cost avoidance and to improve both
capability and capacity. The submarine
community’s ARCI model would seem to be worthy model worth revisiting in a more
comprehensive strategy.
[i]
Robert Work, Deputy Secretary of Defense, “The Third U. S. Offset Strategy and
Its Implications for Partners and Allies”, 30 January 2015, War on the Rocks
Blog.
[ii]
Publius [Alexander Hamilton], “The Utility of the Union in Respect to
Commercial Relations and a Navy,”
Federalist No. 11, available at Library of Congress, thomas.loc.gov/.
[iii]
Robert Rubel, “National Policy and the Post-Systemic Navy,” U. S. Naval War College Review, October,
2013.
[iv]
Robert Rubel, op cit., p.27.
[v]
Unpublished Center for Naval Analyses research paper re deployment patterns of
the U. S. Navy. Alexandria, VA,
2012. Available upon request.
[vi]
Ibid.
[vii]
VADM James Foggo and CDR Philip Rosi, “Putting CS-21R to Work,” U.S. Naval Institute
Proceedings, May, 2015, p.22.
[viii]
Captain Wayne Hughes, “Cede No Water:
Strategy, Littorals, and Flotillas”, USNI Proceedings, September,
2013. In this article Captain Hughes
argues for the advantages of the “Flotilla Concept.”
[ix]
VADM Thomas Rowden, RADM Peter Gumataotao, and RADM Peter Fanta, “Distributed
Lethality” U. S. Naval Institute Proceedings,
January 2015, p. 19.
[x]
Rowden, et al, Ibid.
[xi] “Pentagon Drops Air Sea
Battle Name, Concept Lives On”
[xii]
Jeffrey McConnell, “Naval Integrated Fire Control Counter Air Capability-Based
Systems of Systems Engineering, Navy Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division,
14 November 2013, NWSCDD/PN 14/019
[xiii]
For an overview of the ARCI program, see Captain Jim Stevens, “The How and Why
of Open Architecture,” Undersea Warfare,
Spring 2008 available on line http://www.navy.mil/navydata/cno/n87/usw/spring08/HowAndWhy.html
[xiv]
Statement of Sean J. Stackley before the House Armed Services Committee
Subcommittee on Oversight and Shipbuilding, 11 September 2012.
[xv]
Statement of Mr. Ronald O’Rourke, Congressional Research Service before the
House Armed Services Committee on Case Studies in DOD Acquisition: Findings What Works. 24 June 2014, pp 4-5.
[xvi]
R. Robinson Harris and Robert McFall, “The Transformation (Again) of the
Surface Navy,” U. S. Naval Institute
Proceedings, January 2012.
[xvii]
Michael Fabey, Aerospace Daily & Defense Report, April 3, 2015.
[xviii]
“Forward, Engaged, Ready: A Cooperative
Strategy for 21st Century Seapower,”
Department of the Navy, Washington, DC, March, 2015.
[xix]
Testimony of Admiral Jon Greenert, Chief of Naval Operations, before the Senate
Armed Services Committee, March 10, 2015.
[xx]
Op Cit, p.29
[xxi]
O’Rourke, Op Cit
[xxii]
RDML Don Loren , USN, former Director
U. S. Navy Surface Combatant Requirements, quoted in Unmanned Systems, Vol 20,
Nr 5, Sept/Oct 2002, p. 26.
[xxiii]
CS21R, op cit, pp 16, 21.
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