DEPSECDEF Work on the Increasingly Severe Tradeoffs Between Forward Presence and Forcewide Readiness

Back on 30 September, Deputy Secretary of Defense Bob Work gave a speech at the Council on Foreign Relations. His discussion of the way-forward for the U.S. military’s Asia-Pacific rebalance and the status of operations against ISIL is what garnered the most press attention. I wasn’t even aware of the speech until late last week when a colleague cued me to the fact that Work's main topic was actually about how the present U.S. global force posture model is no longer sustainable given the country’s fiscal policies. Suffice to say that this issue is well known to Information Dissemination’s readers. What makes the DEPSECDEF’s speech so noteworthy, however, is that it represents some of the most detailed disclosures I’ve seen thus far regarding the strategic policy changes being explored at the Defense Department’s highest levels.

Below are excerpts from some of the speech's key passages.

On the difficult balance between maintaining sizable forward presence forces (e.g., those that are either permanently forward-stationed in a host country or rotationally forward deployed from the U.S.) and the combat readiness (with particular emphasis on training and material condition) of the between-deployment forces that would be surged forward from the U.S. in the event of a war:

“And the important goal that we're trying to wrestle with right now under intense budget pressure is to get the proper mix between the forces that are forward presence forces and those based in the United States and our U.S. territories, which are our surge forces. That's what we're trying to do…

…So simply put, something has to give. Maintaining our military at such high tempo in this resource-constrained environment is simply no longer sustainable. Period. End of story. It prevents us from properly preparing for future contingencies across the full spectrum of conflict. Now, that is what wakes me up at night, because ultimately preparing the joint force to win wars is what the department does. It is what we are charged to do.

And as we come out more than a decade of fighting irregular warfare campaigns and our potential adversaries across the world continue to advance their inventories of advanced weapons and capabilities, our commanders are saying, hey, I need to have more fight tonight forces, so I need to have more forces forward in theater.

But that just can't happen without us balancing the readiness of the surge forces. It really, really is a tough problem, because we have to take time and money to reset, repair worn-out war equipment, upgrade our weaponry, and train for some very demanding scenarios.

So as we adopt our post-Afghanistan and post-sequestration global posture, we now have to keep an eye focused much more on the surge forces. We've always kept an eye focused on the forward-deployed, ready -- high-ready forces, but now we have to really take a look at it the other way…

…Now, let me be very clear here. We are still going to maintain a robust forward-deployed forces where the strategic rationale is compelling and where our priorities tell us we must do, but our forces won't be large enough to give our combatant commanders all the forces they would want to have in theater at every single moment to be prepared for any regional contingency, because for far too long, as I've said, we've chosen to sacrifice readiness of the surge force or of the base force, instead of reallocating forces that were already out in theaters across combatant commander areas of responsibility.

Now, in the past, we've had sufficient slack in funding and force structure and flexibility to do this. But I have to tell you, based on the fiscal turbulence we face today, our forces are shrinking without question and our flexibility is under pressure, so we can't continue the way we've been doing things for the last twenty years.

So one of the key principles moving forward is that we're going to reprioritize our limited assets and develop innovative ways of maintaining forward presence as we rebuild our readiness. We think we're in a readiness crisis, a readiness trough for two or three or four years, as we try to build out. All of our program says we try to get back to full spectrum readiness at the end of the five-year defense plan. In the meantime, we have to think creatively of how and when to utilize our precious force availability to maximize our strategic imbalance.”

Work then lists several deployment policies such as increasing the forward basing of key presence-maintaining units as practicable, as well as rotational forward deployments of tailored, disaggregated force packages. However, he follows this by indicating a potentially major shift in how U.S. forces will be globally deployed and how conventional deterrence postures in critical regions will be maintained:

“Another way of innovating is what Chairman Dempsey calls dynamic presence. Now, what would happen is normally what we'd do is we'd push all of our forces forward, every single bit of ready forces that we'd have, we'd push forward. And once they got into a COCOM's -- a combatant commander's area of responsibility, you could shift them across borders -- excuse me, the lines of responsibility -- but it was difficult. It took time. We had to go through laborious discussion processes.

What we're trying to do is to try to figure out what is the minimum deterrent force that you might need in a theater and then have the rest of the force being more dynamically used across the world. This is a tough, tough problem, because it's a different way of doing.

If I could say it this way, we are going from a demand side model, where the COCOMs demand forces and we provide them everything that we possibly can, to a supply side model in which we are setting forces out that keeps the balance between readiness and the surge and forward presence and then dynamically tasking it across the world.”

This is remarkable in that it suggests a completely different paradigm for how the COCOMs will be apportioned deployable forces, with the implication that fewer forces on the margins will be deployed at any one time. This touches directly upon the issues regarding sizing and positioning of a conventional deterrent I recently wrote about. There is no way to do what the DEPSECDEF is outlining without taking on greater deterrence risk. The challenge will be in developing new force architectures (e.g capabilities, quantities, positioning, and posture) as well as doctrine for employing such forces that are sufficiently credible to maintain deterrence effectiveness. I will be exploring this in more detail with respect to East Asia in a few weeks.

For now, I urge you to read and think about his prepared remarks in their entirety.

Fact Check: John McCain vs Bob Work

Photo by: Jacquelyn Martin

As Bryan also discussed tonight, John McCain and Bob Work had a nice little exchange today in the Senate during today's nomination hearing. There are several things going on here, but like Bryan I don't see any scenario where Bob Work has his nomination blocked by John McCain very long, particularly if someone in the mainstream press decides to do even basic fact checking.

As everyone knows, I have been and remain a very strong supporter of the Littoral Combat Ship program. My argument since late 2008, when I spent 3 nights aboard USS Freedom walking through the ship with very smart folks thinking about what the Navy is doing with the Littoral Combat Ship program, has been that the naval warfare theories found in the concept of LCS will heavily influence surface warfare in the 21st century. I still believe that to be true.

To date, USS Freedom has yet to do anything that can be described as anything other than an activity designed for domestic political purposes. Whether it was the tour of ports across the US prior to being commissioned, the short patrol off the US southern coast, the deployment to Singapore, and even the response to the recent tsunami in the Philippines - USS Freedom has basically proven to be an operational lemon and a political flop.

But that doesn't surprise anyone paying attention to the LCS program, because all LCS observers have seen how the Navy has had to slap on one change after another to put the ship to sea, only to frequently see the ship limp back to port. It is a first in class lemon paid for by R&D funding, forced into operation too quickly for purposes of being tested by fire only to see the Navy burned every time. So the first ship, redesigned after construction begun, is a lemon. No shipbuilder - even those at Lockheed Martin - are surprised by that reality. The only real surprise with LCS to date is that USS Independence - the Austal version first in class - apparently isn't a lemon also.

But the Navy put their lemon out there, tried to make lemonade, and so far it looks more like dog urine. Worth a try? Maybe? I honestly don't know, time will tell. The question is, does anyone honestly believe the rest of the Lockheed Martin LCS class is going to be a lemon too? I don't. It is also important to contrast all the publicity of USS Freedom with the complete absence of publicity for USS Independence. I do not mean to imply the LCS will be some great class of ship by itself, rather I do strongly believe the impact that LCS will have on surface warfare is going to be very positive for that community long term.

Despite all the news you may be reading right now, to me I am thinking 2014 is the turning point for the entire Littoral Combat Ship program, and thanks to John McCain's circus in the Senate, people might finally realize it as new events start unfolding. The conversation has, almost entirely, been what the ship presumably can't do. The conversation, very soon, will transition into what the Littoral Combat Ship is doing. For the past 15 ship classes (mentioned below), that simple transition has made a lot of difference in how people looked at ships that couldn't meet early cost estimates.

When Talking Points Fail

John McCain is one of the best in Washington, DC when it comes to complaining as loud as possible about unpopular defense programs. Unfortunately he complains so much about what he is against, no one knows what he is actually for anymore when it comes to defense. Today the Senator made a big scene, and as long as no one actually fact checks what he said, he might not take a hit for the magnitude by which he was completely wrong today... again, and again, and again. This is what I like to call terrible preparation and staff work by a Senator and his office.

John McCain: Mr. Work, as a former Navy Undersecretary you wrote a very candid paper about the Littoral Combat Ship program. I have a memorandum from Secretary Hagel to the Chief of Naval Operations, I don't know if you are aware of it or not, he says "Therefore no new contract negotiations beyond 32 ships will go forward" talking about the Littoral Combat Ship. Do you agree with that assessment?

Bob Work: As I understand it, what the assessment is saying is we will stop building the Flight 0+ LCS at 32 ships and we will consider follow-on ships - small combatants - a modified LCS could be one of the options, a domestic or foreign design could be one of the options, so I think this is very normal with Navy shipbuilding. We build Flights...

John McCain: You think it's normal? You think it's normal that the cost overruns associated with this ship? The fact that we don't even know what the mission is, that there has not been a, this whole idea of moving different modules off and on? You disagree with the Government Accountability Office statement about the cost overruns? This is normal Mr. Work?

Two things here. First, LCS is not being cancelled like Senator McCain is suggesting, rather the Senator's staff isn't smart enough to realize this is what down-select for the LCS looks like. Hagel is basically reintroducing competition back into the LCS program while building upon lessons learned from the first Block 0+ ships. Yeah, someone is going to offer up some incredibly expensive FFG in the analysis of alternatives, but don't bite the hook, rather expect the winner to be a Block I LCS based on one of the two designs, but the Block I will add firepower while keeping to some of the core concepts of the original LCS... that's where this is really heading.

Second, did Senator McCain really ask if cost overruns are "normal" three times?

Of the nine first in class ships previous to LCS, four had overruns of greater than 100% (Avenger class, Osprey class, Arleigh Burke class, San Antonio class), three had overruns between 40-60% (Oliver Hazard Perry class, Ticonderoga class, Whidbey Island class). Only two had overruns less than 20% (Wasp class and Virginia class). NONE came in lower than expected. Now, if we also count the Seawolf class, the America class, the Zumwalt class, the Ford class, and throw in Independence and Freedom as unique classes of ships...

The last 15 classes of US Navy ships have started out with cost overrun problems. For the entire career of John McCain as a Senator, this has been normal by any definition of the word. John McCain is either the most remarkably ignorant Senator on Navy shipbuilding issues in US history, or he's intentionally acting like a clown. I'll let you decide.

Bob Work: Well sir, up until 2007, 2008, 2009 when the program almost imploded there were significant cost overruns. When Secretary Mabus, Secretary Stackley, and I arrived in the Department of the Navy in 2009 - I believe since then the program has met it's cost targets. In 2001 the guidance to the Department of the Navy was to be able to build 3 LCS's for the price of one Arleigh Burke. The Department of the Navy is doing that, today. So I think you have to look at the performance of...

John McCain: So it makes it hard to understand why Secretary Hagel would, when the original plans as presented to Congress for their approval was 52 ships. And by the way, was anyone ever held responsible for these failures 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010?

Bob Work: Those happened in the administration prior to ours so I don't know what... 

How many folks involved in the Littoral Combat Ship program from 2005 - 2008 have been nominated and approved by Senator McCain to become a Flag Officer? The only person in this conversation who was legitimately in a position to hold people accountable for failures in the LCS program was Senator John McCain. The only person in this conversation whose record reflects a positive contribution to the Littoral Combat Ship program problems is Bob Work.

Senator McCain, your music is playing.

John McCain: So everything has been fine under this administration as far as the LCS is concerned?

Bob Work: I believe that the program is on solid ground and is meeting its cost targets, yes sir.

John McCain: You do believe that?

Bob Work: Yes sir.

John McCain: So you are in direct contradiction of the Government Accountability Office study of 2013.

Bob Work: I haven't read that particular uh....

John McCain: You haven't read it?

Bob Work: No sir. 

Like Bob Work, I was guilty of not reading the full US Government Accountability Office study of the Littoral Combat Ship from July of 2013. I read the highlight page back when it was released, then shrugged and went on to do more important things. No matter how John McCain tries to spin it, the GAO report isn't in direct contradiction of anything Bob Work said, indeed the report highlight page starts by saying:

GAO found that the Navy has made progress in addressing some of the early design and construction problems on the LCS 1 and LCS 2 seaframes, and quality defects and unit costs are declining, now that the seaframes are in steady production. Based on projected learning curves, shipyard performance can be expected to continue to improve over time.

I went ahead and read the entire GAO report because Senator McCain made it sound like the report says something incredibly important, but I could never could find where the report contradicts what Bob Work said, indeed it basically answers Senator McCain's question by suggesting that the Littoral Combat Ship is doing much better under the current administration.

Hmm...

John McCain: Wow... uhm... I'm stunned that you haven't. But the fact is that the ship has still not, uh, had a clear, uh, mission. The modules that were supposed to be moving back and forth have not, uh, we have not persued the fly before you buy, uh, uh, policy. And, uhm.. Do you remember the original cost estimate for the LCS?

Bob Work: It was $220 million for the sea frame Senator, and depending on the number of modules that you would buy the total cost for a missionized LCS, average cost was supposed to be no more than $400 million in FY2005 dollars.

John McCain: And what is it now?

Bob Work: I think, I haven't been briefed on the most recent cost - I'll do that if confirmed and look at it but I know that we are on track...

John McCain: Thank you for doing that, what's the cost now? You don't even know the cost now Mr. Work?

Bob Work: I believe the average cost with modules is about $450 million but not in FY2005 dollars, two thousand five dollars. So if you take a look at the original costing factors, I believe the cost of today's LCS's are very close to the costs that were set back in 2002-2003.

Senator McCain, no one outside the DoD has the real cost of LCS sir, because the cost of the modules has not been released publicly.  Why would Bob Work know the cost of LCS considering he hasn't been in government service for almost a year?

We all have different 'unofficial' estimated numbers for the Littoral Combat Ship seaframe and modules. I have mine, and Bob Work probably has better numbers than mine. To protect my sources I will not detail mine exactly, but generally as of FY2014 I have the Littoral Combat Ship plus the average cost of one mission module costing around $548 million, which is $421 million in FY2005 dollars. Now, without going into too much detail, allow me to provide some insight into those numbers. The primary reason why the average cost of the Littoral Combat Ship is more than $400 million in FY2005 dollars is because the MIW module is incredibly expensive, indeed I believe the very high cost of the MIW module is why the LCS modules are yet to be released in the SAR. Once we see the module numbers in the SAR, we will all have a much better idea of how much LCS really costs.

But here is the rub... even if the LCS went away, the one part of the entire LCS program the Navy will keep under any circumstances is the Mine Warfare Module. It is the most desired piece of the entire program, so that cost is going to exist with or without the LCS.

And yes, if I replace the 24 MIW modules with 12 ASuW and 12 ASW modules based on the numbers I have, and applied the average, the LCS cost in FY2014 dollars is less than $400 million FY2005 dollars. Expect the MIW module to cost in the neighborhood of $70 - $80 million per module when the SAR finally reveals the cost. As we already know, mine warfare is very expensive.

John McCain: Well given that then it is hard to understand why the Secretary of Defense would curtail the production of it by some 24 ships, so Mr. Work every objective study whether it be the Director of Operational Test and Evaluation, the Government Accountability Office, every other objective observer the LCS is not anywhere near what it was presented to the Congress by funding and this again makes me wonder about your qualifications because the one thing that we are plagued with is significant cost overruns and lack of capability.

John McCain's staff failed him today, because they forgot to update all the old talking points and forced John McCain to say a lot of inaccurate things about LCS in an attempt to stick it to Bob Work, stuff that was very much once true but today is clearly not. The Senator's implication regarding the cost of LCS is wrong, and I'm struggling to find all these objective observers saying otherwise today, because even the GAO in the July 2013 report the Senator claims to be citing concedes the cost of LCS is no longer the programs problem. Now maybe the Senator disagrees, but $421 million in FY2005 dollars appears to me to be pretty close to $400 million in FY2005 dollars, in fact the cost of LCS today is a lot closer to the original estimate than I think every reasonable observer would have ever believed possible back in 2007-2008 when the Navy was ceasing construction of ships in both shipyards.

Senator John McCain today is attempting to publicly slap Bob Work with the LCS program, which makes no sense because every data point suggests Bob Work was part of a team that took a really bad LCS program suffering from enormous cost problems, and clearly turned it around and got it back on track. If the Senator will publicly attack people who do a good job, and the same Senator voted affirmative for promotions to Navy officers who were directly involved in the problems of LCS, the Senator is hardly qualified to pass on judgment regarding qualifications, because the Senator is the one demonstrating clear lack of good judgment.

In hindsight, I find the whole thing sad. Bob Work might legitimately be the nations top civilian strategic thinker on defense issues since the cold war, and John McCain - who some consider to be the nations top defense Senator - has clearly gone off the deep end into the land of crazy nonsense. As soon as Senator John McCain realizes his staff let him down big time today, that the Senator is on the wrong side of the facts he argued, and assuming his ego allows the Senator to concede he made a mistake....

Bob Work will be the next Deputy Secretary of Defense.

As for that whole New Hampshire BRAC thing that happened today... either the Portsmouth Shipyard folks honestly believe they are in trouble keeping the yard open, or that was the Joint Strike Fighter lobby nervous as hell about Bob Work's appointment.

Something to keep an eye on.

Buzz Worthy

It started as a rumor this morning, but by the end of the day it has turned into something more, because apparently everyone is talking about it, and wants to talk about it.

One of the finalists the Obama administration is considering for Deputy Secretary of Defense is former Undersecretary of the Navy Bob Work.

It is not surprising the Obama administration is looking for a highly qualified candidate for the job, but my impression is nobody saw this coming. Like many people I had heard lots of names, but most of the names I heard were people who were highly respected for their business and political skills, and understood defense strategy.

But Bob is different, he is a strategist with political and business skills. It is remarkable to me that one of the most respected and influential American civilian defense strategist in the 21st century is legitimately being considered for the second highest position in the Department of Defense, because that really doesn't happen. Usually the top strategists in the US work in think tanks or academia, and the best one can hope for running the DoD is someone like Ashton Carter, a highly skilled and qualified policy expert.

Can anyone remember the last time one of the nations top defense strategists of any era was appointed to run the Department?

What makes this remarkable to me, assuming the rumors and buzz is all legitimate, is it suggests what the White House is thinking. As a strategist rather than a politician, Bob Work will do what politicians don't do well when facing very hard and controversial choices...

Bob will stand beside Chuck Hagel and articulate the tough choices that have to be made.

Five Things on Friday Morning

Where is the one-stop shop for all things tactical in the United States Navy? That's a good question being asked at CIMSEC today. Really interesting post, but as I am not in the Navy, what I really enjoyed was reading several of the links.

I've been waiting to read David Axe's article discussing the CNAS paper by Captain Hendrix. David always takes a unique perspective on things, and that's one of the things I appreciate most about his writing. In his article he's offering up three big flattop alternatives: America class smaller carriers, MLP commercial style carriers, and a radical shift towards underwater long range strike. It did get me thinking about something, if the Navy took long range precision strike out of naval aviation, what kind of platform would you build to field naval aviation at sea that focuses on fleet support? This is a fictional "what if" not a "what I would do" question.

Ray Mabus is a complicated guy, and even after 4 years I can't decide if I like him or not. He is stubborn as hell though, and I admit I do admire that about him. I keep hearing that Ray Mabus was repeatedly told that if he backed away from biofuels, he was going to be offered more opportunities in the Obama administration. From what I hear, he basically told the President "thanks, but no thanks" and has stuck to his belief that alternative energy really is an important issue and something the Navy needs to continue working on as a function of long term reserve planning. Today it is somewhat hard to believe the investment is worth it, but in 20 years we may all look back through the sands of history and describe him as the guy in the room who was legitimately thinking ahead. Either way, the Senate is allowing the Navy’s ‘green fleet’ to sail on. While this topic gets a lot of attention, even his Republican opponents know that the amount of money involved in the more riskier investments really isn't enough to get too worked up over. True, money is tight, but there is some evidence indicating that some of his alternative energy investments in things like solar and advanced batteries does become, at worst, cost neutral over time.

Freedom is having problems. The ship has already lost a Fincantieri Isotta-Fraschini ship service diesel generators (SSDG), and a seventeen degree roll (which really isn't a big roll in my opinion) to port knocked out power the other day. According to Aviation Week the ship has now lost power three times since departing Pearl Harbor. I am standing by what I have always said, the Navy will not build more than 12 of each of either ship without significant design changes.

Today is Bob Work's last day as Under Secretary.

Talking Littoral Combat Ships With the Under

The following contribution is by Robert 'O Work, Undersecretary of the Navy. He has requested I post this response to my LCS blog post from last night. The response was directed at me, and he originally was going to publish these remarks in the comment thread of the other post, but my sense from Bob's request is that he is looking to talk LCS with everyone - not just me, so have fun but be respectful in the comments.

Galrahn: thanks for your candid assessment. As someone who has generally been supportive of the LCS, I was looking forward to your reaction, and to what promises to be a lively give and take over the next couple of posts.  Here are simply a few rejoinders for now:

I know we disagree on this point, but I think your first point is you are asking for the second of two reports, which is yet to be written.  The one that tells the potential future histories of the ship.  I think that report is premature. This ship is unlike any ship the Navy has ever built; it is a truly disruptive system, requiring different thinking.  I wouldn't write the second report until the ships have been in the fleet for some time so Sailors can really determine the absolute best way to operate and fight the ship

Second, you complain that the report is simply a rehash of history. But, like Ralph Peters, I like to take a GPS approach to things....first thing you have to know is where you are.  And it is a good thing to know how you got there.  And despite all the talking and blogging about LCS over the past three years, I have always been dissatisfied about complaints of this or that without putting into context what the ship was designed to do.  So, this report was written first to answer the question: why isn't the LCS a corvette? Why isn't it a frigate?  Why does it look the way it does? What it is designed to do? How did we get to this point?  After talking to literally hundreds of people, despite all the LCS's well documented programmatic history, there was little written on why leaders made the decisions they made. As a result, it seemed clear to me that few people really appreciated the thought process and decisions that went into the ship, the difficult tradeoffs made, and why the ship is the designed the way it is.  The purpose of this report is to catalog the history in as objective way as possible, in a different way than I've seen to this point.

I read your blog--and I know this is not what you meant (at least I think this to be true)--and it almost sounds as if you expect the development of a ship to be a simple engineering problem, with predictable, well-defined decision points. That the ship concept of ops needs to be stable, like the design drawings. If there is anything I've learned as Undersecretary, nothing could be further from the truth. Ships are conceived as part of a fleet design, with good ideas on how they will fit into it. But things change, especially for a system like LCS that doesn't fit into any neat box. And subsequent decisions are made for any number of reasons over the course of years--to account for programmatic, budget, threat, and program execution changes. The development is never a straight path.  After analyzing the LCS's developmental history, I conclude: okay, the Navy could have done three things much better: early program execution; staying on narrative; and prepping the surface warfare enterprise for the ship.  But in terms of concept, design tradeoffs, and capability and capacities, I think this program remained remarkably stable and true to the original intent.  I therefore conclude the Navy got the ship it wanted, with pretty much the capabilities it wanted, for pretty much the price it wanted. In my view, this hardly the management execution fiasco you describe.

Now it is certainly true than any honest and objective narrative about a ship's development history is going to be a hair-raising story of expectations, balancing requirements versus program costs, and making hard tradeoffs.  As I prepared the history, even as one more familiar with the LCS than most, I was surprised how the ship evolved through its development process.  But, like I said,  we pretty much got to where the people who conceived of the ship intended to go; now it's time to take it out and let Sailors really wring it out.  As I say in the report, I trust our Sailors to help us make the LCS even better.  In the meantime, however, it's looking to be a pretty capable small combatant--albeit different in kind than most.

I couldn't agree more with a segment of your closing paragraph:" the  Littoral Combat Ship - warts and all - is one of the great things the Navy is doing today and legitimately - besides ballistic missile defense - the only sign of innovation in surface warfare taking place on the entire planet..." But it is definitely a disruptive system.  It will evolve in fleet service, as we exploit its strengths and better understand its weaknesses.  What's wrong with that?

Finally, this report was not intended to be an analytical defense of 55 LCSs.  That comes with our Force Structure Assessments.  Our new one comes out soon.  We can talk about numbers when it does.

Looking forward to more give and take.

Best, Bob

LCS - A History Lesson in Failed Execution

(Lt. Jan Shultis / U.S. Navy)

The Naval War College has released a working paper titled The Littoral Combat Ship: How We Got Here, and Why, by Robert O. Work. I think it is a very interesting read and perhaps one of the most candid and insightful collections of history related to a Navy program that many of us have watched unfold in real time over the last decade. I have many thoughts, and have no intention of trying to capture all of them in a single post, so for the foreseeable future I intend to discuss this topic through several posts.

First, I note that John Lehman was the last political appointee to ever put anything this comprehensive together on paper as a professional contribution to the Navy community. Given the current political environment, this might also be the last time we see a political appointee make this kind of professional contribution for the next few decades.

I was originally given this paper in October to read for feedback when Bob Work submitted it to the NWC for publication. My opinion has not changed. I appreciate the effort and the detailed research poured into this article, and I understand what the Undersecretary is trying to do, but in my opinion I think the article does what everyone always does when discussing the Littoral Combat Ship - it focuses on the mistakes of the past. Because the history of the Littoral Combat Ship is a lesson in what not to do, I personally no longer find anything in the history of the Littoral Combat Ship of any value because I look towards the future of the program, not the past. In my opinion the history of the program, as laid out in detail by Bob Work's latest paper, offers no justification for the stated future of the LCS program at 55 ships.

If the Navy had any credibility left on the Littoral Combat Ship, and for the record I am not sure they do right now, it is my impression this paper erodes all remaining credibility of the Littoral Combat Ship into oblivion. While I know that is not what Bob Work was trying to do, I do believe the paper ultimately delivers the impression that the Navy has been lost at sea trying to execute the concept of this program from the beginning.

At the end of the paper on pages 45-46 (PDF pages 49-50) recent activities that have happened under the leadership of CNO Greenert are discussed. Those activities include the sustainment war game conducted in January of 2012 to assess the logistics, maintenance, and support plans to support the early deployment of USS Freedom (LCS 1) to Singapore, the "OPNAV Report" assembled and delivered by Rear Admiral Samuel Perez last spring, the review of LCS material condition by Rear Admiral Robert Wray, President of the Navy's Board of Inspection and Survey, in preparation for the upcoming deployment, and the second wargame early summer 2012 directed by Admiral John Harvey on LCS concepts of deployment and operations.

Those four activities were the major Littoral Combat Ship activities of 2012, and with the ship set to deploy in only a few weeks, perhaps it is time to review where the Navy is today as a result of all that history in the Work paper.

The first wargame on logistics, maintenance, and support plans was held in January 2012. Chris Cavas has an article about it here written in July of last year. The wargame was expected to help the Navy plan for the upcoming USS Freedom (LCS 1) deployment, and I am sure it will be very helpful in that regard, but the results of the wargame suggest the Littoral Combat Ship program is going to have serious problems as a forward operating vessel in ports where US Navy presence is limited, ports like the one USS Freedom (LCS 1) will be stationed at in Singapore.

The OPNAV Report put together by Rear Admiral Samuel Perez was completed early last year and is so brutally honest about the Littoral Combat Ship the Navy can't even release a declassified version for public consumption because it would, legitimately, be too embarrassing and likely damage the non-existent credibility of the LCS program. The OPNAV Report was exactly what the Navy asked for, an honest assessment of what is needed to fix the Littoral Combat Ship, and it turned out that honesty was also brutally ugly. God bless Rear Admiral Perez for doing a wonderful job that legitimately may actually save the Littoral Combat Ship program. Noteworthy, Rear Admiral Perez got promoted for his good work before he was sent off to the State Department where his career will likely end and no one will ever hear from him for the rest of his career. I'd love to be wrong on that last point, but historically when a Flag Officer gets sent to the State Department, it is like the Russians sending a General to command a remote barracks in Siberia.

Chris Cavas discusses the OPNAV Report here and here.

Rear Admiral Robert Wray is a really smart guy. USS Freedom (LCS 1) is something of a one-off version with lots of problems. None of the rest of Freedom class will be anything like LCS-1, in fact in that respect, the Navy really did get what they paid for when they purchased the ship with R&D money - although because the execution of the program was so bad the Navy paid too much for what amounts to the R&D lemon. I am inclined to believe that Rear Admiral Wray will have LCS-1 as ready as the ship could be for the deployment.

Finally, Fleet Forces command held the second wargame focused on LCS concepts of employment and operations in the early summer of last year. Bob Work mentions this on page 46 of his report, but what he doesn't mention is that the wargame ultimately found the LCS as is today to be a complete dumpster fire. It would be inaccurate to describe the second wargame as a waste of time, because the wargame revealed a great number of things the Littoral Combat Ship can't do. USS Freedom (LCS-1) is only a few weeks away from deployment, and yet in the January 2013 issue of Proceedings Rear Admiral Rowden discusses the LCS by noting:

We are also codifying the framework under which the LCS will be employed, known as the Concept of Employment (CONEMP). This document will evolve based on experience and will be a foundational reference, dictating how we will operate, man, train, maintain, modernize, and sustain these ships. The CONEMP will frame the critical program tenets and planning factors to build and refine the various mission-specific CONOPs and other implementation documents issued to support LCS Fleet introduction.

It goes on to say:

The Fleet’s forthcoming mission-specific CONOPs and refinements to the ship’s current warfighting and platform wholeness CONOPs will follow. LCS is a component of a balanced force, structured to defeat adversaries seeking to deny our access. The LCS CONEMP and various CONOPs will likely be very different documents from what we’re accustomed to, given the unique concepts of LCS and its emerging role in the Fleet.

In other words, the Navy is about to deploy the ship to the south Pacific for naval operations and they still don't have their concept for employment or concept of operations finalized because it will be informed through experience. Folks like Rear Admiral Rowden are basically running around saying something akin to 'the sailors will figure out this LCS thing for us!'

As a bit of snark, I'll just note the sailors have no choice but to figure it out now that Admirals have spent nearly a dozen years - as laid out in full detail by Bob Work no less - really screwing it up. In the context of the history of the Littoral Combat Ship, all signs both in word and deed suggest that Navy leaders are still improvising and making it up as they go with LCS, doing so with the hope the deployment is the completion of a Hail Mary pass. If it was as easy as a choice, I would bet on the sailors before I would bet on the Admirals, or Undersecretary - but we all know there is nothing simple about the task the crews of FREEDOM are facing.

The Navy has spent less than $12 billion on the LCS to date, which really isn't much when compared to the $50 billion the Navy has already spent on the vaporware of the Joint Strike Fighter. For perspective, building the 24th Littoral Combat Ship to completion will ultimately mean the Navy has invested just over 2% of their total budget over that time - from top to bottom - on training, maintenance, manpower, construction, everything LCS. All the criticism and anger and passion over LCS is really only about 2% of the budget. By comparison aircraft carriers are at least 13% that I can quickly account for in the budget, and just owning them has serious influence over a much greater percentage like type and number of escorts that are necessary.

At 24 ships I still believe the Navy can get the return on investment in lessons learned needed to develop a true battle network at sea mothership capability that advances US Navy seapower generations ahead of all competition. Yes, believe it or not, if the LCS worked as conceptualized it absolutely would advance US seapower generations ahead of the competition. To date, concept and execution have been far from equal, not even close actually.

At 55 ships, LCS can never return on the investment, indeed after the Bob Work paper anyone who suggests the Navy needs 55 Littoral Combat Ships needs to produce strong supporting data and make that case, because in my opinion the Naval War College just published strong supporting data that the data used to get to 55 ships never existed intellectually. Indeed 55 Littoral Combat Ships was, perhaps not even figuratively, just a dream.

More than anything else right now, what the Littoral Combat Ship needs is a public plan and vision of the future that inspires and is exciting with potential, because right now the future of LCS is a dark uncertain place that has sailors wondering if it is worth getting involved in. Bob Work's paper is the most informative paper on LCS published publicly in many years, and yet all it really does is reflect the past - just like virtually everyone else who talks about the LCS on the internet.


It shouldn't be this hard to execute a good concept. I still strongly believe the Littoral Combat Ship - warts and all - is one of the great things the Navy is doing today and legitimately - besides ballistic missile defense - the only sign of innovation in surface warfare taking place on the entire planet, but if the future is as poorly managed as the past has clearly been, the LCS will be noted in history as an expensive, wasted opportunity.

Driving the Discussion

Bob Work just walked into #SAS12 and decided to start a big discussion on LCS, among other topics. There was a lot of good information discussed - I have 6 pages of notes which will take forever to go through. Get ready for LCS news saturation, because I got the impression Bob intended on kick start a public debate by boiling water on a lot of issues - and specifically LCS. It was very refreshing to see the raw passion about the current direction of the Navy, it is unclear why we don't see that raw emotion from uniformed Navy leaders, but it does inspire.

CDR Salamander, call your office, pretty sure the UNDER decided to kick sand your direction on LCS when he all but shouted the LCS will "kick their ass" when discussing small boats and LCS "will escort logistics ships." There is so much more...

Worth noting, Robby Harris asked about the blog discussion regarding ship counting rules, and Bob Work made clear the PCs and AHs are not in the new 300 ship plan, then he discussed that a bit. I have been in discussion with folks on this topic offline and will discuss this topic in the very near future. Bob Work said "there is no subterfuge." That's the right word, but I'll let others decide if there is a shell game at work.

Those of you who enjoy flaming me for getting something wrong (like the PCs and AHs) will soon have a chance to gloat. I look forward to it.

Budget Focus: DDG-51 Reveals Unreasonable Expectations

It is very difficult to tell looking at a budget what exactly the Navy is thinking, but the nice thing about a budget is that it gives us some idea what the Navy wants to do. The DDG-51 restart has had a number of questions surrounding it that have previously had few answers in public. There has been a lot of speculation, and the PowerPoints can sometimes look very rosy, but the details of what is happening are often far and few.

Based on conversations with folks in San Diego last month and now looking at the Navy budget, it appears we can get some idea what is coming with the DDG-51 restart. As you know, when the DDG-1000 came around the final number of the DDG-51 was 62, but with the restart I believe we can safely put that number at 65, 72, or 75 with room to grow depending upon how one looks at it.

According to the FY 2012 budget, the Navy will issue contracts for 2 DDG-51s in April of this year, one for Ingalls Shipbuilding and one for Bath Iron Works. These two DDG-51s are the two that are yet to be funded in FY 2011 (DDG-114 and DDG-115). What is unclear is when we might see the contract for DDG-113, which in the budget the contract issue date is listed as TBD but the budget also mentions negotiations should conclude in the Spring of 2011.

There are several budget items that cover the inclusion of Ballistic Missile Defense in DDG-113 making that ship the primary vessel for the integration of Advanced Capability Build 12 certification for new construction DDG-51s, integration that is expected to be concluded by the Q2 of 2016. That would be just before the two FY 2011 ships are expected to be delivered in August of 2016, assuming all goes well with the restart.

So what do we make of this? There are two ways to read it and I am not 100% sure which is correct.

Potential Option #1
Just as the LCS program had 4 ships before a block buy contract was signed to build 20 ships, the DDG-51 program is going to restart the program with three ships purchased on individual contracts before a block buy is issued for 10 ships funded between FY 2012 - FY 2017. That means we can expect the 3 DDG-51s funded in FY 2010 and FY 2011 to be very expensive, accounting for the 5 year pause in construction at the shipyards, but the 10 additional DDG-51s to come in at a much more reasonable, negotiated price.

Potential Option #2
But there are still a lot of questions, or perhaps I should say I'm not quite sure I am reading this correctly. From the FY 2012 Budget Highlights Book (PDF).

Air and Missile Defense Radar (AMDR)
The budget requests $167 million to complete the Air and Missile Defense Radar’s Technology Development phase in FY 2012 in preparation for Milestone B in the first quarter of FY 2013. The radar is an open-architecture solution to the requirement for Ballistic Missile Defense, while also improving the DDG-51 class air defense capabilities. AMDR is envisioned to go on the FY 2016 DDG Flight III ship.

From what I understood based on Undersecretary Work's comments in San Diego, the Navy desires and will seek Congressional approval for a negotiated block buy contract for 10 destroyers, but maybe I misunderstood which ten destroyers he was talking about.

Complicating the issue, Undersecretary Work specifically said the block buy would include AMDR, but maybe he was just being hopeful? Based on that paragraph in the Highlights Book, the block buy could be the 10 DDG-51s funded between FY 2010 - FY 2015, and the DDG-51 Flight III that includes the AMDR begins in FY 2016 with that one ship and continues in FY 2017 with two ships into a multi-year into the future?

I do not believe the FY 2010 or FY 2011 ships are in the multi-year plans though.

This is what I think the Navy is going to try to do... The Navy is going to try to negotiate a block purchase of 10 DDG-51s from FY 2012 - FY 2017 but include in that negotiation the AMDR and Flight III start for the last three ships of that multi-year beginning in FY 2016. Sean Stackley has proven he can do amazing things, but when considering the redesign for cooling, power, etc... necessary for the Flight IIIs, I just can't see the industry going for that.

So instead of potential options, lets look at more realistic scenarios.

Realistic Scenario #1
The Navy is going to issue contracts for the FY 2010 DDG-51 (DDG-113) this spring, and issue contracts for the two FY 2011 DDG-51s in April 2011 - assuming the FY 2011 budget gets passed in time. The Navy will then ask Congress to approve a multi-year purchase option for FY 2012 - FY 2015 of seven additional ships, bringing the total number of DDG-51s to 72. Beginning in FY 2016 the Navy will fund the first DDG-51 Flight III hull that includes AMDR, and will fund two more Flight III hulls in FY 2017. We will likely see a block purchase of Flight IIIs with the AMDR begin in FY 2018, even if the Navy desires otherwise.

There are several R&D budget items that focus on improving the DDG-51 Flight III ships, everything from hybrid drive technologies to integrating new weapon systems. I do not know how much the Flight III will grow to accommodate the AMDR and associated cooling, power, etc... necessary to make the Flight III capable, but I do note the budget does appear to reflect about 25% additional funding per hull for the DDG-51 Flight IIIs beginning in FY 2016. Is it optimistic of the Navy to assume the first Block III destroyer will cost $2.5 billion, while the second and third Flight IIIs will cost an average of $2.2 billion? It is unclear, because the final design of the Flight IIIs is still very unclear.

Some Final Thoughts

The DDG-51 is going to be looked back in history the greatest warship class ever in it's era, surpassing even the Iowa class battleships, and potentially any era if new Flights are capable of staying viable. To put the DDG-51 class in context, the ship will reign as the most capable design with the most combat capability from a period beginning in 1991 and extending ahead for at least the next few decades, and the DDG-51 Flight IIIs funded in FY 2017 will not be due for retirement until around 2062. Based on current plans, the DDG-51 will serve longer than the Iowa class battleships. If the DDG-51 Flight IIIs are funded for ten years, say between FY 2016 - FY 2025, for example - when the last of the Flight IIIs are delivered into service in 2030 they would be expected to serve until 2070.

Thought about another way, the DDG-51 is expected to serve the US Navy on the front lines as a major ship of the battle line for at least 71 years, and who knows how many more depending upon how many years the US Navy builds the Flight IIIs after FY 2017. In the context of history, we have to go back to the age of sail to find equivalency, and it would mean the USS Constitution would have been expected to be a front line vessel during the Civil War instead of a training ship. Is the Navy being too optimistic with the Flight IIIs? In my opinion, the Flight IIIs must include all-electric engineering or those ships will never be capable of serving their full service lives as a viable first rate ship of the battle line.

I note the Navy did not include a 30-year plan in any of the budget items, so it is hard to see what comes after FY 2017 for the DDG-51 program. Based on everything we are seeing and hearing as it concerns finances, the Navy's shipbuilding plan for the next 5 years is very optimistic, entirely reliant on everything working out perfectly including favorable contracts negotiated over multiple years (which still requires Congressional approval), not to mention an expectation that the budget is not reduced in any future years but instead flat lines to no growth except with inflation. The optimistic budget condition is very hard to believe when it comes to major surface combatants because the Navy cannot afford even 2 DDGs a year this decade which is necessary to sustain 2 shipyards, and next decade the shipbuilding budget will also be struggling to fund SSBN(X) replacements.

Based on my study of the FY 2012 budget, I have a hard time seeing the optimism the Navy is expressing regarding the state of their shipbuilding plans, in fact I don't see it at all. The Navy appears to legitimately be at the Tipping Point and is ignoring this reality, or they have some secret Plan B yet to be revealed that goes well beyond simply hoping to get more favorable contracts.

The only Plan B option I see even possible is if the Navy can somehow muster the necessary leadership in uniform as the next CNO who can advocate a higher percentage of the DoD budget from the other services. I do believe the American people, tired of funding and supporting land wars in foreign lands, is primed to listen to such arguments if an alternative vision is articulated well. I would love to be wrong, but if the next CNO is the guy everyone believes it is going to be, the Navy is already at the Tipping Point and this budget is going to be seen in hindsight as laughable.

I hate to play the role of Captain Obvious, but we live in an era of communications and the favorite son expected by OPNAV as the next CNO is a smart guy, but being smart isn't enough. In today's environment, smart by itself is a standard that is parochial enough to insure that in a communication era the Navy doesn't get the support they believe they need from the American taxpayer to sustain their vision, because the vision will never be articulated well enough to be seen by anyone outside the Navy. If the next CNO isn't a spokesman capable of connecting when communicating the necessity of a strong Navy to Congress and the American taxpayer, the vision expressed in the Navy's FY 2012 budget is dead on arrival, and it is time to accept the Tipping Point reality.

Can We Retire A2AD?

Since Dr. Krepinevich and Bob Work coined the phrase back in 2003 or thereabouts, a term of art largely describing an adversary's ability to contest our freedom of maneuver has gained relevance. "Anti-Access/Area Denial" (or A2AD) has become one of those phrases that those in the know love to use, but which upon closer inspection, seem less meaningful.

Here's one way Dr.K and Mr. Work distinguish A2 from AD "If anti-access (A2) strategies aim to prevent US forces entry into a theater of operations, then area-denial (AD) operations aim to prevent their freedom of action in the more narrow confines of the area under an enemy’s direct control." For seven years now I have struggled to understand why the distinction is important, and I continue to come up empty on this one. If the primary distinction is one of where (geographically) the adversary's actions are directed, it seems to me to be insufficient rationale to make the distinction. As an example--an aircraft carrier targeted by an anti-ship ballistic missile is subject to an "anti-access" challenge. An LHD offloading LCAC's on the horizon attacked with G-RAMM is subject to an "area denial"challenge. Do we need two terms for this?

I'd advocate that we settle on one term or the other.

Bryan McGrath