Coast Guard as a Means of National Power

I received many great comments and e-mails, in response to my post a few weeks ago looking for thoughts as to ways the USCG was a national instrument of power and how best to articulate that value to the public.  A standard method at looking at the various elements of national power is to group them in one of four general areas, Diplomacy, Information, Military, and Economic.  This is the DIME model (as one commenter pointed out, there is a body of opinion that DIME is an outdated model in that other kinds of power elements may also be found.  I recognize this perspective, but personally prefer DIME, so I will use it here).

The thoughts on "how" were generally similar to my own:

The USCG is able to project US power and influence through when, where and over whom it exercises law enforcement jurisdiction, those with whom it works, trains, exercises, deploys, and when it is able to respond to a contingency, especially when already deployed.

All of this works well within the 2007 Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower, which is a great expression of how the efforts of the three sea services should fit together.

Across the USCG's 11 missions, I find six, Drug interdiction, Living marine resources, Defense readiness, Migrant interdiction, Ice operations, and Other law enforcement, that regularly fit within my definition.  My list is somewhat flexible as there are certainly times when the other five missions (Ports, waterways, and coastal security, Aids to navigation, Search and rescue, Marine safety, and Marine environmental protection) can also be flexed.  I am attempting to parse out missions that regularly reflect elements of power, rather than simply may appear on an international stage.  Feel free to fire away in comments.


The USCG's work in these six missions won't always be an exercise of power, but, looking at the elements of DIME, many of the activities undertaken in these missions do fit in at least one of the elements of power.


I will build on some of the specifics in my next several posts.

The views expressed herein are those of the blogger and are not to be construed as official or reflecting the views of the Commandant or of the U. S. Coast Guard. Nor should they be construed as official or reflecting the views of the National War College, National Defense University, or the Department of Defense.

Correct the Mistake of Seapower 21

Is there a group think idea in the blogosphere? I think so, I've seen it in other places too, so it isn't unique to the blogosphere, but what bothers me is that the idea doesn't really make a lot of sense when given serious consideration... at least for me.

It is often suggested the Littoral Combat Ship is a ship in search of a purpose. I think that statement is false, the Littoral Combat Ship is an imperfect mothership design for delivering unmanned vehicles to forward theaters to support MIW, ASW, and ASuW. Regardless of anything else that has been said about the Littoral Combat Ship, that mission requirement exists, and the necessity to provide unmanned platforms supporting MIW and ASW littoral challenges is very important to the future Navy. The LCS can do that job.

That is why I don't believe the LCS is in search of a purpose. I think people have adopted that position, but I see it like this. The Navy has mission profiles in search of a ship to meet the requirements in the field, and the Navy is assigning the Littoral Combat Ship to address those requirements even though the LCS is a bad fit. That is a different problem than suggesting the LCS is in search of a purpose.

I continue to wonder if the Navy has any intention of doing a final cleanup of Seapower 21 now that they have begun the process of truncating the DDG-1000. While Seapower 21 has been criticized as a failure of strategic thinking, in hindsight I think they got the strategy aspect more accurate than has been given credit, and ultimately failed to get the details right. Seapower 21 said we need an arsenal ship, which we got with the SSGN. Seapower 21 said we needed a cruiser replacement, which will be CG(X). Seapower 21 said we needed a new surface combatant to address 21st century challenges. Seapower 21 said we needed motherships for delivering unmanned systems to forward theaters.

Had Seapower 21 said big motherships and small surface combatants, instead of the big DDG-1000 surface combatant design and the small LCS mothership design, I think most people would agree the Navy would be in good shape even if we were seeing cost overruns on the small combatants.

I still believe that is the way ahead. The Navy should build 26 Littoral Combat Ships to replace the minesweepers, spending money on MIW is a good thing in the emerging 21st century maritime environment. After that, I think the Navy needs to refocus its unmanned systems strategy by building bigger ships to accommodate the likely increase in weight and size we will see in future unmanned systems. I also do not see how the aluminum LCS, with a bridge surrounded by glass, unable to support larger weapon systems, and too expensive to field in reasonable numbers can be a serious solution for the littoral warfare challenges sure to be faced over the next 3 decades. Assigning that requirement to the LCS is not the answer, building a combatant for the 21st century, a true armed and survivable combatant that can sustain presence off foreign shores, is the way ahead for matching the force structure of tomorrow to the maritime strategy for the 21st century as outlined by the Navy today.

Sell The Strategy to Expand the Fleet

The world has changed quite a bit since the cold war when the DDG-51 was conceived, and quite a bit since the Gulf War when the DDG-1000 was conceived. When the Maritime Strategy was being produced, Mullen made it clear the Maritime Strategy would begin with Seapower 21 (PDF) and use the rapidly changing world resulting from globalization as context. In many ways, many not obvious until mentioned, the Navy has already evolved in the 21st century, but these things aren't self evident until discussed.

The Navy is currently putting bombs on target in support of the Army and Marines, successfully fielding an Army of IAs and others to plug holes in Army force structure, gaining and assimilating experience in unconventional but non-SOF warfare through an aggressive NECC, recruiting sufficient recruits, retaining sufficient experienced officers (although there is work to be done here in regards to experienced Captains), supplying Admirals to top joint and other national leadership positions (CJCS, DNI, Combatant Commanders, etc.), and not unduly embarrassing the country with horrific scandals or with unseemly inter-service turf brawls. These are great reasons why the Nation has a lot to be proud of in regards to the Navy, but these positive trends are often lost in any discussion of the Navy.

The one aspect of evolution in the 21st century not visible is the shipbuilding plan, which carries with it visibility with the American people on a higher plane than those other items. In speaking to the American people about shipbuilding and Navies, we think it is important to keep it simple, make it easy to understand, and insure the explanation is as self evident as possible. Meeting all three goals in Washington DC requires brilliant PPT skills, but it doesn't have to for communicating to a broader audience.

On this blog, we intentionally keep things simple. I have an outstanding artist who works for me, and I could easily instruct him to make this fairly plain looking blog hip and stylish, but to what end? The simplicity in layout insures fast loading of content, and the only stunning visuals we highlight here is the excellent photography we associate with blog posts. In other words, readers aren't distracted by the imagery of the blog, rather the imagery of the blog content. This is intentional. In communicating our message to readers, our strategy is to focus the reader on substance, not style, thus why we keep it simple.

We discuss maritime strategy using the simple visual analogy of a Yin Yang. The Yin Yang represents warfighting and peacemaking as two opposing and, at the same time, complementary (completing) applications of naval power.

We believe the Navy must take a balanced approach addressing the requirements for winning war and managing peace as instructed by the maritime strategy. If the Navy is to balance itself, this means there must be a commitment to building flexible forces for leveraging the sea as base to connect with the non-integrated gaps, and in this way position itself to better manage the maritime challenges of peacetime. Using the Yin Yang analogy, if black is war and white is peace, this analogy is used to recognize the white dot as peacemaking forces as a requirement for winning war, just as the black dot represents warfighter capabilities as a requirement for managing peace. We believe this analogy is self evident to anyone with a clear understanding of modern conventional and asymmetrical warfare.

The current Navy is built to fight major wars against peer opponents. The Navy of today consists of 11 aircraft carriers, 109 surface combatants (22 CGs, 52 DDGs, 30 FFGs, and 5 PCs), 2 Littoral Combat Ships, 53 attack submarines, 4 cruise missile submarines, 14 ballistic missile submarines, 31 amphibious warfare ships (3 LHAs 7 LHDs, 9 LPDs, and 12 LSDs), and 14 minesweepers. This list does not include the 31 combat logistics ships and 17 support ships.

Of the 167 total surface vessels in the fleet, only 51 are less than 4200 tons. That ratio represents 30% of the total surface force, and all 51 are unrated surface combatants. Of just the surface combatant force, 33% are less than 4200 tons, again all of them unrated. The naval force today is completely unbalanced in favor of the wartime requirement for fighting the Soviet Union of 1989 or the Iraqi Army of 1991. 66% of the total surface combatant fleet is designed to do two things very well, destroy targets on land with cruise missiles and shoot down many varieties of cruise missile and aircraft threats in the air. When talking about the threat environment of the 21st century, be it submarines, ballistic missiles, small boat swarms, mines, and a variety of asymmetric threats, the Navy is not well designed for meeting those challenges.

In keeping things simple, we liken the current resource strategy to an upside down triangle. Looking at the upside down triangle, if you were to write war at the top and peace at the bottom, then inside the triangle divide it into three parts with two horizontal lines, write Sea Strike in the large top portion, Sea Shield in the middle portion, and Sea Basing in the bottom small portion (Seapower 21). you just created a PPT slide of the fleet constitution of the US Navy today. We do not believe that type of fleet constitution matches the Navy's own maritime strategy. This is why we find the debate on Capitol Hill regarding the DDG-1000 to be so extraordinarily stupid, because the debate is ultimately about which type of battleship the Navy should fill in the top large "Sea Strike" portion of the upside down triangle, a political debate to ultimately decide if the nation should build the battleship for fighting the 1989 Soviet Union, or the battleship for fighting against the 1991 Iraq Army.

Only because of the ignorance and apathy of the average American regarding the Navy would such a silly debate ever be allowed to occur.

Now take a triangle sitting on a long base with a point at the top. Write war above the tip and peace along the bottom. Inside the triangle divide it into three parts with two horizontal lines, write Sea Strike in the small top portion, Sea Shield in the middle portion, and Sea Basing in the bottom large portion. We believe this triangle would better illustrate the fleet constitution strategy better aligned with the requirements of the Navy's maritime strategy. Allow us to elaborate.

In major power war, the Navy should be very aware by now that Command of the Sea in the 21st century is determined by aircraft and submarines. Between the CVN force, the SSBN force, the SSGN force, and the SSN force all forms of sea control and power projection are achieved. Even today, whether it is with carrier aviation in the current wars or submarines picking off targets with cruise missiles in failed states like Somalia, these are the major combat platforms at sea. This is also self evident in the way the Navy develops its surface combatant force, which is designed to protect high value vessels from air and submarine attack. The surface combatant fleet doesn't even bother putting anti-ship missiles on its most advanced battleships, because the Navy knows that aircraft will sink enemy ships long before the surface fleet is in range to attack.

However, for peacetime roles today the Navy only has a limited number of ships to draw from. The ships pushing the peacetime activities required to achieve the goals of the maritime strategy include the amphibious force, the small combatants under 4200 tons, and the ships operated by the Military Sealift Command. Indeed if you look at activities like that of the Coast Guard cutter Dallas (WHEC 716), the Navy is basically outsourcing its peacetime engagement responsibilities in major maritime theaters to the already stretched thin Coast Guard. The Navy really should be embarrassed that it is incapable of doing the mission the Coast Guard does today in the Persian Gulf, it is a tragedy of leadership the Navy doesn't see its inability to do that mission as a problem, because that is part of the global mission set the maritime domain demands in today's maritime era.

The Navy, indeed Congress and the American people in general, are under the misguided perception that the AEGIS battleship is the dreadnought of our era. This is absolutely false, and would only be true if the Navy was facing a peer competitor. The Dreadnought of the modern maritime era is the Amphibious Ship, and what we call the mothership; essentially the weapon system and logistical enabler capable of saturating the maritime domain with manned and unmanned systems to USE command of the sea, and influence that domain throughout the littorals and into land. Without the ability to saturate the maritime domain with naval power and establish what the Navy calls Maritime Domain Awareness, the Navy is unable to maintain command of the sea, thus unable to exploit its use to promote the conditions necessary for building a stable, peaceful maritime environment that promotes economic growth in struggling states.

By using submarines to alleviate the surface combatant force from having to carry the burden of major war, the surface fleet should reconstitute itself with fewer battleships and more smaller surface combatants to operate within these theater Sea Bases. In other words, using the triangle analogy described above for peacetime, the resource strategy would list submarines and aircraft carriers in the small area labeled sea strike, the battleships in the middle portion labeled sea shield, and a large number of motherships, amphibious ships, small combatants, logistics ships, and support ships filling the large portion at the bottom of the triangle to support the peacetime, or SysAdmin, requirements as established in the Navy's maritime strategy. This force ultimately represents the viable solution for the asymmetrical threats to the maritime domain, because it becomes the forward deployed persistent naval force present to deal with these threats.

It is time to align resources to maritime strategy by recognizing that in the maritime environment of today the Navy is currently in a position to fight its wars with a small number of powerful platforms at the high end, but the Navy requires a saturation force made up of a lot of large flexible amphibious type ships and a large number of smaller surface combatants if the Navy is serious about using command of the sea in peacetime.

The Tactical Node and the Strategic Network

Milan Vego continues to offer hard hitting pieces in the Armed Forces Journal. While we don't always agree with his points, they are always fascinating contributions and his latest piece, Obsessed with tactics, The Navy neglects the importance of operational art doesn't disappoint.

The Navy today is overly focused on the tactical employment of its combat forces, in its doctrine and practice. This might not be a problem in case of a conflict with numerically and technologically inferior forces. However, the Navy would have a much greater problem and possibly suffer a major defeat in a war with a relatively strong opponent that better balances the employment of his forces at the tactical and operational levels of war. The Navy’s superior technology and tactics would not be sufficient to overcome its lack of operational thinking.

The Navy’s over-reliance on technology is also one of the main reasons for its focus on the tactics of employment of platforms, weapons/sensors and combat arms. Moreover, the Navy grossly neglects tactics for employing several naval combat arms or combined arms tactics. Among numerous naval tactical publications, there is not a single one that explains the employment of surface forces, submarines, naval aircraft and combat arms of other services in combination. Another serious problem is that the Navy still lacks a doctrine for the operational level of war at sea. This lack of a broader operational framework greatly complicates writing subordinate tactical doctrinal publications.

Most of the Navy’s attention is given to strike warfare, while so-called “defensive warfare” areas, such as antisubmarine warfare, defense and protection of maritime trade, and mine warfare, are given a short shrift. The fate of the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) in World War II shows what can happen when the focus is almost exclusively on tactics and offensive employment of one’s combat forces. The Japanese were fixated on the single so-called decisive battle. That preoccupation guided the IJN’s tactical doctrine and ship designs resulting in a powerful surface force that was one-dimensional and brittle. Perhaps there is nothing worse than confusing tactics with strategy, and strategy with the conduct of war, as the IJN did in the interwar years.

The article is an excellent read in full. We find several of the points quite interesting, and while we don't agree on all points we do observe there are a number of examples where tactical thinking is emphasized and where strategy is lacking. In particular we really like how Milan Vego has set up the debate for Strike Warfare.

The Navy’s over-reliance on tactics has become even more pronounced with its adoption of network-centric warfare, now commonly referred to as network-centric operations (NCO). The Navy also became one of the strongest proponents of the so-called effects-based approach to operations (EBAO). Despite claims to the contrary, NCO and EBAO use tactical techniques and procedures to accomplish the objectives across the levels of war. Yet purely tactical actions such as strikes cannot replace, major operations as the main method of accomplishing operational objectives, at least not yet

NCO also provides, through the FORCEnet network architecture, the key component for the execution of the Navy’s vision for the 21st century, Sea Power 21. Except for some elements of Sea Shield and Sea Basing, Sea Power 21 is not focused on the operational level of war. For example, one of the major components of Sea Power 21, Sea Strike, is essentially a tactical concept. Among other things, it envisages that “netted fires and automated decision aids will accelerate the launching of precision attacks on critical targets in order to create appropriate effects.”

The Navy’s narrow and tactical focus is highlighted in almost all its official statements regarding the employment of major tactical forces — the carrier strike groups, expeditionary strike groups, strike or theater ballistic missile surface action groups, and maritime prepositioning groups — as the principal forces subordinate to joint force commander. The numbered and theater fleets, such as the 7th Fleet and the Pacific Fleet, are rarely mentioned. Yet only theater forces have the capabilities to accomplish operational and strategic objectives in war at sea.

When reading this article our discussions trended towards a focus on the node vs a focus on the network, and what each piece has come to represent. A node can be described as a tactical application of technology for "effects" while a network is a strategic application of theater forces for influence. Milan Vego didn't quite carry it that far, but we will.

We think there is a good argument that the node approach to naval warfare describes the Navy's own resource priorities. The tactical mindset would immediately explain why a system like the Cyclone class Patrol Ship would be dismissed by the "effects-based approach" and given up to the Coast Guard, only now to realize how effective these platforms are as part of the strategic theater network.

We really like that Milon Vego links "effects-based approach" to a tactical view of "network-centric operations" because truth is evident in his astute observation. The early controversies that surrounded discussions of network-centric warfare in the Navy were specific to network nodes, not the network itself, specifically most of the criticism of Admiral Cebrowski's Streetfighter focused on the small platforms that lacked capability for "effects" at the unit level, and in this tactical view individual platforms were seen as "expendable". The irony is that an "expendable" label requires a tactical view of an individual platform while the strategic equivalent would be "attrition" due to operations at the theater level of war. The tactical view won that argument, an early sign of trouble.

Aside from the obvious tactical view taken in the means the Navy is developing for executing strategy, the tactical ways observed from Milan Vego are interesting to note. Sea Basing is an interesting example, a 2 battalion metric for offensive operations laid down as a requirement by the Marines is a good example of a tactical requirement for Sea Basing replacing a strategic operational concept of Sea Basing. We wonder what the strategic view of Sea Basing would be if the metric of measurement was slightly different, for example a metric that required support for one Army Stryker BCT, two MEUs, and the integration of three Air Force Wings with naval forces for strategic influence of a host nation. Note the difference, the Marine scenario of the 2 MEB requirement is a tactical maneuver and tactical objective requirement, where the second scenario is a strategic requirement for developing, integrating, and supporting a network towards influence of a strategic objective. We believe that depending upon the view, the nodes would be quite different.

We believe influence at the operational level of war can be assessed based on network metrics rather than node metrics, and network strength can be a measurement for strategic influence just like models that assess tactical influence that individual nodes contribute. We believe that with such an approach the value of strategic speed vs tactical speed would become more obvious as a metric, and any measured value of just-in-time logistics would immediately become subordinate to the value of a strategic reserve. It will not be the tactical node's, rather the strategic networks (either connected or disconnected) that will ultimately influence the operational level of war through improving the human decision process. If it was truly the other way around, one node in Washington DC could make all decisions, a theory long proven a fallacy of network-centric operations.

We believe the tactical view of individual network node's at the operational level of war has allowed the metrics that are used to access success in doctrinal planning to be skewed towards the tactical strengths, resulting in several problems when taking a strategic view of the Navy. Only by taking the strategic view of the network will metric realignment take place towards greater understanding of requirements for warfighting under network-centric operations models at the operational level of war from sea in the modern era.

It is easy enough to prove if either Milan Vega or our own observations are correct in these assertions, simply turn off the network connections between theater forces during exercises. If doctrine is right theater forces will perform responsibilities towards theater strategic objectives without the guidance from central nodes. If doctrine is wrong, one will observe a mesh of tactical moves with no strategic ends.

Observing the Absence of a Strategic View For Surface Combatants

This quote in MarineLink by Rear Adm. Goddard is the most telling statement we have read yet on the DDG-1000 program, and in our opinion is an excellent example why many Americans have trouble understanding the Navy's surface combatant strategy in the context of maritime strategy:

The complementary and interoperable mission capabilities of DDG 1000 and the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS), along with the next-generation multi-mission CG(X) cruiser, will satisfy the full spectrum of operational requirements demanded of the surface combatant force well into the 21st century.

“DDG 1000 is the Dreadnought of our Navy,” says Rear Adm. Chuck Goddard, the Program Executive Officer for Ships (PEO Ships), who is responsible for acquisition of DDG 1000. “For those of you who are historians Dreadnought is the ship that changed the British navy. It was a tough decision for them, and when they did it, they made the rest of the ships obsolete. But it also brought all new technology in terns of hull, propulsion and combat systems. Dreadnought was the first of the true battleships.”

The phrase "operational requirements" is fairly broad, and doesn't offer many clues regarding the approach the Navy has taken regarding the strategy for surface combatant fleet constitution, but based on our observations of the evolution of SC-21 we remain wholly unimpressed. We see the "operational requirements" that have been utilized in the evolution of SC-21 to be very tactical, and in many ways limited in its strategic vision.

SC-21 evolved by applying the conceptual vision of Seapower 21, which is essentially a list of desired metrics. The Navy never had the time to build a strategic vision of the concepts the metrics in Seapower 21 represented. The Navy was in a rush to transition from wargame results at the turn of the century to a new shipbuilding plan mostly due to the time restraints and desire of keeping surface combatant numbers from slipping. The reality that the LCS went from concept to water in less than 5 years highlights this rapid evolution of SC-21.

The LCS, DDG-1000, and Sea Basing when it is described as a program have all become a set of packages with properties or individual platform "operational requirements" that reflect the desired metrics explained in Seapower 21 (stealth, speed, modularity, etc), but we do not see the individual platforms that have evolved from these "operational requirements" as part of a strategic vision based on desired capabilities for the surface combatant fleet, and it is not difficult to highlight why purely from a strategic point of view most observers outside the Navy also have trouble with the current fleet constitution plan.

The US Navy currently has 22 first rate battleships, 62 planned second rate battleships, and a flotilla of 44 unrated ships (Perry's and Avengers). In executing the Maritime Strategy, the Navy is supposed to be operating under the auspices that "every budget is a strategy", but has somehow determined that when executing the new maritime strategy over the next decade the plan should be to increase the fleet with 7 dreadnoughts and replace the current unrated flotilla with a new flotilla of 55 unrated mini-motherships. Is that really the strategic vision for fleet constitution the new maritime strategy is calling for? Based on the comments on this blog, other blogs, and Proceedings for the past several years, only those who fear instability in shipbuilding support the current plan, which implies to us the considerations of shipbuilding costs has trumped any strategic vision for fleet constitution.

If we are taking a historic view of ships and a strategic view of fleet constitution, one would think we should start by looking up the "cruiser role" in our review of seapower and maritime history. We will find the "cruiser role" well described in any story involving Lord Nelson, or evident in any of the last 3+ centuries of maritime power with the exception of only the last ~5 years, specifically the last ~5 years of the US Navy when economic considerations retired all DDs and left the nations guide missile frigates without guided missiles. At the same time, transformational theory replaced the historical view of maritime strategy regarding fleet constitution, and we are now building an all battleship navy supported by an unrated fleet of mini motherships. I want to believe it is unlikely an Annapolis graduate would be unaware of the historical strategic warnings regarding fleet constitutions of all battleships, and yet here we are.

We find it ironic that Julian Corbett warned maritime powers never to pursue fleets of only battleships, warning specifically that fleets that concentrate on battleships will become too expensive to operate enough ships to maintain Command of the Sea. Too expensive to operate enough ships... sound familiar? Corbett wrote this warning in a chapter called Theory of the Means-The Constitution of Fleets in a book called Some Principles of Maritime Strategy; so its not like one of histories greatest maritime strategists hid this lesson in obscurity.

The Duncan Hunter Fleet Of One

Duncan Hunter is still trying to push the Sea Fighter. You know, X-Craft, that beacon of hope for those who hold out for major Navy transformation. Duncan Hunter is under the assumption that if the Navy would just field the Sea Fighter with 500 missiles from a certain company who continues to get earmarks from Mr. Hunter, a company that donates a lot of money to his political campaign, the US would have a better Navy. InsidetheNavy has the money quotes of the latest back and forth. Sorry, subscription only, no link...

House Armed Services Committee ranking member Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) continues to push to make the Navy's Sea Fighter a deployable vessel even though the service says it only plans to use the catamaran for at-sea experiments.

Hunter this year included language in the House version of the fiscal year 2008 defense authorization bill calling for the Sea Fighter to take over the tasks of the HSV-2, a catamaran the Navy is leasing until next July. The report states the Navy’s plan to use Sea Fighter only for experiments “fails to take full advantage of the capabilities of this vessel.”

Though the final FY-08 defense authorization bill agreed to by House and Senate conferees includes no money for modifications to Sea Fighter -- the House report language included $22 million in unrequested funds for the conversion -- Hunter's office maintains that the House-passed language altering Sea Fighter's use stands.

Duncan Hunter's fleet of one is in Florida and he isn't too happy about it. This is the second year in a row Duncan Hunter has tried this trick, and last year the Navy did nothing to move the process along to Duncan Hunter's liking. The difference, in 2007 the House actually put $22 million in the budget which "authorized and appropriated $23 million for the Navy to begin the process of upgrading Sea Fighter so it can be operationally deployable -- through steps including adding offensive and defensive weapons and improving ship survivability systems." This year Congress didn't include any money, that probably has something to do with a certain 2006 election. Maybe L3 needs to give more political donations to Democrats...

The Navy ultimately never spent the FY07 money, it still exists and sits there.

ONR is custodian of the ship, which is operated by a civilian crew. ONR spokesman Colin Babb said there are no plans for Sea Fighter to be used to replace the HSV-2.

“It's not being deployed and [there is] no intention of it being deployed like that,” Babb said.

Hunter scolded Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead at a Dec. 13 House Armed Services Committee hearing for not using Sea Fighter differently.

“You've had the opportunity to embrace transformation and you've chosen not to,” Hunter said, citing the Sea Fighter's speed and capabilities.

He said 500 medium-range cruise missiles could potentially be put on the ship, which he argued would give the Navy “multiples in terms of capital investment versus firepower, manning versus cost, operations and maintenance versus cost.”

If Roughead is rejecting the Duncan Hunter's version of transformation, I'm a bigger Roughead fan than I thought.

The Sea Fighter represents a number of things. It represents the signature program in the Department of Defense regarding earmarks, as it was basically the bone Rumsfeld threw to Duncan Hunter through ONR back when Hunter was chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. It also represents the trademark program for naval transformation, specifically the small warship concept, the arsenal ship concept, the modular ship concept, and the fast ship concept. In that regard, it also represents the debate on what the future Navy should look like.

Here is the basic question fairly presented, without the hyperbole one would see from those who don't like or advocate for the concepts...

Should the Navy build ships like the Sea Fighter, which is similar but also different than the Littoral Combat Ship, to fight wars for the Navy? The differences between the Littoral Combat Ship and Sea Fighter are more numerous than one might believe. The Sea Fighter is a technology demonstrator for what would be a 1500 ton warship, where the LCS is a 3000 ton naval truck. The Sea Fighter is designed to be modular, with a focus on large numbers of affordable weapons for land/sea strike. The LCS is designed to be modular, with a focus on deployable unmanned systems for specific mission profiles like small boat ASuW, ASW, and MIW.

The Sea Fighter could be a $150-200 million dollar hull with over $500 million invested in weapons and systems. The Littoral Combat Ship has turned into a $350 million dollar hull with around $120 million dollars worth of deployable platforms. Both hulls are fast, with top speeds over 40+ knots, and both hulls have limited endurance. Both hulls are modular, and can support multiple payload packages. Both hulls are intended to have small crews, and both platforms have low survivability standards compared to other warships in the US Navy fleet. It should be pointed out that Sea Fighter is built to commercial standards, while the LCS is built to the Level I standard, the lowest standard of warship design.

Is Duncan Hunter right about Sea Fighter, or is the Navy? Should the Navy build 1500 ton low cost hulls built to house $500 million worth of weapons and equipment, or should the Navy stick to the LCS design for its modular solution? As this blog has noted in the past, we are not sold on the idea that Sea Fighter is a replacement for HSV Swift, nor are we sold that it should be operational or mass produced, but we are open to changing our mind and agree it is a new approach.

There is one thing that does stand out in all of this though. If the Navy isn't willing to utilize the Sea Fighter, why should anyone believe, particularly given the previous cancellations, the Navy will be any more excited about a similar, more expensive Littoral Combat Ship? Regulars know where we stand on this, the new Maritime Strategy calls for new metrics, metrics one can find in Motherships and Corvettes.

Sea Power 21, Version 2.0 Part 2

In October 2002 Admiral Vern Clark introduced the Sea Power 21 concept in Proceedings Magazine. It was billed as a vision statement for the 21st century, and in general it was a combination of lessons learned since the last maritime strategy (1986), but also it carried with it buzz from the "transformation" idea that was just beginning to come from the Pentagon. The Sea Power 21 vision statement was the first official naval document that included the word "transformation."

This post represents the second installment of Sea Power 21 version 2.0 (Part 1 here). The topics discussed within are presented last in Sea Power 21, so in effect I am skipping ahead a bit only to return to parts skipped in part 3.

Strategies are enduring, and effective strategies are almost timeless, and while they account in many cases for the environment of the time, politically, technically, and professionally to an extent, they don't require much revision to be relevant to other time periods. The last Maritime Strategy for the US Navy dates to 1986, 5 years before the fall of the Soviet Union. In September of 2007, that strategy remains the foundation for the US Navy today, for at least another month anyway, and for its 21 years the outcome is unquestionably the most powerful naval force in the history of mankind in today's US Navy.

Concepts of Operations (or visions), like Sea Power 21, are not as enduring. They should be constantly reevaluated to determine what is working, and what isn't. Being that we are approaching 5 years of Sea Power 21, I suggest it is time to evaluate what has worked and what hasn't, why, and what needs to be 'tweaked.' In this section there is a need for major change, or what I would call a reevaluation of the major changes implimented, and where the path is unclear I suggest consulting history as a guide. This process of reevaluation would lead to Sea Power 21 v2.0. In part 2, I will focus on the following areas of Sea Power 21:

• Sea Trial: The Process of Innovation
• Sea Warrior: Investing in Sailors
• Sea Enterprise: Resourcing Tomorrow's Fleet

Sea Trial

In March of 1922, the US Navy converted the collier USS Jupiter (AC-3) in to the US Navy's first aircraft carrier, commissioned the USS Langley (CV 1). What followed was the steady innovation of aircraft carrier operations. Starting with the launch of a a Vought VE-7 from her deck on October 17, 1922, followed by the landing of a Aeromarine 39 while underway on October 26th, 1922. Testing, analysis, and demonstrations followed until the USS Langley was taken back to Norfolk for repairs and modifications, where she was then transferred to the Pacific fleet arriving in November of 1924. For the next 12 years the USS Langley (CV 1) operated off the Pacific west coast and Hawaii innovating carrier aviation, a development process that ultimately took 14 years to understand the concepts. Unfortunately, the US Navy never truly understood or embraced the concept of carrier aviation until December 1941, when Japan introduced the true capabilities of carrier aviation in Pearl Harbor, after which the aircraft carrier became the center of the US Navy, a position it holds to this day.

The aircraft carrier for the US Navy was an innovation over time, the evolution of technology that really wasn't fully understood by Navy leaders until after Midway in 1942, around 20 years after those early flights off the Langley.

Technology has seemingly increased the speed of the innovation process, but perception isn't always reality. In reality, not much has changed. As an example, the MV-22 concept dates to 1986, meaning it has taken 21 years and 22 billion dollars to date to bridge the gap between two very well understood technologies, airplanes and helicopters. The biggest two innovations of the last decade is Cooperative Engagement Capability and technologies enabled by satellite communications, neither of which are innovations specific to the Navy.

Sea Trial is to identify innovations with the greatest potential to provide dramatic increases in warfighting capability, and it appears in part this specific role is being achieved. Modular configuration is the major innovation in the LCS, while the DD(X) introduces a number of innovations. While the extent to which these innovations will increase warfighting is still unclear, what is missing from Sea Trial is the stated process by which innovations 'should be' incorporated into the Navy. Innovation in and of itself is critical, but equally important is deciding what innovations should be included in new projects, and to what extent the maturity of an innovation is required before committing the investment to innovation.

To me this is the weakness of the Sea Trial process. There appears to be a prudence in evaluation regarding how to incorporate innovations, with the standard operating procedure currently in practice to include everything in new hulls, regardless of its level of maturity as a technology, and despite prudent experimentation to determine effectiveness. The key element missing from Sea Trial is actually in the paperwork, but doesn't exist in form. The Langley was built on a converted collier hull, so I ask the question, where are the operational prototypes?

The lack of prototyping large capital investments that include large numbers of innovations has driven costs up in procurement, but where it has been done costs have been kept manageable. The UCAS-N is a good example where a prototype matters. Sea Trial ultimately is ineffective if dedication to innovations becomes too cost prohibitive to integrate effectively into the warfighters arsenal, Sea Power 21 version 2 would focus on testing innovations similar to the model utilized for the SSGN, which instead of a "Deep Change" approach that transformation describes, instead utilized an evolutionary approach by testing and integrating mature technologies to enhance existing capabilities, which ultimately proved to be a fiscally responsible approach as well.

Sea Warrior

This section is intentionally short. Timing is everything. This story and this story raise new questions regarding the effectiveness of Sea Warrior in Sea Power 21. When it comes to the Navy and its people, there are better sources than I. Things aren't all bad, there is no question the Navy has committed to the excellence of its sailors, and there are programs that have helped. I only have one piece of advice on this subject, when it comes to people and skills there is a high cost in low quality, and the costs increase or decrease in direct proportion to the quality (or lackof) of leadership.

In a Navy where the only way to lose command is to be too politically incorrect, or to be in command when a mishap occurs while underway, these relatively random standards for leadership across the fleet, not only at sea, highlight why the results from leadership are, random. While lip service is paid and all the right things are written down and highlighted in Sea Warrior of Sea Power 21 as the process to follow in producing highly capable sailors, the efforts of the bottom up approach only go so far in a top down Navy.

Ultimately, I don't know what can be done here. Clearly the existing process is flawed, but the alternatives are complicated for both the enlisted sailors and officers. I'll let smarter, better informed advice flow from those who would know better than I.

Sea Enterprise

In downloading the US Navy official brief on Sea Enterprise, you might be shocked to learn the first thing stated after the cover page, it reads "We must drive down our costs!" The next two items listed as follows:

Sea Enterprise is focused on doing just that: Transforming Navy business processes… driving enterprise-wide effectiveness/efficiency

It sounds great, but the very next page sums up the problem.


I get the part about "new ways of thinking and behaving," progress usually involves a process of developing better methods for approaching solutions, and when progress is effective, it will also require a culture change within an organization that is reflected in 'behavior.' Culture change always meets resistance, so turbulence should be expected. However, at what point did radical, "deep change" involving a process that is discontinuous with history involving surrendering control for irreversible change sound smart? The Navy is over 200 years old, the suggestion that processes refined over centuries that have been successful to the point they have achieved the very best in all categories relative to its competitors shouldn't serve as a guide is not only blatantly stupid, it requires the absence of wisdom.

The results speak to my point. Since this 'discontinuous of the past' process has been implimented, costs in every category in business management has skyrocketed. While there are individual examples where Sea Enterprise is effective, that recapitalization of costs has occurred at individual dept levels, and while this is done top line items have increased which has the effect of ultimately diminishing gains.

Sea Enterprise in action is currently a failure, period. Fiscal discipline in the Navy does not exist, and without fiscal discipline Sea Enterprise simply cannot achieve the first stated goal of driving down costs. The Navy needs to adjust its process for business, which means Sea Enterprise needs a new approach that reflects the environment.

To build the definition, the Navy needs to understand the environment, which was recently outlined by David M. Walker, Comptroller General of the United States, in terms of America's four deficits.

First, there is a federal budget deficit. The Federal government continues to spend money without regard to consequences. The unfunded commitments for Social Security and Medicare in the future has risen to almost 50 trillion dollars, and yet nobody in Washington is concerned.

Second there is a savings deficit. Americans are living well above their means, and the US now ranks at the bottom of savings among all industrialized nations. Given the problems in our public retirement system, personal savings become more important, except they are generally non-existent.

Third, without savings the US has a balance-of-payments deficit. the US is spending more than it is producing. This leads to a trading deficit which ultimately reduces the value of the dollar.

Finally, there is a leadership deficit in Washington. US leaders have chosen to use creative accounting techniques to hide the problems from the American people, and have not confronted the reality of the challenges ahead. This isn't an idealogical problem, as both sides of the political spectrum are guilty.

These problems are national, and will directly effect the US Navy. The problems will ultimately reduce the budget of the Navy, and it will likely happen quickly. There is no indication the Navy has developed business plans to deal with this reality, instead the Navy is engaged in fiscal irresponsibility in virtually every program, yet to produce a single accurate estimate of any major procurement item since the inception of Sea Enterprise. With risk a major part of the environment, more risk in business processes simply doesn't appear to be a wise coarse of action, but with transformation as a guide, this is exactly the path the Navy is taking.

The results to date of Sea Enterprise speak louder than my words. The record of transformation in Sea Enterprise is one of failure, and the future doesn't look good. Perhaps it is time to listen to those who suggest looking to history as a guide to move forward, this isn't the first time the Navy has faced major budget reductions nor the first time the Navy faced enormous procurement challenges, the only distinguishing factor about this era is that it is the first time the Navy decided to give up control of the process to others as a business model, where in the past it took a very hands on approach and applied attention to detail. Despite what transformation suggests, there are lessons in US Naval History worth looking back to for consultation before moving forward in an uncertain era.

Sea Power 21, Version 2.0 Part 1

In October 2002 Admiral Vern Clark introduced the Sea Power 21 concept in Proceedings Magazine. It was billed as a vision statement for the 21st century, and in general it was a combination of lessons learned since the last maritime strategy (1986), but also it carried with it buzz from the "transformation" idea that was just beginning to come from the Pentagon. The Sea Power 21 vision statement was the first official naval document that included the word "transformation."

The point of this and future posts dedicated to Sea Power 21 version 2.0 is not to highlight what is wrong with Sea Power 21, rather highlight what is right, and why. I have said in the past that when I read Sea Power 21 the first time, I somehow felt smarter, and recently I have been trying to figure out why I felt that way. There is good stuff in Sea Power 21 I think is worth building on.

Strategies are enduring, and effective strategies are almost timeless, and while they account in many cases for the environment of the time, politically, technically, and professionally to an extent, they don't require much revision to be relevant to other time periods. The last Maritime Strategy for the US Navy dates to 1986, 5 years before the fall of the Soviet Union. In September of 2007, that strategy remains the foundation for the US Navy today, for at least another month anyway, and for its 21 years the outcome is unquestionably the most powerful naval force in the history of mankind in today's US Navy.

Concepts of Operations (or visions), like Sea Power 21, are not as enduring. They should be constantly evaluated to determine what is working, and what isn't. Being that we are approaching 5 years of Sea Power 21, I suggest it is time to evaluate what has worked and what hasn't, why, and what needs to be 'tweaked.' I don't see the need for major changes, rather I would encourage evolution, and where the path is unclear consulting history to guide. This process of reevaluation would lead to Sea Power 21 v2.0. In part 1, I will focus on the following areas of Sea Power 21.

• Sea Strike—Projecting Precise and Persistent Offensive Power
  
• Sea Shield—Projecting Global Defensive Assurance
  
• Sea Basing—Projecting Joint Operational Independence
  
• ForceNet--Enabling 21st Century Warfare

Sea Strike

In 1990, the US Navy deployed an unprecedented amount of Naval power in response to the invasion of Kuwait by Iraq on August 2nd. By August 7th, the Independence Battle Group was in the Gulf of Oman, the Eisenhower Battle Group transited the Suez, while the Saratoga & Wisconsin Battle Groups departed the East Coast. The quick response was part of a number of factors that led to a massive buildup for the 1991 Gulf War that ultimately involved 100 US naval ships, 80 of which were combatants, and 50 coalition ships on January 16th, 1991.

Ultimately though, Carrier aviation didn't play a major role in the Gulf War, rather the naval weapon that grabbed the headlines was the Tomahawk cruise missile. One of the lesser known details of the Gulf War was the deployment of the USS San Jacinto (CG 56), which was given a special designation "special weapons platform." The USS San Jacinto (CG 56) was deployed with 122 Tomahawks, 10x the typical load for a deployment at that time, in effect representing a test in practice of an evolving theory known as the Strike Cruiser (later reintroduced as the arsenal ship). Ultimately the USS San Jacinto (CG 56) only fired 14 Tomahawks, with the USS Fife (DD 991) being the ship to fire the most cruise missiles, 58 total successful launches (2 failed to launch, or would have been 60).

While that was an early test of the Sea Strike concept, the best example came in December of 1998 with Operation Desert Fox. While at the time, and for some time afterward, Operation Desert Fox was considered a political move to distract the public from the impeachment hearings of President Clinton, given what we have learned since 2003, Operation Desert Fox ranks as perhaps the best example of Sea Strike as described in Sea Power 21 the Navy could hope for. With somewhere around 325 Tomahawks fired combined with naval air power supplied by the USS Enterprise the Navy achieved joint, time critical contributions that effectively destroyed what was left of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.

These lessons combined with the operations supporting the Kosovo campaign validate the Navy vision for Sea Strike as prescribed in Sea Power 21 by highlighting what is and is not possible with offensive sea power. Sea Strike evolved from a number of actions, both large and small, into a pillar of Sea Power 21. Ultimately, the basis for capabilities outlined regarding Sea Strike in Sea Power 21 was the result of a slow and steady evolution of capabilities from the beginning of the cold war that incorporated new technologies into existing systems; an evolution that had nothing to do with transformation.

Sea Shield

In 1987-1988, the US Navy deployed several dozen ships and dedicated 2 battle groups over the period to the defense of American flagged tankers to and from Kuwait. Operation Earnest Will is a classic case study in a modern naval convoy system, and highlights the role of naval forces in protecting shipping during wartime. These operations in the Persian Gulf involved mine warfare, littoral warfare, air defense, and surface defense in providing a 'sea shield' for commercial traffic. Starting in 1990, both leading up to and after the Gulf War the US Navy began inspecting commercial traffic in enforcing an embargo on Iraq. From August 1990 until January 16th, 1991 the US Navy and coalition naval forces had conducted 6,960 intercepts and 832 boardings in support of that embargo. In that same conflict, the USS Independence and USS Eisenhower provided combat air power in defense of Saudi Arabia only a week after Iraq invaded Kuwait.

AEGIS ballistic missile defense funding began in 1994, and remains a slow and steady approach of both evolving software and hardware in an effort to produce a cost effective AEGIS solution in the near term to support Ballistic Missile Defense. For the most part, this effort has been very successful, it has not been a sink for money for the Navy, although the Missile Defense Agency itself appears to be exactly that given what they have produced. The Navy for its part has paid for most operational systems it currently deploys, highlighting both the Navy's focus on evolving into the Ballistic Missile Defense role and the Missile Defense Agency's failure to properly allocate money to the Navy for a working system as the MDA tries to produce expensive, yet to be operational systems.

Strategic deterrence of nuclear war was a hallmark of US Navy operations during the cold war. Facing the large submarine force of the Soviet Union, the United States Navy deployed submarines on a regular basis in defense of the GIUK gap and to track the movements of Soviet Naval forces. The Oliver Hazard Perry class was originally designed as a convoy escort platform to insure protection of merchant vessels that might one day need to cross the Atlantic to reinforce Europe during wartime. The ship directly reflecting lessons learned the hard way regarding the protection of merchantmen in two world wars.

Strategic defense in theaters from the sea comes in a number of forms, from Maritime Security Operations to Ballistic Missile Defense to Strategic Nuclear Deterrence, and includes traditional defense in mine warfare, anti-submarine warfare, surface warfare, and air defense. In Sea Power 21 Sea Shield does a bit too much platform justification for my taste, but its focus on capabilities and objectives is generally on target. Sea Power 21 v2.0 should move away from specific platform justification and focus on concepts, and by doing so it will validate the Sea Shield concept. It is noteworthy that with the sole exception of Ballistic Missile Defense, all of the other aspects of Sea Shield are historical roles for the US Navy, and none of the transformational platforms cited (like Littoral Combat Ship) has ever been deployed to support these roles.

In other words, Sea Shield in Sea Power 21 isn't transformation, there is nothing new here. The concept is a slow and steady evolution of existing naval roles for the US Navy, and that evolution didn't require transformation to a future platform to validate the concept and vision, nor to enable the capabilities. Adding specific platforms to the concept might please the transformation police, but the truth is, Sea Shield roles haven't changed much, they have simply adapted existing technology to confront new threats. Additionally, the concepts described in the Sea Shield vision aren't platform specific, which happens to be why Sea Shield is ultimately successful as a vision.

Sea Basing

One of the lesser known aspects of Operation Earnest Will, the operation to escort tankers in 1987-1988 was the deployment of the Wimbrown VII and the Hercules. Both were barges converted into Sea Bases in the Northern Persian Gulf designed to give the US Navy a static presence to monitor the operations of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps that were harassing commercial shipping with small boats. Consisting of SOF, sailors trained in mine warfare, Marines, and Army aviators these "sea bases" were towed by tugs to various locations in the Northern Persian Gulf, and represented a joint services solution to a problem evident in a time of conflict.

While most people probably remember Black Monday, few people remember the events that took place in the Gulf at the same time. Lost in the US headlines behind "Baby Jessica" and stock market woes was a battle involving Iran against the Hercules which consisted of army aviators, SOF forces in small boats, and a single US frigate at a place called "middle shoals buoy." While it wasn't much of an action, the fallout of the battle validated the idea of 'sea bases' as a way to provide static presence to sea operations to confront irregular forces, a concept that is again validated today with Ocean 6 in the Persian Gulf around the Iraqi Oil Terminals KAAOT and ABOT.

Sea Basing isn't a new idea, it is born from operations in Vietnam and in Operation Earnest Will, times of conflict when ideas came into being due to necessity. The inclusion of Sea Basing in Sea Power 21 validates that lessons of war have not been lessons lost, rather lessons that need emphasis particularly as the Navy adapts to sustaining presence while fighting low tech enemies in troubled places where it simply isn't cost effective to support high tech naval equipment over long periods of time. Global Fleet Stations, stated as an aspect of Sea Basing, is a very interesting adaptation of the concept. While described as transformational, Sea Basing itself is hardly new. The US Navy has made the sea its base for decades and has validated the concept in a variety of forms many times over. In Sea Power 21, Sea Basing is the evolution of a time tested concept in using the Sea as Base in a number of ways, and is another example where the transformation label is applied to give the impression of new, when in fact there is nothing new here.

ForceNet

On August 2nd, 1990 I was on the Rhein-Main Air Base when things went into lockdown. I was 14 and really didn't understand what was happening at the time. The summer of 1990 is one I'll never forget, I spent the first part of the summer as an intern in the computer lab of a local university learning about a technology on the way out (Mainframes) and new technologies on the way in (PCs). I then spent 7 weeks in Germany visiting a friends family with only one other friend who was my age. The parents of our friend owned the airline company that flew around all the top officers in the US Military in Europe, both were pilots, and on August 2nd they both had to go to work leaving three 14 year old boys to do little on one of the busiest US Air Force Bases in Europe.

Somehow we ended up with a Captain who had direct orders from some general to 'babysit' us, a job he made apparent that he considered bullshit, for obvious reasons. After watching planes take off and land for a few hours, he found us a computer to sit down and play with. We took full advantage.

While all 3 of us were athletic, I actually started my first 2 a days in football the day after arriving home from Germany, we were what you could call skater geeks who loved computers. We found a pc with a modem and 'borrowed' a phone line we probably weren't allowed to use, and jumped onto the FidoNet BBS system out of Britain. We found ourselves using what was known at the time as a "talker" (a MUD without graphics) by 9pm that evening, and in this setting we were talking directly to students in Kuwait City listening to the invasion of Kuwait unfold. That Captain was no fool, and he soon had a number of people from all over base watching the conversation unfold. We ended up staying up all night on the talker, no doubt at a major expense to the US Air Force, watching first hand recounts from students inside Kuwait City during an invasion. The next morning, I forget what time, the FidoNet shut down the MUDs and we lost our connection, but I think everyone in the room agreed, communications had just changed the way all of us viewed the world, and the world had just become smaller.

In 2001, the USS Carl Vinson utilized chat, Kweb, and email during Operation Enduring Freedom to organize everything from task orders to logistics in the Indian Ocean among all the naval forces building up for operations against Afghanistan following 9/11. Over the previous 10 years, the world and the Navy had come a long way, and under the label of ForceNET communication improvement has become something altogether different to anything imagined in 1990.

I have long felt that in my profession I have been at the bleeding edge of networks and communication potential as technology has evolved. Bandwidth is increasing while the requirement of bandwidth is being reduced by better code and better network models, and the Navy is at the tip of that spear. Understanding that technology is nothing more than part of the environment, simply an enabler that like the rest of technology, is evolving, is what makes the ForceNET approach in Sea Power 21 smart to me. We all witness how the speed of information influences daily life with the 24/7 news cycle, applied well, the speed of information in wartime becomes a key enabler for success in Sea Strike, Sea Shield, and Sea Basing. It is noteworthy the single largest advancement in the US Navy since the cold war is not a weapons system, rather CEC, and yet CEC is nothing more than the steady evolution of networking technologies in the internet era, empowered by improved bandwidth and slowly improving software.

Sea Strike, Sea Shield, and Sea Basing enabled by ForceNET highlight the evolution, not transformation, of naval concepts and vision based on historical lessons learned during times of war while applying new technology (that is also evolving) over time. Only where a specific platform is prescribed does the Navy attempt to validate Sea Power 21 as transformation in Sea Strike, Sea Shield, and Sea Basing. In these three concepts there is no evidence of rapid change, no evidence that anything new being done, and no evidence that any single concept has fundamentally changed much at all. There is nothing quick about the evolution of these concepts, as all of them can be dated back to naval efforts from 1987-1988, 1-2 years after the last naval strategy. I didn't even discuss Operation Nimble Archer or Operation Preying Mantis, but both are examples of Sea Strike that points out Sea Power 21 existed in action going back 'at least' 19 years, and I'm really only focused on the time period since the last Maritime Strategy (1986).

Sea Power 21 is successful where history is applied, but as I intend to show in part 2, is a failure where history is ignored under the banner of transformation.