4th Fleet Focus: Speak Softly and Carry a Big Stick

It started with the Monroe Doctrine, but it was the timeless phrase President Theodore Roosevelt that nicely summarized Americas foreign policy towards South America... or was supposed to anyway. In reality, American foreign policy towards South America is complicated and can be legitimately argued as non-existent, at least the public coherent and explained policy anyway. It was around 1950 the American foreign policy attention span waned in South America, and arguably it continues to be poorly defined.

Ironically, it was 1950 when the US Navy folded the 4th fleet into the US 2nd fleet in Norfolk. Is that a coincidence? Perhaps, but the Great White Fleet started its journey by going to South America first, and that wasn't an accident. Today South America doesn't look anything like the South America of the Monroe Doctrine, President Theodore Roosevelt, or 1950. Today, South America is an emerging economic market the US needs to get engaged with diplomatically, and this little bit of news reflects that reality.

U.S. 4th Fleet, which hunted submarines in the South Atlantic during World War II until it was dissolved almost six decades ago, is on its way back.

The new 4th Fleet would cover a similar area, with plans to operate from Naval Station Mayport, Fla., and oversee operations in Central and South America. The commander of Naval Forces Southern Command would also be the head of 4th Fleet, Navy officials said.

The fleet would not own any ships. Instead, it would operate in the same way Navy forces do in the Persian Gulf region. In U.S. Central Command, one admiral serves as head of both Naval Forces Central Command and 5th Fleet. Therefore, the dual-hatted admiral in charge of 4th Fleet and NavSouth would be under the commander of Southern Command.

And when will the 4th Fleet stand up?

The decision to stand up the fleet, Navy officials said, is within the scope of the chief of naval operations, as changing ship home ports are. But a final go-ahead is still a ways off, though sources say the Navy’s leadership is actively working the issue and strongly in favor of the idea.

A final decision will not come until the Navy has briefed military and congressional leaders.

Sounds like we are still a few years off. We are not sure what to make of this, and expect, like AFRICOM, there is more to this story than what the early press stories reveal. Our initial reaction to this bit of news was sarcasm. Is this an inside move to create more staff positions? The thought crossed our mind, but it is more likely there is some good logic here.

There are regional players that can no longer be ignored. Brazil, for example, shouldn't be ignored. Brazil in 20 years could very easily be what India or China is today, a rising economic and military power. Brazil has a lot of problems to overcome to realize that potential, but the potential most certainly exists and the US is wise not to ignore it, and would be very wise to get engaged with Brazil on the level sooner rather than later.

Another regional player is Venezuela. Huge Chavez may be the darling of western socialists, but his military moves, particularly in regards to building paramilitary forces and questionable policies with assault rifles is troubling. Should Venezuela actually follow through and put 9 AIP submarines in the Caribbean Sea that would be a valid national security concern for a 4th fleet.

It is hard to tell exactly what the reasons are for this move, as it is still early in the process. Regardless, there has been a lot of attention given to South America, between Global Fleet Stations, hospital ship deployments, humanitarian missions, and Partnership deployments the Navy has certainly remained engaged without a numbered fleet.

Final thought: While we threw a bit of snark at this announcement as a first reaction, the best snark is here. It is an old entry, but reddog's comment is a classic!

Reading Bliss For Observers of Submarines and China

This year I got what I consider a pretty awesome gift for Christmas. The gift was two books, one in Russian and the other in Chinese, two languages I continue to attempt to teach myself, albeit at a slow pace. Both books are actually the same book.

Тайны подводного шпионажа

Yes, my wife is the bomb. Smart, hot, and thoughtful. I have no idea how she got the books either, but with women I go by the philosophy that when it comes to asking questions, less is usually more. It will take me awhile to get through both books, or to determine if they are indeed the same book as advertised.

What am I talking about? The rough translation of the book is "The Secrets of Submarine Espionage." Basically, for those who have ever read or enjoyed Blind Man's Bluff, this is the inside story except from the perspective of the Soviet Union. That link above to the book, I've never bought from them, but I noticed they are selling the book. Are they legit? I have no clue.

Why bring this up at all? Because sometimes timing is everything.

In reading some of the materials written by Chinese naval analysts recently, we keep noting the book is cited every once and awhile as a point of reference in describing the behavior of US submarines during the cold war. I haven't read the book yet, but it must go into some detail regarding the Soviet perspective of SOSUS and how the US systematically cataloged acoustic signatures of Soviet ships and submarines, because the Chinese openly discuss these subjects when they cite the book.

Today, in reading through the Winter 2008 Review at the Navy War College, I noticed in one of the essays the book was cited. I haven't read through the entire Winter 2008 review yet, but for those who check it out don't get confused by the "alt" listing for the reviews, the webmaster screwed it up, that top left that says "Summer 2007" is actually the "Winter 2008" edition. We posted the cover picture above, look for it, it is the correct one.

Inside Winter 2008 you will find reading bliss for submarine observers like us. If you want to get a head start, check it out, because we intend to spend extra time blogging about the essay "Chinese Evaluations of the US Navy Submarine Force" from the Winter 2008 review, and will be surprised if other bloggers, particularly submarine centric bloggers, don't have a few thoughts and opinions as well. How good is the article? In our opinion:

It is the best open source professional publication on the topics of China and Submarines you are going to find anywhere. A must read.

For people like us keenly observing all things related to submarine warfare and China, or for those who love to read Chinese materials directly, this essay has sent us into near bliss with excellent citations and outstanding content.

Gabriel Collins, Andrew Erickson, Lyle Goldstein, and William Murray of the Naval War College’s China Maritime Studies Institute deserve high praise for this publication, perhaps the best of its type on the China and Submarine centric topic in the open source anywhere. As self described scavengers of open source publications on these specific topics this blog would like to thank these authors for the excellent insight and analysis. As far as our expanded thoughts on the essay itself, give us a few days...

We Are Honored and Humbled

This email found its way into my mailbox this morning.

Webmaster (Galrahn),

Your site http://informationdissemination.blogspot.com/ has received the The Sub Report's Editor's Choice Award. This Award is given based on Site content and design for the Submarine community. Please accept this small token of appreciation for your contributions.

First Award for 2008

Your website is linked for Award viewing at the Following address:
http://www.thesubreport.com/editorschoice

Bravo Zulu!

Eric Ryle
www.TheSubReport.com

Based on our experience with submarine professionals, this is perhaps the highest honor a Naval centric blog like this one could ever get from our peers. We are honored and humbled.

Thank you Eric, and The Sub Report.

HSV Swift Deploys To African Partnership Initiative

The Navy is deploying HSV Swift to Africa to take part in the African Partnership Initiative.

The high speed vessel, HSV Swift, will depart Friday to join USS Fort McHenry (LSD 43) off the west coast of Africa.

Swift will join the Navy's Global Fleet Station (GFS) initiative in an effort to promote maritime security, build relationships with surrounding nations and provide a stronger naval presence.

The ship will deploy from Little Creek Amphibious Base along with the Naval Station Ingleside, Texas-based Blue Crew, who will conduct a turnover with the Little Creek-based Gold Crew Thursday.

We have not seen any good articles on the pilot Global Fleet Station mission to Central America, and continue to look for a good summery. We still find that to be a bit odd, particularly considering the amount of attention that goes into promoting these types of missions before they begin. The hospital ships get the same coverage, a bunch of information up front but very little follow up.

However, we are getting good information on the use of High Speed Vessels. This is a particularly useful list of statistics from the same article.

In October, Swift returned to the United States after a two-year deployment that took the crew on a 100,000 nautical mile trip in which the crew visited over 30 countries and moored in over 100 ports.

HSV Swift is a rental, and the US Navy is getting its moneys worth. This leads to several questions. How cost effective are these high speed platforms compared to conventional platforms? For example, we know it costs more to send a ship like HSV Swift than to send a conventional ship, at least on a per ton basis; however we also would assume the speed is very useful.

For all the attention given HSV Swift, we don't see a lot of attention given in shipbuilding to producing ships like it. The JHSV program is scheduled to begin this year, FY09, but only consists of 8 platforms and it is a joint program with the Army. Given the amount of PR HSV Swift gets, one would think the Navy would want a few dozen of these low cost platforms. Or not.

While we know that these high speed vessels are cheap to produce, I get the impression they must be fairly expensive to operate, because that would explain why the Navy isn't building more of them. In our list of metrics, lift ranks very high, higher than tactical speed, which is why we advocate the CH-53K over the MV-22 as another example. These High Speed Vessels have 'decent' lift, not excellent, but do add speed to that lift capacity which can be important in some situations. It will be interesting to observe the evolution of high speed vessels as they become more numerous within the US Navy's deployment options.

A Bold New Idea For a Naval Humanitarian Force

I don't want to add a lot of commentary on this article until I think about it for awhile, but I think it is a very interesting idea nonetheless. Since it is not part of the members section of Proceedings, anyone who signs up can read it.

The article, titled "A Great White Fleet for the 21st Century" is a very interesting read. I would dare say this is the article that leaves non subscribers to Proceedings no excuse to sign up for the free content.

In the first decade of the 20th century, President Theodore Roosevelt sent the original Great White Fleet, consisting of 16 battleships that were distinctly painted white, around the globe to display the military might of an emerging world power. "Widely considered one of the greatest peacetime achievements of the U.S. Navy," this fleet conducted a 43,000-mile, 14-month circumnavigation from 1907-1909 that included 20 port calls on six continents. Interestingly enough, in the final leg of its voyage, the original Great White Fleet responded to a devastating earthquake in Messina, Sicily. Once the ships arrived on the scene of this natural disaster, the "Sailors did everything they could to assist the beleaguered city."

Now, one hundred years after the original Great White Fleet, this name can be recycled to meet the challenges of a new century. Instead of displaying the military might of one nation, this new Great White Fleet can be international in nature, and consist of humanitarian platforms that work together with nongovernmental and intergovernmental organizations (NGOs/IGOs) to ease human suffering. Centered on the capabilities of the USNS Mercy (T-AH-19), this new humanitarian force can consist of hospital ships, high-speed craft, airlift platforms, and even old amphibious ships that are converted to fulfill a hospital ship mission.

....

Beginning in the Pacific theater, we suggest the following four steps be taken to make this vision a reality:

1) Persuade Japan, Russia, China, India, and Australia to take the lead with us in building an international Great White Fleet.

2) Leverage the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program to help fulfill the vision of an international Great White Fleet.

3) Develop and execute humanitarian-centric, multi-national exercises to train the Great White Fleet and build humanitarian assistance and disaster response capability.

4) In pursuing this vision, leverage the resident expertise within the Pacific Command at the Asia-Pacific Center For Security Studies (APCSS) and the Center for Excellence for Disaster Management and Humanitarian Assistance (COE).

Read the whole thing. Very interesting idea if you ask me. Makes me wonder, would China commit their new Type 920?