What is the most effective way to achieve the missions of the US Navy: sea control, sea denial, power projection or protection of open commerce?
The
Janes Defense Weekly (subscription) opinion by David W. Wise posted for discussion yesterday raised several interesting questions for community comments. I appreciate those who contributed thoughtful comments in
yesterdays post. As we head into a three day weekend, I thought I would add a few of my own comments to the discussion for you guys to kick around over the holiday.
I am not convinced the large aircraft carrier is obsolete, but I do believe the currently constituted capability of a modern Carrier Strike Group is due significant innovations and as a combined arms system and concept the CSG has not sufficiently adapted to the changing strategic environment - with the focus of all adaptations being vertical upwards rather than horizontal challenges towards the increased lower end requirements.
Innovations over the last several years include AEGIS combat system improvements on the escorts, cost controls towards a single F-18 platform in the Air Wing, and the addition of submarines to the strike group. The Navy also deserves credit for operational and tactical organization changes of the CSG like dispersal, concentration, and integration at the operational level that has been mostly enabled by better technology, but these tactical and operational adaptations are reaching the limits of flexibility allowed by the existing organizational design of the CSG centered around an aircraft carrier, handful of escorts, air wing, and submarine(s). If we focus on the carrier platform itself, or any specific technology, platform, or system within the CSG and not the entire strike group as an organized capability; I think our focus becomes too narrow, too tech centric, and may in fact miss the mark completely.
I would suggest that as new technologies come online, we are still missing the combined arms information system that informs a combined operational concept for how a Navy addresses the strategic environment of the future. I think if one breaks it down into just a carrier strike group, the issues and challenges are easier to discuss directly.
The author raises the roles of sea control, sea denial, power projection or protection of open commerce as examples of how the CSG can fall short in meeting mission requirements across a broad spectrum. Thinking out loud about these roles in the context of the modern CSG in the modern environment suggests to me that the Navy has reached the limits of the existing organization, and I think informs towards where innovation is necessary.
Sea Control - The more restrictive the RoE, the less effective a CSG is in sea control. Fewer surface platforms are a result of requirements for high end defense capabilities, but few surface combatants translates into less coverage to meet the demand signal of lower intensity security challenges that often extends over large areas of sea. Can a CSG organization be adjusted to meet the demands of both ends of the combat spectrum at similar cost?
Sea Denial - Submarines in the CSG increase lethality substantially, but the threat matrix is expanding as well. The US Navy surface community offers very little to sea denial these days with a lack of long range weapons that offer mission kill to targets. Has sea denial become a function of submarines and aviation with various payloads ranging from mines to missiles to torpedos? Are we innovating? What can the surface community bring to meet sea denial requirements in various environments, and not just with the combatants, but the amphibious ship and MSC force as well? When it comes to Sea Denial (and Sea Control), does the Navy ignore the capabilities the Marine Corps could bring to the fight?
Power Projection - the CSG is the ultimate power projection capability today, but is it leveraged correctly with the appropriate corresponding communications strategy? Is the Navy sufficiently invested in other ways and means of projecting power globally? Here we are seeing innovations that can be highlighted, from hospital ships to global fleet stations, but those innovations are mostly on the lower spectrum towards soft power. Is there a sweet spot for low cost, high return investments for power projection where a CSG is overkill but combat power is required, for example in many third world shadow zones where limited government and civil security infrastructure exists? An aircraft carrier may not influence a region like Somalia, but I do wonder that if the Navy had a better communication strategy with amphibious ships, could a LSD or LPD be as intimidating or influential in shadow zones?
Protection of Open Commerce - Absent war against a credible state military power, the CSG contribution towards the protection of commerce runs up against cost effective usability issues. There are too few surface escorts in a CSG to contribute significant assets to commerce protection under the current CSG organization, and the primary manned capability that contributes to the protection of open commerce that is deployed on CSGs today is the helicopter. At the high end, the loss of fixed wing carrier ASW is significant.
Think about this sentence in the
Janes David W. Wise article:
In an age of networks, small wars, unmanned systems and diffusion of military technology, the best solutions are unlikely to be found in highly expensive, complex, centralized systems requiring massive manpower. Answers are likely to be found in ways that distribute firepower to lower-cost platforms for more widespread and rapid deployments on more numerous, but less visible, lower-signature vehicles. Solutions are likely to stress reliability over theoretical elegance, quality achieved through quantity and simplicity over complexity while utilizing the emerging capabilities of robotics and unmanned systems.
There is a challenge that has become more stark for naval forces as costs of manpower have increased. In modern warfare, military forces including naval forces require more manpower in the complicated irregular warfare and small wars battle space, whether it is company sized units spread across Afghanistan or the need for more manned ship presence in the Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf. More restrictive Rules of Engagement due to the presence of legitimate civilian populations contribute to the difficulty in directly assessing threats to take action, particularly threats that are distributed across broad areas and great distances at sea. In contrast, the lethality of conventional military power requires less manpower at the pointed end of the spear than at anytime in history, meaning the systems that deliver combat power requires less manpower than in the past.
This suggests models of organization where higher manpower requirements exist in the irregular battle spaces encountered even when peaceful relations exist between states. Peacemaking is a very human intensive function, both on land and at sea. The manpower requirements for warfighting at sea when rules of engagement are relaxed due to clear definitions of what constitutes combatants and enemy forces are much lower today. The range of lethal missile systems and the increasing lethality of unmanned systems allows naval power with less manpower to be lethal from great distances.
The requirements for manpower dispersed over great distances in large numbers of small, but capable concentrations to meet dispersed irregular challenges in the more restricted RoE environments is organizationally converse to the high concentrations of manpower in the CSG model designed to challenge sophisticated high end warfare capabilities. This is a real challenge for the US Navy, because the enormous financial and manpower requirements of the CSG, as currently organized, severely limits US Navy forces from meeting the roles and responsibilities expected of naval power in the constantly changing strategic environment.
When I look at the aircraft carrier in the context of the total strike group and the full spectrum of operational requirements, I think it is too simplistic to suggest simply changing the design and/or quantity of the aircraft carrier platform is going to address the challenges of a rapidly evolving strategic environment while maintaining the capability to meet the high end strategic requirement that is demanded by the CSG. It seems to me the aircraft carrier challenge must be looked at in multiple ways.
For example, within the context of the layered systems approach to defending high value vessels like aircraft carriers, if the surface force disconnected sensors from shooters from a single platform, is it possible to build more surface combatants and still meet the defense requirements for the battle force defense network while also increasing the distribution capacity of the CSG surface combatant escort force? For the cost of a single escort, is there a way to broadly address the capability gap of the CSG using different kit purchased? If the big AMDR radars were on the CVNs, LHDs, LPDs, T-AKEs, and T-AOs instead of the combatants, networked with CEC throughout the strike group, how many more smaller frigate shooters could the Navy purchase instead of large destroyers at the same price?
Aircraft carriers are very large and that space offers enormous flexibility. Is there a potential design flaw in current super carriers that needs to be addressed, for example, the ability to carry several large, deployable vessels (M-80 or Lighter than Air surface vehicle for example) instead of aircraft to meet operational requirements in certain situations or environments. Are there sea plane or lighter than air systems that could significantly increase the flexibility of a CSG without significant costs, for example, a carrier supported sea plane that could rapidly deliver a RHIB and VBSS team 300 miles from the carrier in two hours, conduct a contested boarding with sufficient fire support from the sea plane, and return to the carrier with all personnel and equipment upon mission completion.
The challenge facing the CSG is that it must be more capable to justify the cost, and not only does the CSG need to meet the high intensity capability requirements at greater ranges in the future, but also needs to be able to meet low intensity capability requirements (while delivering the higher manpower that comes with those requirements) at longer range.
Between the aircraft carrier, the Air Wing, and the various surface and subsurface escorts I see several avenues possible towards innovation and adaptation to meet emerging requirements that doesn't necessarily mean the aircraft carrier itself must change. The Carrier Strike Group includes the Naval Aviation, Submarine, and Surface Warfare communities of the Navy. In the Navy today, only the Air Wing is being changed to address the limitations of the changing strategic environment, which leads me to ask where the innovation is in the surface warfare and submarine communities to address the challenges of the CSG today towards maintaining existing requirements and capabilities while also increasing the capacity for a broader mission set for the CSG?
The way I see the large aircraft carrier debate, if the supporting elements including the Air Wing and Escorts required to support the large aircraft carrier within the CSG organizational construct do not adapt or cannot adapt, then the cost of the large aircraft carrier will ultimately be what makes the platform obsolete.
Usually the death of a reporter in Pakistan wouldn't constitute news for this audience, but this is an usual story about the death of a reporter. Here is the Reuters report on the death of Saleem Shahzad.
) it is interesting to watch the competition and cooperation between non-state maritime actors. During the peak of the Iraq War, numerous insurgent and terrorist groups tried to one up each other to maintain relevancy (and still do, to a certain extent), launching more and more spectacular attacks. On the less violent end of the conflict spectrum, we’ll probably begin to see a similar phenomenon with non-state maritime actors. Although much older, GP has to fight for recognition and funding from the same group of donors as its more tactically aggressive and marketing savy spin-off Sea Shepherds.