I did an interview with The Federalist Radio Hour recently that may be of interest to readers.
Friday, February 17, 2024
Rep. Conaway Introduces the "12 Carrier Act"
Representative Michael K. Conaway (R--TX11) has introduced the "12 Carrier Act" in the House. The bill can be found here.
The best bit is here;
SEC. 4. INCREASE IN NUMBER OF OPERATIONAL AIRCRAFT CARRIERS OF THE NAVY.
(a) Increase.—Section 5062(b) of title 10, United States Code, is amended by striking “11 operational aircraft carriers” and inserting “12 operational aircraft carriers”.
(b) Effective Date.—The amendment made by subsection (a) shall take effect on September 30, 2023.
I am of course, very supportive of this measure. Both the Navy's recent Force Structure Assessment and the CSBA Fleet Architecture I assisted on call for 12 carriers.
The best bit is here;
SEC. 4. INCREASE IN NUMBER OF OPERATIONAL AIRCRAFT CARRIERS OF THE NAVY.
(a) Increase.—Section 5062(b) of title 10, United States Code, is amended by striking “11 operational aircraft carriers” and inserting “12 operational aircraft carriers”.
(b) Effective Date.—The amendment made by subsection (a) shall take effect on September 30, 2023.
I am of course, very supportive of this measure. Both the Navy's recent Force Structure Assessment and the CSBA Fleet Architecture I assisted on call for 12 carriers.
Friday, February 10, 2024
Question of the Week February 6 - February 10, 2024
Each week Information Dissemination will present a Question of the Week
for professional consideration and discussion. The question will remain
at the top of the blog from Monday at 12:00am until Friday 5:00pm.
Please scroll down for new contributions. This weeks question:
The Navy awarded Newport News Shipbuilding $25.5 million to begin advanced fabrication of of the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise CVN-80 this week. Should CVN-80, the third Ford-class aircraft carrier, be the last big deck aircraft carrier the US Navy builds?
Why? Why not?
The Navy awarded Newport News Shipbuilding $25.5 million to begin advanced fabrication of of the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise CVN-80 this week. Should CVN-80, the third Ford-class aircraft carrier, be the last big deck aircraft carrier the US Navy builds?
Why? Why not?
Thursday, February 9, 2024
CSBA Fleet Architecture Talking Paper--Why the Current Force Structure Assessment Process is Flawed
During the work last summer on the CSBA Fleet Architecture Study, I would occasionally write short summaries of things we were thinking about for the team lead, Bryan Clark. The one below is a condnesed version of some thinking on why the way FSA's are done today is flawed.
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There is a fundamental weakness in the manner in which the Navy conducts fleet architecture and force structure inquiries. That weakness derives from the tension between the near-term nature of the “demand signal” as represented in the numbered war plans, the GFMAP, and security cooperation force requirements, and the far-term nature of the 30 year shipbuilding and aviation plans that are required of it by the Congress. These 30 year plans are a manifestation of the fleet architecture in place and planned, such as it is. Because the main inputs to it are 1) the near-term demand signal extrapolated forward into the future and 2) the perceived need to “replace” force structure that reaches the end of its service life, a classic “self-licking ice cream cone” situation is created. An explanation follows.
There is a force structure in place at any given time that reflects the extant fleet architecture. Combatant Commanders (COCOM) request forces (or sometimes capabilities) to service their requirements from the forces that are available. To the extent that there are either unavailable forces or capabilities to service these unmet needs, the COCOM generates need statements—urgent operational requirements or inputs to their integrated priority lists. Generally speaking, these needs are reflective of in-situ/near term needs. The Navy then—within its capability to do so—attempts to meet these needs with (again, generally speaking)—short term or nearly immediately available solutions.
Put another way, the COCOMs ask for what is available, and the Navy builds its fleet around what the COCOM’s ask for. What the COCOMs ask for is conditioned by a set of pre-existing expectations of what can and will be provided. Our fleet looks like it does because of an aggregated response over time to what is asked of it by the competing requirements of COCOMs obsessed (by design) with the near term.
In our approach to this assessment, we take as our main idea the conventional deterrence of great power war. We assess the current fleet architecture (to include its posture and basing) to be at best, sub-optimized to meet this mandate and at worst, a slow, methodical undercutting of such deterrence. This is due to the fact that our forces providing everyday peacetime presence are the same forces that would be relied upon for war-fighting—just a smaller subset thereof. The demands of great power warfighting create a requirement for a level of response that cannot be adequately prepared for given the needs of maintaining point-station deterrence day in and day out from among the same forces. This Alternate Fleet Architecture is based upon a radically altered “demand signal” that is closely aligned with the needs of a regionally aggregated approach to great power deterrence focused through the instrumentalities of a number of emerging naval operational concepts.
--------------------
There is a fundamental weakness in the manner in which the Navy conducts fleet architecture and force structure inquiries. That weakness derives from the tension between the near-term nature of the “demand signal” as represented in the numbered war plans, the GFMAP, and security cooperation force requirements, and the far-term nature of the 30 year shipbuilding and aviation plans that are required of it by the Congress. These 30 year plans are a manifestation of the fleet architecture in place and planned, such as it is. Because the main inputs to it are 1) the near-term demand signal extrapolated forward into the future and 2) the perceived need to “replace” force structure that reaches the end of its service life, a classic “self-licking ice cream cone” situation is created. An explanation follows.
There is a force structure in place at any given time that reflects the extant fleet architecture. Combatant Commanders (COCOM) request forces (or sometimes capabilities) to service their requirements from the forces that are available. To the extent that there are either unavailable forces or capabilities to service these unmet needs, the COCOM generates need statements—urgent operational requirements or inputs to their integrated priority lists. Generally speaking, these needs are reflective of in-situ/near term needs. The Navy then—within its capability to do so—attempts to meet these needs with (again, generally speaking)—short term or nearly immediately available solutions.
Put another way, the COCOMs ask for what is available, and the Navy builds its fleet around what the COCOM’s ask for. What the COCOMs ask for is conditioned by a set of pre-existing expectations of what can and will be provided. Our fleet looks like it does because of an aggregated response over time to what is asked of it by the competing requirements of COCOMs obsessed (by design) with the near term.
In our approach to this assessment, we take as our main idea the conventional deterrence of great power war. We assess the current fleet architecture (to include its posture and basing) to be at best, sub-optimized to meet this mandate and at worst, a slow, methodical undercutting of such deterrence. This is due to the fact that our forces providing everyday peacetime presence are the same forces that would be relied upon for war-fighting—just a smaller subset thereof. The demands of great power warfighting create a requirement for a level of response that cannot be adequately prepared for given the needs of maintaining point-station deterrence day in and day out from among the same forces. This Alternate Fleet Architecture is based upon a radically altered “demand signal” that is closely aligned with the needs of a regionally aggregated approach to great power deterrence focused through the instrumentalities of a number of emerging naval operational concepts.
CSBA Alternative Fleet Architecture Study
In the 2016 National Defense Authorization Act, DoD was directed to conduct a group of studies on Alternative Fleet Architectures. The Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA) was selected to perform one of the studies, and its fearless leader Bryan Clark asked me to pitch in. The study has finally been released to the public, and it can be found here.
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