Number of Navy ships at dangerously low levels
By George Galdorisi
May 24, 2001
As the Bush administration and a new Congress settle in and begin to stake out their priorities, expectations run high for a renaissance in national defense. Although estimates of increases to the defense budget vary widely, the American public has been left with a sense that a rising defense budget will lift all boats and that all defense needs will be met by an administration pledged to restore America's military might.
Regrettably, the decline in defense readiness during the past eight years has left a defense deficit that is not likely to be ameliorated in the near term. Tough tradeoffs will still need to be made as the Department of Defense invests in sensors, systems, platforms and weapons to execute the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff's vision of how our forces will fight America's wars a generation from now.
Concurrently, the end of the Cold War has accelerated, not diminished, the degree to which the United States is engaged globally. This engagement is crucial, as international response to a wide range of crises -- from disaster relief, to insurgencies, to peacemaking, to regional conflicts -- is no longer credible or sustainable without U.S. participation and leadership.
Importantly, the ability of the United States to maintain its position as "the indispensable nation" is contingent on the continuing strength of the U.S. economy, an economy that is firmly embedded in the global economy and now -- more than ever before -- critically dependent on the free and unhampered use of the oceans to support the burgeoning trade that makes the U.S. and the world's economies hum.
The United States has employed its Navy and Marine Corps in response to worldwide crises more frequently in the last decade than at any time in the nation's history. We have depended on these naval expeditionary forces -- especially aircraft carrier battle groups and amphibious ready groups with embarked Marine expeditionary units -- to respond to these crises as well as to protect our seaborne trade. The Reagan-era "600-ship Navy" had a chance to adequately fulfill those requirements. The Navy of the new millennium has almost no chance.
The United States provides combat-credible power forward-deployed in order to achieve regional stability, deter aggression, provide timely crisis response and defeat an enemy that seeks to pursue actions inimical to the nation's interests. Naval expeditionary forces provide the backbone for this effort by providing ready, robust, credible and scalable forward presence to assure access for joint forces and to enable them to make their unique contributions to crisis response. They provide this backbone when they are there -- but when they are not -- there is no substitute for them. As a former chief of naval operations once quipped, "virtual presence is absolute absence." But how serious is the current shortage of naval expeditionary forces?
In order to fulfill U.S. global responsibilities, the theater commanders-in-chief require the continuous presence of a carrier battle group and an amphibious and expeditionary unit in the European, Central and Pacific theaters. This continuous presence requirement necessitates a naval force of at least 15 carrier battle groups and 15 amphibious and expeditionary units, a force structure that far exceeds the current naval force structure built around 12 carrier battle groups and 12 amphibious and expeditionary units.
This shortfall is currently being handled by periodically gapping naval presence in each of these theaters of operations. These gaps are often transparent, if no crisis occurs. But crises have an uncanny way of occurring when naval expeditionary forces are absent. For example, in April 1999, the Theodore Roosevelt battle group diverted from the Arabian Gulf to support Kosovo operations. At the same time, the Kitty Hawk battle group and Belleau Wood amphibious and expeditionary units were in Southwest Asia, resulting in an 86-day gap in such a U.S. presence in the Pacific.
Was this important? At this time, the Indonesian elections were taking place, India and Pakistan were conducting weapons tests, tensions were increasing between China and Taiwan, and the two Koreas were having a confrontation in the Yellow Sea. Remarkably -- and fortuitously -- none of these tensions bubbled up to a full-blown crisis. If any of them had, it is unclear where U.S. forces to respond would have come from.
Clearly, the Navy and Marine Corps are not the only services suffering a mismatch of ends to means -- missions required and forces available to perform these missions. However, this mismatch is perhaps most pronounced among the nation's naval expeditionary forces. This assessment is not service-specific desire for a larger share of the defense pie, but the consensus opinion of the Unified Combatant Commanders in Chief, the Joint Staff, the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and many on both sides of the isle in the Congress.
Regrettably, the first Quadrennial Defense Review in 1997 departed significantly from the reasoned advice of those responsible for ensuring that the United States is prepared to carry out its security imperatives. The 1997 QDR-mandated reductions for the Navy and Marine Corps have resulted in a "downsized" force of 12 carrier groups, 12 amphibious and expeditionary units, 45-55 nuclear attack submarines, and 116 surface combatants -- the fiscally constrained minimum deemed necessary to meet the 1997-projected tempo of operations. The current Navy and Marine Corps Future Year Defense Plan (FYDP) is funded at or below the line to meet these platform requirements, while the actual tempo of forward-deployed naval operations exceeds that predicted as recently as the year of the last QDR.
To be able to execute the national security strategy and the national military strategy approximately 360 battleforce and support ships would be required to accomplish all likely joint and combined warfighting requirements, overseas presence, and support to contingency operations at a reasonable level of risk. This would enable the Navy to maintain simultaneous carrier battle groups and ARG/MEU presence in the three forward deployment hubs.
These forces would need to include 15 carrier battle groups and their associated carrier air wings, amphibious and expeditionary units, a 15 percent to 20 percent increase in projected surface combatants to approximately 134-138 ships, an increase in combat logistics force ship by 10 percent to 20 percent, a 20 percent increase in attack submarines with an out-years number approaching 70, and at no fewer than 14 nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines. Given the current FYDP and the time required to build ships, a substantial change to budget lines is needed now to begin to have an impact by the end of this decade.
In almost every instance, challenges to United States' national security will originate in the littorals. No matter where or when the challenge arises, naval expeditionary forces will be there with combat-credible power from the earliest stages of a crisis or conflict through the return to peace and stability. They will be there if we build them -- and if we don't there is no substitute.
Galdorisi, a retired Navy captain, is senior adviser for naval strategy and operations in Anteon Corporation's Center for Security Strategies and Operations. His career as a naval aviator culminated with 14 years experience as executive officer, commanding officer, commodore and chief of staff.
Copyright 2001 Union-Tribune Publishing Co.
