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Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus announced the results of a much-awaited internal review of fleet size known as a 'Force Structure Assessment. It appears that the Navy is setting its sails to the winds of renewed great power competition. The assessment states a requirement of 355 ships that Mabus declares must 'continue to protect America and defend our strategic interests around the world, all while continuing the counter terrorism fight and appropriately competing with a growing China and resurgent Russia….'
The previous force structure assessment completed in 2012 called for a fleet of 308 ships, and that requirement has served to buttress Mabus' position in the recent conflict with Defense Secretary Ash Carter over the 2018 budget and the size of the fleet. This new assessment (along with President-elect Trump's stated desire for a 350-ship Navy) adds additional heft to Mabus' reported position. The table below summarizes each of the ship classes contemplated in both this assessment and the previous one conducted in 2012.
The naval aviation community, in order to foster a culture of thorough but impersonal mission debriefing, uses the practice of 'goods and others' to review performance, with 'goods' corresponding to what was found to be positive, and 'others' corresponding to everything else. This approach seems appropriate to an analysis of the issue at hand.
Goods
The centrality of great power competition.Although the strategic assumptions underpinning this assessment are classified, Mabus' statement makes it clear that renewed great power competition is the primary impetus for advocating for a dramatic increase in fleet size. There have been reports that the Pentagon was instructed to limit its emphasis on great power dynamics, but it appears that the Navy recognizes its unique and critical role in managing this competition by providing a credible, forward deployed deterrent.
Increase in attack submarines. Attack submarines are incredible intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) assets, in addition to being unmatched killing machines in wartime. What is not stressed in the announcement is that while the requirement for attack submarines was 48, the number in the fleet is headed downward to 41 as Reagan-era submarines built at a clip of three per year are replaced by Virginia-class hulls built at two per year. Clearly, the nuclear industrial base is in for a boost. For the 66 attack submarines called for in this assessmentto be realized, three per year should be constructed, even as the Navy replaces its aging Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines.
An additional aircraft carrier. The Navy should be present in three major theaters (Europe, the Middle East, and the Pacific) and a fleet of 11 aircraft carriers is insufficient to meet those demands. That the Navy currently only has 10 carriers (due to a waiver the Congress granted to its legal requirement for 11 while the USS Gerald Ford (CVN 78) is constructed), further exacerbates the problem.
Additional amphibious ships. Amphibious ships are notoriously in high-demand due to their utility and flexibility. The Marine Corps has consistently stated its requirement to be 38 ships, and it appears that the Navy is finally consenting to meeting that requirement.
Others
This is a force structure assessment and not a fleet architecture.What was released today is the distilled product of serious analysis by the Navy, but it is still just a projection of the major forces it will need to do its job in the decades ahead. Unanswered are questions such as 1) What does the Navy believe that job to be? 2) How will the carrier air wing evolve to meet the demands of the anti-access challenges posed by great powers (and others)? 3) What is the role of unmanned vehicles in the future fleet, how will they interact with the manned fleet, and how should their presence be counted? 4) What changes in employment and posture are required to meet the challenges of emerging great power competition, beyond simple fleet growth? Congress was interested enough in questions of this nature that it directed the Navy in 2016 to conduct a series of alternate fleet architecture studies, the results of which have not been made public. I was privileged to assist Bryan Clark of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA) in one of the fleet architecture studies, and while I cannot speak to its specific results until it is released, the force structure our architecture describes is numerically similar the Navy's, but it is based upon fundamentally differing notions of conventional deterrence and force posture. Simply growing the Navy and operating it as we do today will not be an effective response to renewed great power competition.
Too many large surface combatants.The executive summary released by the Navy announcing this assessment points to '…increased…expeditionary BMDBallistic Missile Defense]' requirements to justify the larger number of large surface combatants. There is an important 'roles and missions' question at the heart of this discussion, and the defense of land-based expeditionary forces could, in many cases, be more efficiently be provided by land based Army air defense artillery, freeing up expensive multi-mission ships to pursue the numerous other naval missions required of them. Additionally, for the cost of 16 additional large surface combatants (at $2 billion each) approximately 40 smaller ships can be built (see below).
Too few small surface combatants. Everything worthwhile that the Navy does depends on sea control. Sea control requires a force to neutralize the surface, subsurface, and air threats to it where it wishes to operate. Put another way, the Navy cannot project power without sea control, and the ability of our great power competitors to deny us sea control is on the increase. More numerous, heavily armed and resilient SSC are critical to a credible conventional deterrent force capable of targeting and neutralizing adversary ships and submarines.
The combat logistics force is too small.One of the major findings of the CSBA study mentioned above is the insufficiency of the combat logistics force. Although the new assessment increases the size of this force (oilers, dry cargo ships, etc) somewhat, the wartime requirement envisioned by the CSBA study is dramatically larger.
In Closing
For an advocate of American seapower, there is much to like in this force structure assessment, but Congress and the American people will expect a thorough discussion of the strategic assumptions and narrative behind these numbers before the Navy can start 'bending metal.' This 355-ship Navy will be considerably more expensive to acquire, train, man, and equip than the current 273 ship fleet, and given the readiness hole the Navy is already in, the expense of this plan could amount to an additional $40 billion annually (in 2016 dollars). The Navy is to be commended for at last thinking beyond the constraints of current budgets and stating what it needs to do its job within an acceptable margin of risk.
Bryan McGrath is the Managing Director of The Ferrybridge Group LLC and the Assistant Director of Hudson Institute's Center for American Seapower.
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Image: U.S. Navy photo by Seaman Casey S. Trietsch
Like many others in their bonus years, my K-12 years were marked by the Cold War between the US and the former Soviet Union, which included a nuclear arms race and later the space race.
This stirred my interest in national security policy, which led to a 30-year career as a professor teaching national security policy at The Ohio State University and elsewhere.
But the more I learned about nuclear weapons and the Cold War, the more amazed I became that through all those years – from 1949 to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 – no one on our side or theirs pulled the nuclear trigger, even accidentally. Raspberry pi home vpn.
Last week, I talked with Annapolitan and retired Rear Admiral Jack Kersh, who served as a nuclear submariner and a manager of land-based nuclear assets – i.e., one who played a part in the scenario that 'kept the (nuclear) peace' throughout that extremely dangerous half century.
Indeed, an hour with Kersh, helps you understand that it was no accident that we didn't have an accidental nuclear war during all those years of the US-USSR nuclear stand-off.
The centrality of great power competition.Although the strategic assumptions underpinning this assessment are classified, Mabus' statement makes it clear that renewed great power competition is the primary impetus for advocating for a dramatic increase in fleet size. There have been reports that the Pentagon was instructed to limit its emphasis on great power dynamics, but it appears that the Navy recognizes its unique and critical role in managing this competition by providing a credible, forward deployed deterrent.
Increase in attack submarines. Attack submarines are incredible intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) assets, in addition to being unmatched killing machines in wartime. What is not stressed in the announcement is that while the requirement for attack submarines was 48, the number in the fleet is headed downward to 41 as Reagan-era submarines built at a clip of three per year are replaced by Virginia-class hulls built at two per year. Clearly, the nuclear industrial base is in for a boost. For the 66 attack submarines called for in this assessmentto be realized, three per year should be constructed, even as the Navy replaces its aging Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines.
An additional aircraft carrier. The Navy should be present in three major theaters (Europe, the Middle East, and the Pacific) and a fleet of 11 aircraft carriers is insufficient to meet those demands. That the Navy currently only has 10 carriers (due to a waiver the Congress granted to its legal requirement for 11 while the USS Gerald Ford (CVN 78) is constructed), further exacerbates the problem.
Additional amphibious ships. Amphibious ships are notoriously in high-demand due to their utility and flexibility. The Marine Corps has consistently stated its requirement to be 38 ships, and it appears that the Navy is finally consenting to meeting that requirement.
Others
This is a force structure assessment and not a fleet architecture.What was released today is the distilled product of serious analysis by the Navy, but it is still just a projection of the major forces it will need to do its job in the decades ahead. Unanswered are questions such as 1) What does the Navy believe that job to be? 2) How will the carrier air wing evolve to meet the demands of the anti-access challenges posed by great powers (and others)? 3) What is the role of unmanned vehicles in the future fleet, how will they interact with the manned fleet, and how should their presence be counted? 4) What changes in employment and posture are required to meet the challenges of emerging great power competition, beyond simple fleet growth? Congress was interested enough in questions of this nature that it directed the Navy in 2016 to conduct a series of alternate fleet architecture studies, the results of which have not been made public. I was privileged to assist Bryan Clark of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA) in one of the fleet architecture studies, and while I cannot speak to its specific results until it is released, the force structure our architecture describes is numerically similar the Navy's, but it is based upon fundamentally differing notions of conventional deterrence and force posture. Simply growing the Navy and operating it as we do today will not be an effective response to renewed great power competition.
Too many large surface combatants.The executive summary released by the Navy announcing this assessment points to '…increased…expeditionary BMDBallistic Missile Defense]' requirements to justify the larger number of large surface combatants. There is an important 'roles and missions' question at the heart of this discussion, and the defense of land-based expeditionary forces could, in many cases, be more efficiently be provided by land based Army air defense artillery, freeing up expensive multi-mission ships to pursue the numerous other naval missions required of them. Additionally, for the cost of 16 additional large surface combatants (at $2 billion each) approximately 40 smaller ships can be built (see below).
Too few small surface combatants. Everything worthwhile that the Navy does depends on sea control. Sea control requires a force to neutralize the surface, subsurface, and air threats to it where it wishes to operate. Put another way, the Navy cannot project power without sea control, and the ability of our great power competitors to deny us sea control is on the increase. More numerous, heavily armed and resilient SSC are critical to a credible conventional deterrent force capable of targeting and neutralizing adversary ships and submarines.
The combat logistics force is too small.One of the major findings of the CSBA study mentioned above is the insufficiency of the combat logistics force. Although the new assessment increases the size of this force (oilers, dry cargo ships, etc) somewhat, the wartime requirement envisioned by the CSBA study is dramatically larger.
In Closing
For an advocate of American seapower, there is much to like in this force structure assessment, but Congress and the American people will expect a thorough discussion of the strategic assumptions and narrative behind these numbers before the Navy can start 'bending metal.' This 355-ship Navy will be considerably more expensive to acquire, train, man, and equip than the current 273 ship fleet, and given the readiness hole the Navy is already in, the expense of this plan could amount to an additional $40 billion annually (in 2016 dollars). The Navy is to be commended for at last thinking beyond the constraints of current budgets and stating what it needs to do its job within an acceptable margin of risk.
Bryan McGrath is the Managing Director of The Ferrybridge Group LLC and the Assistant Director of Hudson Institute's Center for American Seapower.
Us Navy Bookends
Image: U.S. Navy photo by Seaman Casey S. Trietsch
Like many others in their bonus years, my K-12 years were marked by the Cold War between the US and the former Soviet Union, which included a nuclear arms race and later the space race.
This stirred my interest in national security policy, which led to a 30-year career as a professor teaching national security policy at The Ohio State University and elsewhere.
But the more I learned about nuclear weapons and the Cold War, the more amazed I became that through all those years – from 1949 to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 – no one on our side or theirs pulled the nuclear trigger, even accidentally. Raspberry pi home vpn.
Last week, I talked with Annapolitan and retired Rear Admiral Jack Kersh, who served as a nuclear submariner and a manager of land-based nuclear assets – i.e., one who played a part in the scenario that 'kept the (nuclear) peace' throughout that extremely dangerous half century.
Indeed, an hour with Kersh, helps you understand that it was no accident that we didn't have an accidental nuclear war during all those years of the US-USSR nuclear stand-off.
Kersh was born in Birmingham, AL, in 1935. Though his father was an electrical engineer and a Westinghouse executive, Kersh was an English major, graduating from Penn State University in 1957. A few months later, he married Joyce, his wife of 58 happy years until her passing in 2016.
During their time together, the Kersh family – including two boys and a girl and, now, five grandchildren – lived in 28 different communities in 10 states before moving to Annapolis in 1993.
Kersh's now-adult children include sons Christopher, in the newspaper advertising business, and Navy Captain (ret.) John; plus son-in-law, Navy Captain Tom Brasek, married to daughter Elizabeth, an active school teacher.
Following graduation from Officer Candidate School in early 1958, and completing submarine school in 1959, Kersh served on the USS Amberjack before moving to Key West, FL where, in 1962, he participated in operations supporting the Cuban missile crisis as a Squadron Twelve communications and electronics material officer.
During the next 20 years, Kersh worked nuclear subs – commanding the USS Andrew Jackson, the USS Stonewall Jackson and, in Charleston, SC, Submarine Squadron Eighteen, including six fleet ballistic missile submarines, a submarine repair facility and a floating dry dock.
Along the way, as a member of the Atlantic Fleet Nuclear Propulsion Examining Board, Kersh conducted more than 80 examinations of nuclear reactor safety on nuclear submarines and surface ships.
Soon after, he served as chief of staff and deputy to the Commander of the Submarine Force of the US Atlantic Fleet before moving to Albuquerque, NM, in 1984, where he commanded the element of the Defense Nuclear Agency that provided oversight of four underground nuclear tests in Nevada, the Johnson Atoll test site in the Pacific and the first successful international nuclear weapons accident exercise.
It was at this point in our conversation that Kersh said, 'Here's part of the answer to your question about how we avoided an accidental nuclear war during these 50 years: High standards. Constant practice. Disciplined execution. No Mistakes.'
'Admiral Hyman Rickover, the Navy's nuclear program director, would not accept that 99% was good enough. We also had effective doctrine that deterred both sides from what would otherwise be mutual assured destruction. And we had what some called 'fail-safe' procedures, such a two-person control.'
'If you saw the movie ‘Crimson Tide', you saw firsthand, for example, the requirement that two officers had to sign off on an order to launch a nuclear weapon. When (because of a garbled communication at sea) Denzel Washington, the executive officer, refused to give his ‘consent to launch' to Gene Hackman, the sub's captain, there was no launch.'
'Then, when Hackman attempted to launch anyway, he was stopped by a crew that enforced the ‘two-person consent' rule despite their admiration and affection for their captain and their personal dislike of the executive officer.'
Kersh's Navy life also included director of Strategic and Nuclear Warfare for the Navy and deputy director of Nuclear Command and Control Support Staff to the Secretary of Defense – all with responsibilities that created and maintained systems and processes that helped the world survive and America prevail in a Cold War that consumed arguably the most dangerous half century in human history.
Kersh retired in 1989, at age 54, after 32 years in the Navy. But that was just a waypoint in a non-stop life of engagement.
'I wanted to keep going,' he said. 'I had good health, lots of energy and more to offer.'
Talk about understatement. Kersh's post-Navy life still includes a lot of Navy. He has served on the Navy Secretary's advisory group on Naval History, the advisory committee of the Naval Submarine League and is an emeritus trustee of the US Naval Academy Foundation.
Kersh's 'retirement' has also included a second career – now more than 20 years – in business, where, until late 2018, he served as a senior executive in commercial enterprises in the environmental management space.
In addition, Kersh continues to be active in civic affairs, and especially the Annapolis Rotary Club, where he is a six-year director, a longtime member, and still very active.
Kersh directs Rotary's programs for youth and vocational services – an active group that sponsors an annual speech contest for high school students, screens nominations for four $1,500 scholarships to area students going to college, provides dictionaries to Third Grade students in area schools, sponsors Rotary clubs for young people, called Interact and Rotaract, and serves with all other Rotarians to produce the annual Crab Feast, scheduled for next Friday, August 7.
Owing to the coronavirus, this year's feast – called 'Crabs on the Go!' – features online orders at www.annapolisrotary.org/crabfeast and a drive-thru pick up at the Navy-Marine stadium.
Rotary is special to Kersh for another reason. It's where he met Maria Baker, former owner of Pewter Chalice on Main Street. The two were married in July 2018.
As for his new life, Kersh said, 'Having Maria's company is so much fun. Rustic iron bookends. We are having a good time, and we're happy. I'm now 85 and a half. You talk about fractions after 80 because you live a day at a time. Our goal now is to enjoy each day – and an important part of our life is working with Rotary to serve all the people in the Annapolis community.'
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Talking with Kersh reminded me of a commencement speech by humanitarian philosopher and physician, Albert Schweitzer, when he said, 'I don't know what your destiny will be, but one thing I do know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve others.'
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