Welcome to part one of the March 2016 members’ roundup. Over the past month CIMSEC members have examined several international maritime security issues, including an increase in Russian naval activities and deployments, recent U.S. naval exercises demonstrating the Fleets’ application of the distributed lethality concept, laser technologies and the U.S. defense acquisition program and as usual, the increasingly tense security environment in the Asia-Pacific.
Paul Pryce begins the roundup in the Asia-Pacific with a discussion, on what he refers to as, the new era in Singaporean defense procurement. In his article at Offiziere, Mr. Pryce highlights that previous procurement strategies for the country’s Navy have focused on acquiring mainly European designed vessels, either built specifically for Singapore or purchased following a short period of service in the initial European country. However, the planned construction of eight indigenous Independence-class littoral mission vessels beginning in 2016 and the expected procurement of a domestically built light aircraft carrier through 2021 suggests that the Singapore’s shipbuilding capacity and overall maritime force projection capabilities are becoming increasingly strengthened – a significant implication for Singapore’s role in South East Asian security dynamics.
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Alex Calvo, for Asian Military Review, discusses the challenge Taiwan faces in securing a replacement for its four aged hunter-killer submarines (SSKs), two of which are vintage Tench-class World War II boats while the other two were commissioned in the Netherlands in 1987 and 1988. Mr. Calvo explains how Europe has become reluctant to support Taiwanese military procurement needs for fear of angering China while the United States no longer produces SSKs. He suggests that Taiwan may look to Japan as an alternative source for its SSK replacement largely due to recent efforts by the Japanese shipbuilding industry to win the contract for the Royal Australian Navy’s SSK procurement requirements while also noting a lack of other feasible alternatives.
Kyle Mizokami, for Popular Mechanics, discusses China’s plans to establish aircraft carrier battle groupstasked with defense of the country’s territorial sovereignty, maritime rights and overseas interests both regionally and perhaps globally. Mr. Mizokami highlights the nature of China’s first operational aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, as he explains its training role and limited capacity to carry large numbers of combat capable aircraft. However, he also notes that China has confirmed the construction of the Dalian carrier, which will have more hangar space for support and combat aircraft – but will still only displace about 50 000 tons, or half that of a modern U.S. carrier.
Leaving the Asia-Pacific, Dave Majumdar outlines the implications of Russia’s planned massive live-fire nuclear exercisebeing conducted by two Project 955 Borei-class ballistic missile submarines deployed with the Northern Fleet. In his article at The National Interest, Mr. Majumdar explains how one of the missile boats will sequentially launch all sixteen of its RSM-56 Bulava missiles at a depth of 164ft while highlighting that such an exercise, whether a U.S. or Russian ballistic missile boat, would only launch their entire payload in conflict as part of full-scale retaliatory or offensive nuclear strike. In a second article at The National Interest, Mr. Majumdar discusses the spotting of a Russian Project 667 BDRM Delfin-class ballistic missile submarine near French territorial waters – the boat carries sixteen missiles capable of carrying four nuclear warheads each with a range of 7500 miles.
Bryan McGrath, for the War on the Rocks, provides the ‘First Principles’ that will help guide the difficult task of structuring the U.S. Navy’s future fleet. Mr. McGrath emphasizes that the Navy must be sized and shaped into a fleet that allows for both combat-credible and presence forces to be positioned globally in a manner that secures national interests while effectively deterring major power conflict. He also mentions the implementation of the distributed lethality concept, where individual platform lethality is increased even as the force becomes geographically dispersed. On this point, Mr. McGrath argues that an individual combat capacity increase should not compel policy makers to reduce the size of the fleet, as one does not necessarily balance the others strategic importance. On the same topic at The National Interest, Dave Majumdar describes a recent test of the SM-6 missile where it was revealed that the system now retains effective anti-surface capability, a major step for distributed lethality implementation across the fleet.
Members at CIMSEC were also active elsewhere during the first part of March:
Kyle Mizokami, for Popular Mechanics, provides an analysis on the technological developments that have allowed lasers to enter military service with effective and useful capabilities. Mr. Mizokami notes that the U.S. Air Force, Army and Navy are all interested in deploying lasers across their forces with the Navy already fielding a laser aboard the Austin-class USS Ponce – while the rest of the fleet is anticipated to see large volumes of laser armament in the 2020-2021 timeframe.
Robert Farley, also for The Diplomat, describes China’s dependence on military technologies acquired from foreign powers. Mr. Farley provides specific examples outlining the importance of foreign technology throughout the PLA, including aircraft carriers, missile defense systems, surface vessels, ground armored systems and several fighter aircraft. However, Mr. Farley notes that this dependence is weakening as domestic innovation and technological breakthroughs are occurring rapidly.
Chuck Hill, for his Coast Guard Blog, provides an outlook for the future role and importance of the U.S. Coast Guard, highlighting its projected fleet size of nine frigate sized National Security Cutters and 25 light-frigate sized Offshore Patrol Cutters – an overall force of 34 surface combatants. In terms of personnel, the Coast Guard is already larger than the French and British navies and should therefore, according to Mr. Hill, be considered a significant maritime asset for U.S. national defense and a supplement to certain U.S. Naval operations. In a second article for his blog, Mr. Hill discusses the Sensor Hosting Autonomous Remote Craft (SHARC)and its possible uses for ASW and anti-drug smuggling operations. He also provides a video illustrating its unique features and special propulsion system.
CIMSEC has also recently (February) published a compendium discussing a range of strategies, challenges and policy options concerning Distributed Lethality. You can find a download link for all of the articleshere.
At CIMSEC we encourage members to continue writing, either here on CIMSEC or through other means. You can assist us by emailing your works to dmp@cimsec.org.
Sam Cohen is currently studying Honors Specialization Political Science at Western University in Canada. His interests are in the fields of strategic studies and defense policy and management.
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The following article is part of our cross-posting partnership withInformation Dissemination’s Jon Solomon. It is republished here with the author’s permission. You can read it in its original form here.
Candidate Principle #6: Technical Degradation is Temporary, Psychological Effects can be Enduring
It must be appreciated that the greatest damage caused by an adversary’s successful cyber-electromagnetic attack may not be in how it degrades a system or network’s performance, opens the door to kinetic attacks against a force, or even tricks commanders into making operationally or tactically-sub-optimal decisions. All of these are generally temporary effects and can be recoverable with flexible plans, resiliency-embracing doctrine, and crafty tactics. Rather, as renowned naval analyst Norman Friedman has hypothesized, it could very well be the shattering of commanders’ and operators’ trust in their systems and networks that is most destructive. If personnel are not conditioned to anticipate their systems’ and networks’ disruption in combat, an attack’s lasting effect may be a morale-corroding fatalism. Likewise, if they are deceived just once by a manipulated situational picture, and even then not necessarily in a majorly harmful way, they may still hesitate to take needed actions in subsequent engagements out of fear of deception even when none is present. Either of these consequences could result in ceding the tactical if not operational initiative. In a short conflict, this might be catastrophic. Doctrinal collapse might also result, which would be especially debilitating if force structure is designed so tightly around a given doctrine that it severely limits options for creating or adapting operating concepts on the fly.[i]
Interestingly, similar effects might conceivably occur even when a system’s or network’s electronic protection and information assurance measures cause a cyber-electromagnetic attack to only achieve a relatively minor degree of immediate ‘damage.’ In fact, near-continuous cyber-electromagnetic harassment in the form of noise jamming, incessant yet readily parried cyber penetration attempts, situational picture-manipulation attacks that the target’s operators can quickly discover and reverse, intermittent system crashes or network connectivity interruptions that are quickly recovered from, or even severe disruptions of non-critical systems and network services may wear a force’s commanders and crews down mentally even if their critical systems and networks remain fully capable. A clever adversary might actually find this psychological degradation more exploitable (and more likely to be available for use at any given time) than technical degradation. Indeed, cyber-electromagnetic warfare’s psychological applications may well be where it finds its greatest utility.
Assessing the Implications
As the Chief of Naval Operations and others have asserted, the cyber and electromagnetic domains have become equally important to the physical domains in waging modern war.[ii] The cyber-electromagnetic fight will extend throughout all phases of major future conflicts, may begin well before open hostilities break out as an adversary attempts to ‘prepare’ the battle space, and accordingly may be particularly pivotal during a war’s opening phase. Indeed, high-impact anti-network operations with major maritime strategic implications date back as far as the opening moments of the First World War. Just as a belligerent might not be able to win a war with naval dominance alone but could easily lose without it, so it will be for cyber-electromagnetic dominance. It follows that a naval force’s ability to operate within a contested maritime zone will be highly questionable if it cannot effectively suppress or exploit the adversary’s force-level networks while simultaneously parrying the adversary’s own cyber-electromagnetic attacks. This will even extend to operations featuring stealth platforms, as such assets have long needed direct EW support to achieve maximal effectiveness.[iv] Should the U.S. Navy under-appreciate a potential adversary’s integration of cyber-electromagnetic warfare within combined arms doctrine, in a future conflict it would risk facing attrition rates on par with what it endured in the Solomon Islands from summer 1942 through summer 1943—something that its contemporary force structure simply could not endure.[v]
Assuming the candidate principles we have outlined are validated, they will influence future maritime warfare in at least five general ways. First, they will confirm leading tactical theorist Wayne Hughes’s hypothesis from over a decade ago that the next major maritime fight will be defined by the belligerents’ struggle for scouting superiority.[vi] This will represent a drastic change from the U.S. Navy’s post-Second World War combat experiences, in which the absence of threats to its sea control allowed it to focus on maximizing the efficiency and persistence of power projection ashore. Regardless of whether a tactical action pits two naval battleforces against each other, or one against a land-based force, the victor will likely be the side that is able to achieve high-confidence classification, identification, and targeting against his opponent’s forces first, thereby enabling effective attack.[vii] Cyber-electromagnetic discipline and capabilities will clearly be central to the success of the scouting/anti-scouting phases of any future operation.
Second, the above signifies that a force will need to extend its effective scouting and anti-scouting reach beyond that of its opponent. This is not achieved solely by covering a given area with more sensors than the opponent, or deploying scouts at greater ranges than the opponent. Rather, as suggested earlier, a sensor network’s effectiveness is equally a function of its architecture. This means the availability of difficult-to-intercept communications pathways and backup communications infrastructure will be just as important as raw coverage volume, lest key sensors be cut off from the network or the situational picture they feed be decisively manipulated. This also means the network must employ multiple sensor types. For surveillance, this translates into multi-phenomenology sensors positioned (or covering areas) as far as possible forward within the battle space, with some using sensing methodologies and platform characteristics that allow them to avoid (or at least delay) counter-detection. For reconnaissance, this requires sensors capable of penetrating the opponent’s force to support the confident confirmation of a given contact’s classification and identity. The U.S. Navy simply cannot afford to waste precious inventories of advanced weapons by falling for deception in a future battle. In this light, the Navy’s proposed Unmanned Carrier Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike (UCLASS) system could be a critical enabler for effectively employing the proposed Long Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM), beyond visual range anti-air missiles, and similar network-enhanced standoff-range maritime weapons. It should not be overlooked that UCLASS, a scouting and attack asset that will be organic to the battleforce, can be designed to support expanded operations on interior lines of networking.
Third, if there is to be a reasonable chance that any degradation will be graceful, cyber-electromagnetic resilience must become a defining attribute of systems’ and networks’ designs. Strong electronic protection and information assurance features are certainly vital, with the latter applying just as much to ‘engineering plant’ systems as to the warfare systems they support. Nevertheless, as no system or network can ever be unexploitable, those central to a force’s tactical capabilities must contain additional design features that allow for quick restoration, graceful degradation, or capability expansion when subjected to withering cyber-electromagnetic attacks. Systems’ avoidance of network-dependency will also help greatly to this end.
Fourth, operations within opposed cyber-electromagnetic environments will demand C2 decentralization, as a higher echelon’s ability to assert direct, secure control over subordinate units under such circumstances will be dubious. Even if possible, this kind of close control will almost certainly be inadvisable if only for force concealment and counter-exploitation considerations. Instead, maritime forces will need to re-embrace ‘command-by-negation’ doctrine, or rather the broad empowerment of lower-level commanders to exercise initiative in accordance with their higher commander’s pre-disseminated intentions, if they are to fight effectively. Relatedly, aggressive experimentation will be needed to find the proper balance between operating on interior and exterior lines of networking when inside a contested zone—and will probably reveal that the bias should be towards the former.
Lastly, forces capable of operating under command-by-negation and in opposed cyber-electromagnetic environments are not developed overnight. Frequent and intensive training under realistic combat conditions will be needed if the requisite force-wide skills are to be developed.[viii] In particular, much as we have traditionally done to cultivate physical damage control readiness, commanders and crews on the deck plates must be regularly conditioned to expect, recognize, and fight-through cyber-electromagnetic attacks. A force’s cyber-electromagnetic resilience will depend in no small way upon its personnel’s technical, tactical, and psychological preparation for operating with critical systems and networks degraded if not compromised, and with situational pictures that have been manipulated. Likewise, a force’s ability to successfully deceive the adversary—not to mention successfully employ countermeasures against the adversary’s weapons—will depend upon the cyber-electromagnetic tactical skills the force’s personnel cultivate through routinized peacetime training. Emission control discipline, decoy placement relative to defended assets, precision evasive maneuvers, precision timing and sequencing of tactics, and the like require frequent practice if commanders and crews are to gain and then maintain just the minimum proficiencies needed to survive in modern maritime battle. The Navy’s next Strategy for Achieving Information Dominance needs to make it clear that cyber-electromagnetic competence must not be isolated to its Information Dominance Corps, and instead must be ingrained within the total force.
While cyber-electromagnetic risks hardly invalidate the use of advanced sensor and networking technologies, they do caution us not to take for granted that our systems and networks will be secure, functional, and reliable when needed. Our doctrine, contingency operational plans, and tactics must be structured around the assumption each of our warfare systems contain exploitable cyber-electromagnetic vulnerabilities that may prevent us from using them to their fullest—or at all—when most needed. We must not allow ourselves to build and field a force that can only fight effectively when its systems and networks are unhindered and uncompromised.
Jon Solomon is a Senior Systems and Technology Analyst at Systems Planning and Analysis, Inc. in Alexandria, VA. He can be reached at jfsolo107@gmail.com.The views expressed herein are solely those of the author and are presented in his personal capacity on his own initiative. They do not reflect the official positions of Systems Planning and Analysis, Inc. and to the author’s knowledge do not reflect the policies or positions of the U.S. Department of Defense, any U.S. armed service, or any other U.S. Government agency. These views have not been coordinated with, and are not offered in the interest of, Systems Planning and Analysis, Inc. or any of its customers.
[i] Norman Friedman. “Trust but Verify.” Naval Institute Proceedings 134, No. 11 (November 2008), 90-91.
[ii] ADM Jonathan Greenert, USN. “Imminent Domain.” Naval Institute Proceedings 138, No. 12 (December 2012), 17.
[iv] See 1. ADM Jonathan Greenert, USN. “Payloads Over Platforms: Charting a New Course.” Naval Institute Proceedings 138, No. 7 (July 2012), 18-19; 2. Gordon and Trainor, 213-215, 217; 3. Arend G. Westra. “Radar Versus Stealth: Passive Radar and the Future of U.S. Military Power.” Joint Forces Quarterly 55 (October 2009), 136-143.
[v] Thomas G. Mahnken. “China’s Anti-Access Strategy in Historical and Theoretical Perspective.” Journal of Strategic Studies 34, No. 3 (June 2011), 310.
[vi] CAPT Wayne Hughes, Jr, USN (Ret). Fleet Tactics and Coastal Combat, 2nd Ed. (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2000), 201-202, 210-212.
The recent innocent passage of USS Lassen through waters claimed by China in the South China Sea, billed as a freedom of navigation operation (FONOP) by the United States, highlights the inefficiency of US policy in the Asia-Pacific.
As has been widely reported, while the US government portrayed the voyage of Lassen through the waters around Subi Reef as a freedom of navigation exercise to challenge Chinese claims to those waters under international law, Lassen conducted an innocent passage, which would have been allowed even in territorial waters under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and therefore not a challenge to Chinese claims. This compromised the US government’s stated goals for the operation.
East China Sea (Mar. 28, 2003) – The guided missile destroyer USS Lassen (DDG 82) sails through the rough seas. Lassen is part of the USS Carl Vinson Battle Group that just recently completed participating in the joint exercise FOAL EAGLE and is continuing a scheduled deployment in the western Pacific Ocean. U.S. Navy Photo by Photographer’s Mate 2nd Class Inez Lawson.
This raises an important question of why the US intentionally compromised its objectives. It is unlikely that this was a result of neglect or ignorance, given the fact that everyone from officers on the ship to the Washington higherups who planned and approved the operation are familiar with international law and the protocol of an innocent passage. The most apparent intention of the US decision to conduct an innocent passage rather than a true FONOP is in an attempt to show restraint, and to avoid serious provocation of China. An important question, then, is whether the US, through its apparent restraint, succeeded in not provoking China.
At the moment, the US appears to have failed. One way of determining whether the FONOPlite provoked China is by examining statements from the Chinese Government and state media about the operation. Admittedly, this isn’t a perfect measure because the Chinese Communist Party is a relatively opaque organization, and it is inherently tough to parse the posturing from the genuine signalling, especially in party-run media outlets. But these statements can point observers in the right direction. Regardless of whether such credit is due, the United States has not gotten any credit in the Chinese press or from officials for its apparent attempt to show restraint. Indeed,opeds in the People’s Daily accuse the US of using FONOPs as “a coverup for the US to destroy peace and stability in the South China Sea” and officials “[urge] the US to stop sowing dissension and deliberately stirring up tension and stop deeds and actions that undermine peace and stability in the region.”
Subi Reef, a disputed land feature in the South China Sea, pictured in May 2015, and undergoing land reclamation to enlarge the island. Such activities have been a controversial development. (Source: US Navy).
Furthermore, the actions and words of the Chinese government agree with each other. Even if their statements were posturing, the pace of Chinese militarization of the sea has quickened. This is clear from recent announcements of new missile deployments, a radar station, and the flight of fighter jets to the sea. The interesting thing about all these developments is that none were announced by the Chinese government. If China was stoking nationalist fervor in an attempt to please citizens who would have been otherwise inclined towards dissent as a result of the recent economic slowdown the Chinese government would have announced these developments itself, and loudly publicize them. However, given its initial decision to keep quiet, observers can reasonably infer that China’s recent actions are driven by considerations of power rather public opinion. This lends even more credibility to the Communist Party’s public statements.
To an extent, the Chinese government has a point. If a foreign warship sailed within twelve nautical miles of US land, even if American claims to that land were questionable, most of the press and politicians of both parties would be outraged. A rough analogy is the Cuban Missile Crisis. The US had nuclear missiles in Turkey at about the same distance from the Soviet Union as Cuba is from Florida, but when Soviet missiles came to Cuba, there was widespread furor in America. Thus, it is questionable whether the FONOP could have been perceived as anything but a provocation.
Yet the FONOP’s true goal (making a statement under international law) was compromised in an attempt to allay Chinese concerns. If it is impossible to avoid provoking China, but the US desires to make a statement, it should do so more vocally and less equivocally. If, to avoid confrontation, the US compromises the legal goals of the FONOP, there is little substantive argument for the FONOP to be carried out at all. This paradox reveals a fundamental problem with US strategy and policy in East Asia – committing to a strategy neither of engagement nor of confrontation is futile because such a strategy will inevitably be interpreted as a strategy of confrontation. The assets necessary for the current “neither here nor there” strategy such as warships, fighter jets, and the like can easily, in China’s view, be repurposed towards a strategy of confrontation and encirclement. President Obama’s “pivot” can be seen in the same light, because while it diplomatic on the one hand, it has significant military aspects.
This is, to a large extent, a manifestation of the Security Dilemma, in which the actions taken by one state for the purposes of strengthening its defense against hypothetical future attacks is interpreted by another state, usually a regional or geopolitical rival, as proactive preparation for future conflict. The security dilemma spurs the rival state to strengthen their defences, beginning a cycle of military upgrades popularly called an arms race. This dynamic unfortunately appears to be at work in East Asia even with defensive weapons, given given China’s vocal opposition to South Korea’s
A test launch of the THAAD missile defense system. (Source: US Army).
The security dilemma is closely related to the Thucydides Trap, a dynamic taking its name from at the end ofBook 1, Chapter 1 of Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War, stating that the most important cause of war between Athens and Sparta was the rise of Athens’ power relative to that of Sparta, which the Spartans considered to be an existential threat to their citystate. The Thucydides Trap is often referenced in the context of USChina relations. While the Thucydides Trap is an example of the Security Dilemma, they are not exactly the same. The Thucydides Trap refers to relative shifts of the balance of state power, and the Security Dilemma, on the other hand, is usually used to refer to deployment of weapons systems, rather than state power in general. The distinction is precise, but it exists nonetheless.
How, then, can the United States maneuver around the Thucydides Trap? The current “neither-here-nor-there” policy is probably not the best option, given the fact that tensions in the South China Sea continue to rise. A cursory analysis would suggest that America’s options are binary confrontation or conciliation. But this would be oversimplifying the available options. State politics are not binary, there is a wide spectrum of possible actions (hence Clausewitz’s famous “War is merely the continuation of policy by other means”). A committed strategy of confrontation is not optimal, and even if it was, it would be politically impossible. A tack toward conciliation would probably require concessions on too many national security interests to be a viable strategy.
A better strategy would require constant communication with China about not only current developments in the area, but clarifications that US and allied actions are purely defensive in nature, rather than attempts at encirclement. Observers can reasonably conclude that such communication already occurs, but it should be stepped up. US and Chinese leaders should be in contact as close as US and Soviet Leaders were at the height of the Cold War. Many deployments by US allies and partners of defensive systems, such as THAAD, are in direct response to threats other than China (namely North Korea) so their deployment should be explicable to Chinese officials. The only place where a such a strategy of communication would fall short is where US and Chinese interests are in direct and irreconcilable conflict, as they are in the case of Taiwan. However, the status quo established by the Shanghai Communique, in which the United States acknowledged the One-China Policy and stated its support to a peaceful solution to the question of Taiwan’s status, seems to be acceptable to the US and to China, at least over the short to medium term, so barring the unforeseeable, this asymmetry of interests should not be fatal to a strategy of increased communication.
A map showing territorial claims in the South China Sea (Source: VOA News)
While it is probably too late for the Obama administration to make a lasting initiative to rationalize diplomacy in the East Asian Littoral, this makes it all the more necessary for the next administration to have a clear vision, no matter what that administration’s party affiliation happens to be. Its vision must be not only clear, but decisive, because a strategy of both engagement and confrontation is not an effective way of pursuing either. A tack to either direction, but not to either extreme, is necessary. This requires an evaluation of US interests in the region. Of course, regional stability and safety of merchant shipping in the area are vital US national security interests, as is continued reassurance of allies. What all of this entails ought to be the subject of further discussion. More importantly, the US needs to envision and debate the status of other interests in the region, and the cost of achieving or protecting them. A strategy of increased engagement would likely require concessions on some nonvital interests, while a more confrontational strategy would entail significant risk. Either way, the current US policy has limited viability over the long term, and carries with it all the risks, but few of the benefits, of a more purposeful strategy.
David Hervey is an undergraduate in his third year at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. He is studying Political Science and Economics, with research interests including political philosophy, low-intensity conflict, and the Asia-Pacific region.
This piece was originally published by the US Naval Institute. It is republished here with permission. Read it in its original form here.
By Eric J. Labs
The Navy released its latest 30-year shipbuilding plan to Congress in April 2015. 1 The document (hereinafter referred to as the 2016 plan) described the purchases, retirements, costs, and projected inventory of the fleet the Navy says it will need from now through 2045. Critically, the plan outlines the fact that the Navy will need substantially more money than what Congress has allocated to shipbuilding in recent decades. The tyranny of time, the stubbornness of high shipbuilding costs, and competing fiscal priorities will put pressure on the size and capability of the future fleet. In short, over the next 30 years the Navy faces a slowly unfolding fiscal Pearl Harbor.
In recent years, the Navy has changed the tone of the annual shipbuilding report it sends to the Congress. It used to be that those documents were full of bureaucratic optimism and rosy scenarios. But over the last three years in particular, the Navy has offered a frank discussion of the challenges it faces in implementing its shipbuilding plan. In my view, a document that was once disregarded by many on Capitol Hill has now become one of the more valuable reports that is sent to the Congress. It warns that hard choices are coming and the Congress and the nation must be prepared to make them.
U.S. Navy – The future USS Zumwalt (DDG-1000) conducts sea trials in December. Such a revolutionary vessel reflects both the aspirations and the daunting challenges of tomorrow’s fleet, for such “alternative ship designs and fleet architecture take a long time to implement,” notes the author, pointing out that the DDG-1000 “has been in development, design, and construction for 20 years. . . .”
Between now and 2045, the Navy proposes buying 264 ships and retiring 244 ships in order to maintain a fleet of 300 ships or more. Officially, the Navy’s goal is 308 ships but under the 2016 plan, the schedule of commissioning new ships and decommissioning old ones yields a fleet of 300 or more beyond 2019 and 308 or more for 12 of the next 30 years. (If 12 littoral combat ships are cut from the program as directed by Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter, then the Navy’s fleet will exceed 300 ships only between 2019 and 2030.) The Navy states directly that without a large increase in its shipbuilding budget, it cannot afford to buy the 264 ships in its shipbuilding plan and would not be able to sustain a fleet of 308 or more ships for very long, if it is reached at all.
I will focus more of this discussion on the first 20 years of the Navy’s plan, covering the years 2016 through 2035, because the third decade of the Navy’s plan is necessarily quite speculative. Nevertheless, keeping an eye on the longer, 30-year perspective is important. While it is true that the nature of warfare, technology, and costs cannot be predicted decades into the future, it is today’s decisions that are most important for the long-run perspective. The President proposes a budget and Congress makes appropriations year-to-year. The Department of Defense provides Congress with a five-year Future Years Defense Program (FYDP), but without the presence of the 30-year plan, the long-range effect on the Navy of the incremental decisions made in each year’s budget cycle would not be understood. For example, in the 1990s, the service built an average of one submarine every other year, and that low rate of construction had no effect on the existing inventory, because coming off the boon years of the 1980s, the attack submarine force was young. Submarine procurement could be reduced during the 1990s without affecting the existing force structure at all. But in the next decade those decisions would manifest themselves in a declining SSN force in a world that today looks like it will get more dangerous and more competitive, not less, and for which some observers of international and naval affairs think having more submarines would be a valuable asset for the Navy.
What to Buy and at What Cost?
Between 2016 and 2035, the Navy plans to buy 178 ships, including 12 expensive Ohio -class replacement ballistic-missile submarines. The rest of those purchases comprise 4 aircraft carriers, 28 attack submarines, 40 large surface combatants, 35 littoral combat ships (LCSs) and frigates, 16 amphibious ships, and 43 combat logistics and support ships.
J. M. Caiella – The Ohio-class sub replacement (SSBN – X) is “the 800-pound gorilla in the room” when it comes to the Navy’s shipbuilding ledger. “At around $6 billion apiece, buying those new boomers poses a substantial fiscal and budgetary challenge to the Navy.”
The Congressional Budget Office, in a report that I authored, estimates the cost of building those ships at an average $18.7 billion per year in Fiscal Year 2015 dollars. 2 But that amount is for new construction only. It does not include all of the other activities that the Navy must fund from its shipbuilding account, such as refueling aircraft carriers, outfitting and post-delivery, and other items. They add another $2 billion to the Navy’s funding requirements, resulting in an average shipbuilding budget of $20.8 billion per year for the next two decades.
The dilemma the Navy faces is that in recent decades shipbuilding budgets have been much lower. Since 1986, the Navy has received an average of only $15.8 billion per year, after adjusting for inflation, for all of its shipbuilding activities. And in the most recent decade, 2006–2015, it was even less—$15 billion. Thus, in order to fund the Navy’s plan, the shipbuilding budget will need to increase by an average of 40 percent compared to the past ten years, or about $6 billion per year.
As readers of Proceedings will know, the 800-pound gorilla in the room is the Ohio Replacement Program. The Navy plans to replace its aging force of 14 Ohio -class ballistic-missile submarines with a new, as-yet unnamed class of 12 boats, with procurement funding starting in 2017 and continuing through 2035. At around $6 billion apiece, buying those new boomers poses a substantial fiscal and budgetary challenge to the Navy. Declared to be the Navy’s top budgetary priority, the question, in the view of some members of Congress, is not whether the Ohio replacements will be funded, but rather how they will be funded. Will the Navy receive increases in its shipbuilding budget to pay for the new submarines, or will the Navy have to buy those submarines from a budget that is not increasing? If so, what happens to the rest of the fleet?
Future Fleet, Historical Funding Level
In the 2014 National Defense Authorization Act, Congress directed the Navy to assess what would happen to its shipbuilding plan if, on average, future shipbuilding budgets matched historical budgets. So far, the Navy has not responded to that congressional directive.
The CBO’s analysis shows that constraining future shipbuilding budgets to an average of $16 billion per year results in a much smaller fleet over time. The assumptions that were made in doing such an assessment were as follows:
• The Navy builds all 12 Ohio replacement submarines.
• Production of aircraft carriers is not cut, because Congress mandates the 11-ship force level in law.
• All other ship programs are cut roughly proportionately.
With those assumptions and applying the budgetary constraint, the Navy would purchase 131 ships over the next 20 years, instead of the 178 in the 2016 shipbuilding plan. Specifically, those purchases would include:
• 4 aircraft carriers
• 12 ballistic-missile submarines
• 18 attack submarines
• 25 destroyers
• 25 LCSs and frigates
• 12 amphibious-warfare ships
• 35 combat logistics and support ships.
Reducing the shipbuilding program by 47 ships over 20 years results in a fleet no larger than today’s by 2035. Over the entire 30 years of the Navy’s plan, the fleet would drift down to 237 ships if the historical funding level does not budge much from $16 billion. (See the accompanying table). That is a reduction of 13 percent compared to today’s Navy and 22 percent compared to the fleet of 2045 projected under the 2016 plan.
Our future fleet.
Is There a Solution?
What are the alternatives to a decline of the Navy’s fleet? Are the alternatives viable? Let us consider each one in turn.
Increase the shipbuilding budget. The first and immediately obvious solution would be to increase the size of the Navy’s shipbuilding budget. Shipbuilding represents about 3 percent of the overall defense budget, a relatively small fraction. As my counterpart at the Congressional Research Service, Ron O’Rourke, has noted in his work, increasing ship construction by $5 billion per year would represent less than 1 percent of defense spending. Yet, even such a small increase faces three powerful headwinds—one short-term, one long-term, and one that is a constant—that are political and budgetary in nature. In the near term, any increase in the defense budget faces the caps imposed by the Budget Control Act (BCA) of 2011 and the various amendments, including the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015. While the BCA says nothing about how much of the DOD budget may be spent on any particular account, the fact that the BCA caps defense spending below the President’s 2016 FYDP makes it extremely difficult to find the money to increase any category of spending, including shipbuilding. The 2016 FYDP allocated $121 billion more for defense spending over the years 2016 to 2020 than the amounts allowed under the revised caps of the BCA. Thus, widespread cuts are the order of the day, not funding increases.
Although the BCA is set to expire in 2021, presumably making it easier to increase the defense budget in the long term, the large fiscal challenges facing the United States will not. Between now and 2040, the CBO projects that the demands by a growing older population and rising medical costs will increase spending on Social Security and Medicare by 27 percent and 80 percent respectively. But the dedicated revenues that support those programs will remain nearly flat. 3 Because federal deficits over that period will persist and increase the national debt, the CBO also projects that spending on interest will increase by 230 percent; at the same time, revenues from federal income taxes will increase by only 25 percent. Stiff competition for federal resources will remain a fact of our budget debates for decades to come, and the Navy will not be immune.
Finally, within the defense budget itself are the competing demands and priorities of the services and their supporters. If the military branches were unified in the perspective that naval shipbuilding, including the Ohio replacement, should be the nation’s first military priority—or at least the first acquisition priority—it might be a relatively simple thing to shift 1 percent of the defense budget in its favor. But that is not a universally held view. As the threats to U.S. national security become more varied in this emerging new strategic era, the competing demands of all parts of the military for more resources make shifting even a small amount of the defense budget a difficult proposition, especially with the demands on federal resources continuing to grow. 4
Adopt alternative ship designs and fleet architecture. If more money does not flow into the Navy’s shipbuilding accounts, what are the other alternatives? Are there ways to squeeze more out of the current budget? Can you keep ships around longer and modernize them? Does the Navy really need to buy the fleet it is proposing, or would an alternative be better? These are large, wide-ranging questions that deserve serious attention and debate. My purpose in raising and discussing them briefly in this article is to show that even if such suggestions were adopted, they would have little effect on the fleet over the next 10 years and only a marginal effect over the next 20 years.
Let us very briefly consider two examples of alternative fleet architectures proposed by two knowledgeable and experienced men in the business of fleet design: Captain Arthur “Trip” Barber and Captain Wayne Hughes. 5Both are retired Navy officers who then spent many more years thinking about alternative fleet architectures and ship designs. They still do.
In a 2014 Proceedings article, Captain Barber recommends that the Navy do a number of things differently in what he sees as an unending period of federal fiscal constraint. He suggests changing the capabilities of existing ship platforms as well as changing the ways the Navy deploys or stations ships in order to get more deployed time out of these expensive capital assets. However, he also recommends exploring several alternative ship designs that, he argues, would reduce shipbuilding costs, including using a single new ship design for both aircraft carriers and large-deck amphibious-assault ships, developing several classes of surface combatant that perform different missions but share a common hull, and repeating that common-hull approach for various support-ship missions.
U.S. Navy (Sam Shavers) – Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus delivers remarks at the christening of the USS Jackson (LCS-6) in December. The Secretary of Defense recently called for cuts to the LCS shipbuilding program, which might be said to have experienced its share of setbacks and controversy.
Captain Hughes equally reimagines the future fleet, although he believes his plan is affordable within existing shipbuilding budgets. The New Navy Fighting Machine, as Captain Hughes describes it, would develop even more new ship types than would Captain Barber’s. Specifically, Captain Hughes envisions new conventionally powered submarines, light aircraft carriers, small land-attack arsenal ships, and a substantial green-water force, as well as continuing to build numerous ship types that are already part of the Navy’s 2016 plan.
Nevertheless, however thought-provoking the suggestions offered by both men, making such major changes to the fleet will not be easy or quick. Alternative ship designs and fleet architectures take a long time to implement. For example, the LCS was first proposed in 2001. Fifteen years later the Navy has commissioned six of those small, relatively inexpensive 3,000-ton ships. A large all-new ship design, such as the DDG-1000 Zumwalt -class destroyer, has been in development, design, and construction for 20 years and won’t commission into the fleet until later this year. The same is true for the new Ford -class aircraft carrier. Under the Navy’s shipbuilding plan, in 15 years—2031—the Navy will have only eight new combat ships of entirely new design: three Ford -class carriers, three Zumwalt -class destroyers, and two Ohio replacement ballistic-missile submarines. Another 48 combat ships will be commissioned that have a modified design of existing warships: 21 Arleigh Burke –class Flight III destroyers, 20 frigates based on the LCS (or just 12 under Secretary Carter’s directive), and seven LX-R amphibious ships based on the existing LPD-17 hull. The Navy will also have another 28 combat logistics and support ships of some new type. Overall, in 2031 at least three-quarters of the fleet will still be composed of ships with designs that are in service today.
Thus, unless the ship-acquisition process can be changed such that it dramatically speeds up the introduction of new ship designs into the fleet, most of the suggestions by Captains Barber and Hughes would not have a meaningful effect on the composition of the fleet until, coincidentally, the Ohio Replacement Program is essentially completed in 2035. This is a point that Captain Hughes explicitly acknowledges and addresses (and one that Captain Barber recognizes but does not address), but, based on the Navy’s acquisition history, the former may be optimistic about what is achievable in 10–20 years. 6
Huntington Ingalls – A rigger oversees a small-unit flip during construction currently underway on the second Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carrier, the future USS John F. Kennedy (CVN-79) at Newport News Shipbuilding. “In 15 years – 2031 – the Navy will only have eight new combat ships of an entirely new design,” including three Fords.
Keep older ships in the fleet. A less time-intensive alternative to new ship designs or fleet architectures would be to modernize older ships and keep them in the fleet. But this approach has its own problems. Paradoxically, the Navy is already doing this to a large extent, so it is not clear that more can be done, but also historical experience suggests that the service dislikes doing so. Over the past 20 years, senior Navy leaders have extended the service lives of more than 100 submarines, destroyers, and amphibious ships relative to their original design lives. At the same time, the Navy retired dozens of ships that had many years of useful service life remaining, rather than purchasing slightly fewer new ships to pay for keeping the older ships in the fleet.
Specifically, in the early 2000s, the Navy increased the service life of the Ohio -class ballistic-missile submarines from 30 years to 42. If that had not been done, we would have debated the merits and means to pay for the Ohio replacement more than a decade ago, when the United States was fully engaged in two wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Similarly, the service life of Los Angeles –class attack submarines was increased from 30 years to 33. The Navy now assumes its large-deck amphibious-assault ships will serve for 43 to 45 years, which is up from 40 years. And since the release of the 2009 shipbuilding plan, the Navy has assumed its Arleigh Burke –class destroyers would serve in the fleet for 40 years, rather than 35 years in earlier plans, which is up from the original design life of 30.
Extending the service lives of these ships further is impossible in some cases and questionable in others. The submarines will be at the limit for the number of cyclings (submerging and surfacing) that their pressure hulls can tolerate, and the energy in their reactors will be exhausted. Conventionally powered surface ships, however, could in theory be upgraded if the Navy chose to do so. Properly maintained, conventional hulls can last for many decades. Ships that were retired from the U.S. Navy and sold or transferred to other countries often serve for decades longer as a result. But at a certain point, a ship that is still useful in a South American or Asian navy would no longer be valuable to the U.S. Navy, because physical limitations may prevent a modernization of her combat systems to perform high-end missions. Further, keeping older ships in the fleet even longer would require the Navy to modernize combat systems and fully fund maintenance programs. But budgetary constraints and long, frequent deployments have made it hard for the service to do so. Thus, if it is not clear that Burkes can serve for 40 years, it seems even less likely they could serve for 45 to 50 years performing missions the Navy would find valuable.
At the same time the Navy was extending the service lives of some ships, it was retiring others well before the end of their design lives. In the late 1990s through the mid-2000s, the Navy retired the entire class of Spruance destroyers. To keep those ships in the fleet the Navy would have had to spend money on improving their material condition as well as upgrading their combat systems. It also would have cost money to continue to operate those ships. But a decade later, the surface-combatant force is overworked with long deployments because there are insufficient ships to meet the demand. In addition, the original plan was to retire the Oliver Hazard Perry –class frigates sooner and keep the Spruances around, but that decision was reversed because it was cheaper to operate the smaller ships. Relative capabilities apparently did not figure strongly in the decision.
Similarly, the Navy retired 17 Los Angeles –class attack submarines at an average age of 22 years, rather than pay to refuel those boats and keep them in the fleet. Paying for all 17 refuelings would have cost less than the price of two new Virginia -class submarines. Again, the Navy would have had to budget resources to operate those ships, but at about $40 million per submarine per year, that was not an insurmountable obstacle.
And more recently, the Navy proposed to retire seven Ticonderoga -class cruisers and two amphibious ships to help conform to the budgetary caps of the Budget Control Act, rather than reduce new ship purchases further. Congress intervened, however, directing the Navy to keep those ships in the fleet and provided additional appropriations to do so. But if the Navy had had its way two years ago, the fleet today would number 264 ships. In that event, the strain on large surface combatants and amphibious ships, which now routinely deploy for seven to ten months, would be even greater.
Size? Capabilities? Both?
One way for a policymaker or anyone interested in naval matters to think about these issues is to figure out what your objective is. Do you care most about the size of the fleet? Or are the capabilities of the fleet more important? Of course, both are important. But the tension between size and capabilities is in many ways a proxy for the tension between the Navy’s day-to-day responsibilities and its high-end warfighting requirements. In an unendingly tight fiscal environment, a larger Navy is one that is better able to provide overseas presence and perform the many, varied peacetime missions that our naval forces are routinely called on to conduct—without overly stressing the ships and crews. 7However, ships with the high-end warfighting capabilities that would be needed in an unlikely, but far from impossible, future conflict with a peer or near-peer competitor are expensive. The Navy cannot afford to build as many of them as it would like under historical funding levels.
If this seems like a daunting set of challenges for shipbuilding, that’s because it is. Yet, it may be possible that a little bit of everything could close the gap. If the Congress can shift a fraction of 1 percent of the defense budget toward shipbuilding, if improving acquisition can squeeze a fraction of 1 percent of the defense budget toward more shipbuilding, and if the Navy invests in some of its older ships to keep them in service, then perhaps it can step off the path toward a fleet of 237 ships that history says it is on. But that combination of outcomes would be difficult to achieve.
Dr. Labs, writing here as a private citizen, is Senior Analyst for Naval Forces and Weapons at the Congressional Budget Office. He specializes in issues related to the procurement, budgeting, and sizing of the forces for the Department of the Navy. Dr. Labs has testified before Congress several times and published numerous studies under the auspices of the CBO as well as a number of articles and papers in academic journals and conferences.
1. Report to Congress on the Annual Long-Range Plan for Construction of Naval Vessels for Fiscal Year 2016 (Washington, DC: Department of the Navy, March 2015), http://tinyurl.com/ocrqtfc [8] .
2. Congressional Budget Office, An Analysis of the Navy’s Fiscal Year 2016 Shipbuilding Plan , October 2015, www.cbo.gov/publication/50926[9] .
4. Ronald O’Rourke, A Shift in the International Security Environment: Potential Implications for Defense—Issues for Congress , Congressional Research Service, 20 November 2015,www.hsdl.org/?view&did=788858 [11] .
5. CAPT Arthur H. Barber, USN (Ret.), “Rethinking the Future Fleet,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings , vol. 140, no. 5 (May 2014), 48–52. CAPT Wayne P. Hughes, USN (Ret.), The New Navy Fighting Machine: A Study of the Connections Between Contemporary Policy, Strategy, Sea Power, Naval Operations, and the Composition of the United States Fleet , (Monterey, CA: Naval Postgraduate School, 2009). See also his “A Bimodal Force for the National Maritime Strategy,” Naval War College Review , vol. 60, no. 7 (Spring 2007), 29–47.
