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Current Operations

Star Gazing: Why Do We Have So Many Flag Officers?

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By Captain James L. McClane, U.S. Navy (ret.) and  Captain Kevin Eyer, U.S. Navy (ret.)

Introduction

It is entirely possible that the enormous superstructure of the Navy is actually working against maintaining an effective Fleet. We seem to be mired in a time in which counterproductive institutional incentives and dynamics have developed naturally in the absence of an existential threat to focus our efforts, such as a great power competitor. One of these unhelpful dynamics has been the explosion in the numbers of flag officers.

A cursory examination of the historical record makes clear that the number of flag officers serving in the United States Navy operates independently from either the number of ships in service or the number of personnel in uniform. Today, the number of flag officers seems to be more a political concoction or of runaway administrative outgrowth, but has little to do with the sea or the ability to sustain combat operations on it.

In the U.S. Navy, with the exception of the Civil War, there were no flag officers from the American Revolution until the Spanish American War. There were ceremonial commodores when operational protocol called for them, but otherwise no flags. However, the record from the Naval Historical Center beginning with the Spanish American War going to the modern naval era is instructive:

Year Flag Officers Ships in Service Flag/Ship Ratio
1899 (Spanish American War) 19 133 .14
1916 (WWI) 30 774 .04
1944 (WWII) 256 6,084 .04
1953 (Korea) 260 1,121 .23
1972 (Vietnam) 362 654 .6
2012 359 280 1.28

The line was crossed in 1997, at which point the number of flag officers equaled the number of active ships. Today, there is about 32 times the number of flag officers per active ship as there were during WWII, when captains were entrusted to run the Navy with paper, pencil, dial telephones, voice radio, flag hoists, flashing lights, and seamanship. Using personnel figures reveals the flag-to-Sailor ratio increased by a factor of 100 times. What caused these drastic increases?

Explanations and Justifications

There are explanations for this growth. First, there is an institutional “law” which affects the matter. In 1955, the Royal Commission on the Civil Service published a report which explained how the previously inexplicable growth noted across the British bureaucracy was inevitable. The report was based upon what soon became known as “Parkinson’s Law.” According to The Economist, Nov 19, 1955: “The fact is that the number of the (senior) officials and the quantity of the work to be done are not related to each other at all. The rise in the total of those employed is governed by Parkinson’s Law, and would be much the same whether the volume of the work were to increase, diminish or even disappear…Omitting technicalities (which are numerous) we may distinguish, at the outset, two motive forces. They can be represented for the present purpose by two almost axiomatic statements, thus: Factor I – an official wants to multiply subordinates, not rivals; and Factor II – officials make work for each other.”  

The study went on to demonstrate Parkinson’s Law, using, in one case, the explosion of Royal Navy admirals, between 1914 and 1928, a period of time in which the number of ships fell precipitously, while a sharp rise in admiralty officials (almost 80 percent) was noted, creating what one called “a magnificent Navy on land.” 

There is even a formula:  x = 2km + p over n, where k is the number of staff seeking promotion though the appointment of subordinates; p represents the difference between the ages of appointment and retirement; m is the number of man-hours devoted to answering minutes within the department; and n is the number of effective units being administered. Then x will be the number of new staff required each year.

This perfect self-licking ice cream cone was replicated a century later in the U.S.. In 2010, then-Secretary of Defense Robert Gates called for the elimination of more than 100 general and flag officer positions as part of his so-called, “Efficiency Initiatives.” Despite a clear plan and subsequent Pentagon assurances that cuts were to be made, the top ranks remain largely intact to this day, and the small number of reductions occurred almost exclusively at the one-star level.

Add to this the fact that a May 2013 GAO analysis found that the number of support staff at DoD’s Combatant Command headquarters grew “by about 50 percent from fiscal years 2001 through 2012.” This created added distance between commanders and warfighters. “In some cases the gap between me and an action officer may be as high as 30 layers,” Gates once stated, resulting in a “bureaucracy which has the fine motor skills of a dinosaur.”

Intransigent, perhaps, but the services have their own explanations for the necessity of ever-increasing numbers of general and flag officers, as well as Senior Executive Service (SES) personnel. According to a February 2016 CRS report entitled, “General and Flag Officers in the U.S. Armed Forces:  Background and Considerations,” one frequently cited cause of the increase in senior personnel has been the increase in “joint” requirements that followed enactment of the Goldwater-Nichols Act (GNA) in 1986. In other words, we’re hamstrung by a law not of our own making.

Another rationale used to explain the increase has been an increased focus on forging coalitions with other nations. This has, in turn, generated a demand for senior military leaders to conduct coordinated planning, training, and operations with their peers from foreign nations. The proofs of this rational seem to be missing, as the military worked with large coalitions in the past – in World War II, for example – without a glut of senior officers.

There are also inescapable issues connected to the organizational structure of the military, which includes certain positions regardless of overall size of the military. There will be a Chief of Naval Operations regardless of force size. A similar case can be made for many senior persons who serve on the Joint Staff, the Service Staffs, the Combatant Commands, and certain defense agencies. According to the CRS, “Given the organizational structure of the Armed Forces—some of which is required by law—the amount of management ‘overhead’ does not necessarily change in direct proportion to the size of the force.”

However, according to the CRS:

“Prior to the creation of DOD by the National Security Act of 1947, military services were separate entities with distinct missions, frequently in competition with each other for resources. Although the establishment of DOD brought services together in a single organization, those services continued to organize, plan, and operate relatively independently, and they maintained separate, direct chains of command over their respective parts of the operational force. In turn, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (CJCS) was a spokesperson for the Joint Chiefs, but exercised little authority over his fellow Joint Chiefs. In practice, this meant that services trained, planned, and executed operations separately from each other, or at best side by side. Prioritization, including associated resource decision-making, took place primarily within the Military services, rather than across DOD as a whole; and there was little if any room for DOD to benefit from economies of scale.”

What Goes Up and What Goes Down

While the military, writ large, is clearly more sophisticated than it was in the past, and while political, acquisition, and joint/combined organizations impose a greater demand than ever before for senior representation, it is still hard to understand how the number of flag officers and senior executives are sustained in the Navy with intractable fervor even as the active ship list has declined by about 70 percent.

With specific regard to the Navy, what do the numbers suggest? Why is there no apparent flag statistical correlation with active ships or Sailors? Should we understand this disproportionate growth in flag officers to be worrisome or simply a necessary development? At least in the Surface Force, the growth of flag/SES numbers has been matched by a demonstrable and steady decline in readiness. This decline seems to have been relatively unnoticed and unremarked upon by leaders until very recently when many appeared to be taken by surprise that ships were poorly maintained, trained, and sailed without required certifications.

If, as has been claimed, this number is the absolute necessity in order to keep the Navy on a level playing field with the other services – for both dollars and influence – then can’t these senior persons also do a more meticulous job of running things inside the Navy? 

It seems that “The Navy” has less and less to do with the active fleet and more to do with something else. A part of the problem of ineffectual leadership may lie in what criteria are being used for flag selection. Increasingly, and over many years, flag activities have less to do with actual fleet operations and more to do with extra-Navy relationships. The entering argument for flag-selection has moved (at least in the case of surface warfare) away from, “sustained, superior performance at sea” and toward the question of, “what can you do for us in Washington if we make you an admiral?”

It is commonly understood that, regardless of record, an officer without substantial experience in Washington is unlikely to move beyond a first command. Those officers who stay with the fleet, without also keeping a weather-eye on good Washington tours, and an associated accretion of powerful advocates, end up being viewed by boards as insufficiently broad, which is tantamount to non-selection. Whether they are the sorts of persons that are wanted to fight the nation’s battles at sea or not is hardly of interest. Instead, what is of interest is: Can they can influence a budget? Plan future manning? Are they acquainted with the interests of industry and congress? Are they thoroughly familiar with the employment of power and influence beyond the Navy’s lifelines? Are they polished? Do they fully support Navy policy, regardless? But whether they are skilled in ship maintenance, anti-submarine warfare, or operational-level warfighting and tactics is of little (or at best secondary) interest despite how vital these grassroots-level skills are toward crafting viable policy. Instead what we have built is a bloated generation of leaders who are better at fighting bureaucracies than wars.

Solutions and Ideas

Flag numbers cannot be easily drawn down once established. Nevertheless, a new path forward must be described. That path includes cultural changes, which can only be effected from the top-down.

First, board precepts should be altered to reward at least a few of those officers who are more regarded for their operational/waterfront excellence than their experiences in front offices. More stars need to go to officers who are intimately connected to the fleet and with developing warfighting tactics, rather than with the Washington milieu. Rather than asking simply, “What can he or she do for us in Washington,” perhaps another important question should be, “Who do we want to fight our wars?”   

Second, hard questions should be asked with regard to whom, exactly, we are putting in charge of the actual procurement and maintenance of ships. Engineering Duty Officers (EDs) and Acquisition Professionals (APs) are the unquestioned flags of who actually runs the bottom-line acquisition of ships, as well as their maintenance. It seems odd that these are also officers that have had few command-at-sea (EDs) or a major command-at-sea tours (APs).

Third, meaningful command opportunities for captains, beyond major command, should be established. It makes little sense to give our most experienced surface force captains the choice of either making flag, going to an obscure, heavy-lifting staff job, or get out. As it is, most of the few “sequential major commands” are either shore- or training-based, and kept firmly under the thumb of closely connected flags. Our real ship experts leave, almost to a man, if they don’t make flag, and those who do stay are generally only doing so to prepare for their next career. On the other hand, many would stay if they were offered positions commensurate with their background and experience, positions in which they could bring their expertise to bear on cracking hard problems on warfighting tactics or waterfront operations, and not carrying out more simple staff functions for a bureaucracy that has outgrown its administrative usefulness.

Fourth, cut the number of SES positions. Certainly, one may ask what these SES personnel can provide that uniformed personnel cannot. Continuity? Stability? Unfortunately, it seems as if these terms have become euphemisms for the sort of bureaucratic paralysis and risk aversion, in the name of self-interest, which increasingly plagues the services but especially the SES. Consider replacing these persons with long-serving captains, post-major command, and allow them to remain in place for multiple tours (as opposed to indefinitely as is the case with SESs) if necessary.

Finally, the real bureaucracy – the self-licking ice cream cone  –  needs to be cut. Not just flag officers and senior executives, but their counterparts across the services should be a primary target for a congressionally-mandated mission/task review, with resultant manpower and infrastructure reductions, as well as an across-the-board reduction in flag and SES-level requirements. There are several approaches available. First, former Secretary Gates’ Efficiency Initiatives should be fully implemented. Second, caps on the total number of general and flag officers, instituted by President Bush in 2001, should be reinstated and tied to the size of the force.

While there may be certain institutional and bureaucratic reasons for maintaining the number of senior personnel in the service, the evidence seems to suggest that these leaders are increasingly remote from, and unable to address the issues of, the fleet – and the same is probably true in the other services.

Captain James L. McClane comes from a Navy family. His service afloat since 1964 includes DD, DDGs, CGs, and with Aegis destroyer and cruiser commands. He was the commissioning combat systems officer of USS Ticonderoga (CG 47). His service ashore includes sequential major commands of Afloat Training Group Atlantic.

Captain Kevin Eyer served in seven cruisers, commanding three Aegis cruisers: USS Thomas S. Gates (CG-51), Shiloh (CG-67), and Chancellorsville (CG-62).

Featured Image: YOKOSUKA, Japan (Sept. 7, 2011) – From left, Adm. Patrick M. Walsh, Vice Adm. Scott R. Van Buskirk and Vice Adm. Scott H. Swift bow their heads during the benediction at the U.S. 7th Fleet change of command ceremony held on the flight deck aboard the command ship USS Blue Ridge (LCC 19). (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Kenneth R. Hendrix)

Capability Analysis

Tightening the Chain: Implementing a Strategy of Maritime Pressure in the Pacific

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The following is adapted from a recent report by the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, Tightening the Chain: Implementing a Strategy of Maritime Pressure in the Western Pacific.

By Peter Kouretsos

The U.S. military has a problem in the Western Pacific: the tyranny of distance and time. Delivering military force across the vast Pacific Ocean has never been easy, even for a country as blessed in resources and ingenuity as the United States. The problem has worsened as America’s chief regional rival, China, has improved its ability to harm American interests quickly and with limited forewarning. Seventy years after Mao Zedong proclaimed the People’s Republic of China, China’s military capabilities have matured to the point where, if directed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) could launch a rapid attack to change the status quo, including territorial seizure, before the United States could meaningfully respond, thus presenting Washington with a fait accompli. American forces located outside the conflict area would have to penetrate China’s anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) network to restore the status quo ex-ante, a daunting proposition. Under these circumstances, Washington might face the unenviable choice of doing nothing or escalating to higher levels of violence. Either way, the national interests of both the United States and its closest allies would suffer dramatically.

To address this challenge, a new CSBA report proposes a U.S. military strategy of Maritime Pressure and a supporting joint operational concept, “Inside-Out” Defense, to stabilize the military balance in the Western Pacific and deny China the prospect of a successful fait accompli. The report goes beyond previous studies by outlining a new operational concept, assessing potential Chinese responses, and estimating the budgetary costs of implementing it.

Strategy in Brief

The United States faces a geographic asymmetry in the Western Pacific. China’s primary territorial concerns—Taiwan, the South China Sea, and the East China Sea—are far closer to its mainland than they are to the United States. In contrast, the United States has territory, allies, and interests in the Western Pacific but must traverse the expanse of the Pacific Ocean to defend them. At the same time, the PLA has developed a counter-intervention doctrine and supporting A2/AD capabilities to stifle the U.S. military’s ability to project power rapidly into, or operate effectively within, the Western Pacific during a conflict. Given these challenges, the United States would be hard-pressed to overcome the tyranny of distance and Chinese A2/AD capabilities quickly enough to deny a Chinese fait accompli.

For example, in the direst scenario involving an all-out PLA attack on Taiwan, U.S. and allied military forces would have to respond in force quickly, within hours or days, to thwart a Chinese fait accompli attempt. U.S. and allied forces would not have weeks or months to concentrate in mass near the theater of operations and then counterattack before China seizes control of Taiwan or forces the Taiwanese government into submission. Nor would friendly forces have time to fight their way to decisive points in the battlespace if they begin the conflict outside China’s A2/AD bubble. Moreover, attempting to rollback Chinese gains and liberate Taiwan after the fact would be difficult, costly, and potentially escalatory.

American policymakers are right to worry about such a scenario. History shows that deterrence is more likely to fail when an aggressor believes it can pull off a fait accompli successfully. If Chinese leadership believes it can achieve gains through aggression quickly and without paying steep costs in blood, treasure, and reputation, it may be tempted to escalate a crisis to open conflict.

As a deterrence by denial strategy, Maritime Pressure aims to persuade Chinese leaders that attempting military aggression in the Western Pacific will fail, thus discouraging them from trying it. The strategy uses the geography of the First Island Chain—the barrier formed by Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, and maritime and peninsular Southeast Asia—to deny Chinese military supremacy within, and constrain China’s access beyond, the Western Pacific during crisis or war. Specifically, it aims to thwart Chinese sea control, air superiority, and information dominance, conditions viewed by Chinese leaders as essential to military victory, in order to reduce the Chinese leadership’s confidence in its ability to control the course and outcome of a future conflict, thus bolstering deterrence. In short, by creating doubt in the minds of Chinese leaders about the prospects of a fait accompli gambit, Maritime Pressure discourages them from attempting it in the first place.

As a defense-oriented denial strategy, Maritime Pressure can complement or substitute for alternative approaches such as blockade operations or punishment strikes against mainland China. Those alternatives, although potentially useful as part of a broader campaign to prevail in a protracted conflict with China, would likely not achieve success rapidly enough to thwart a fait accompli, and could escalate the conflict beyond the risk tolerances of U.S. and allied political leaders. Without a strategy designed to prevent a fait accompli, the United States might lose a war before alternative approaches have time to be effective. At a minimum, Maritime Pressure could buy the United States and its allies time, creating the space for other approaches to take effect.

Inside-Out Defense as a Point of Departure Operational Concept

A strategy of Maritime Pressure requires a supporting operational concept that can balance the need to respond rapidly enough to offset the U.S. military’s time-distance challenge without having to physically concentrate U.S. forces on a small number of large, close-in bases that are highly vulnerable to China’s robust area denial capabilities. That is, the operational concept must allow the U.S. military to create the virtues of mass rapidly without the vulnerabilities of concentration.

Inside-Out Defense combines lethal and resilient “inside” forces able to fight and persist within highly contested environments with agile “outside” forces capable of fighting from standoff distances or penetrating A2/AD networks. Together, these inside and outside forces could create a responsive, yet survivable, forward defense-in-depth in the Western Pacific capable of rapidly blunting Chinese aggression at the outset of a conflict. To use a football analogy, the inside forces would act as a defensive line while the outside air and naval forces acted as linebackers. While China may control the snap count, the “Inside-Out Defense” concept will demonstrate that the U.S. is ready to play.

Figure 1: Inside-Out Defense Overview (CSBA Graphic)

Inside forces: Below the level of armed conflict, inside forces forward postured in the Western Pacific would provide a persistent, combat credible signal of U.S. commitment, which should give Chinese leaders pause by complicating their decision calculus and undermining their confidence in their military plans. In the event of conflict, they would exploit the region’s maritime geography and assume a dispersed, resilient posture along the First Island Chain to form an initial defensive barrier that could immediately challenge Chinese military operations and play three key roles. First, they would contest what Chinese doctrine has identified as necessary prerequisites for conducting a successful military campaign: air superiority, sea control, and information dominance. Second, they would attack Chinese power projection forces to delay and deny their ability to achieve objectives through aggression, such as seizing the territory of U.S. allies or partners, while blocking China from projecting power beyond the First Island Chain. Third, they would degrade key Chinese systems to create gaps in China’s A2/AD networks that outside forces could then exploit.

Mobile and dispersed ground forces—and amphibious forces ashore—would form the backbone of these inside forces. Leveraging the inherent survivability of mobile, hard-to-find ground forces augmented with counter-detection aids, such as camouflage, concealment, and deception (CCD), the inside forces would transform the First Island Chain’s archipelagos into defensive bastions bristling with multi-domain capabilities such as sensors, missiles, and electronic warfare systems. Undersea platforms, both manned and unmanned, could operate within or near the East China Sea and South China Sea to augment these island bastions as part of the inside forces.

Outside forces: Primarily consisting of air and naval surface forces, outside forces would provide a flexible and agile element to support the units arrayed along the First Island Chain. The overwhelming mass of U.S. combat power would reside in these outside forces. In the event of conflict, they would back up the defensive barrier and provide defense-in-depth in the Second Island Chain. If necessary, they could surge forward to plug any gaps in the defensive barrier of inside forces created either by lack of U.S. access to allied or partner territory or through attrition from Chinese attacks. By employing standoff and penetrating capabilities, these outside forces could exploit gaps in the Chinese A2/AD complex created by the inside forces in order to augment defensive operations with additional mass and conduct offensive operations. Outside forces could also leverage their greater freedom of maneuver to conduct other priority missions, such as holding Chinese overseas assets at risk or interdicting Chinese maritime commerce.

Lines of Operation

Sea denial: From distributed positions along the First Island Chain, ground forces equipped with launchers capable of firing ASCMs or anti-ship ballistic missiles (ASBMs) could attack Chinese surface ships, creating gaps in China’s outer defenses that outside air and surface forces could then exploit. Undersea forces, including both manned and unmanned platforms, could augment inside ground forces by acting as forward sensors and conducting torpedo and ASCM strikes against Chinese ships, as well as provide the principal method of defeating Chinese undersea forces within the First Island Chain. Surface combatants, 4th generation fighters, and legacy bombers, operating over ground-based air defense bubbles along the First Island Chain, could also support sea denial operations with long-range ASCMs. Other stealthy platforms could operate forward to conduct maritime strikes and act as sensors for land-based missiles. Equipping distributed ground forces with a family of missiles with greater ranges than ones they currently possess (Figure 2) would hedge against more restrictive access for U.S. forces on allied and partner territory, enable ground forces to attack PLAN forces operating closer to China and in the Taiwan Strait, and provide more robust fields of overlapping anti-ship fires.

Figure 2: Overlapping Coverage of Ground-Based Sea-Denial Systems1 (CSBA graphic)

Air denial: Given the long operating distances from airbases primarily located in the Second Island Chain and beyond, U.S. and coalition forces would not be able to continuously contest air superiority in the conflict area. An improved land-based integrated air and missile defense (IAMD) architecture positioned along the archipelagoes of the First Island Chain could help pick up the slack. It would consist of a layered defense of mobile, long-range, wide-area, and short-range point air defense systems employing a mix of missiles, guns, and directed energy capabilities such as lasers and high-power microwaves. Additionally, ISR platforms and fighters partially sheltered behind land-based integrated air defense systems on the First Island Chain could enhance battlespace awareness and plug limited gaps in the air defense perimeter. Penetrating manned and unmanned fighters could also conduct periodic sweeps to contest Chinese air operations.

Information denial: The PLA views information dominance as the most critical condition necessary for victory. As such, counter-C4ISR and information denial operations could have outsized effects in deterring and, if necessary, defeating Chinese aggression. Information denial operations would focus on complicating Chinese ISR, increasing demands for persistent targeting, disrupting communications networks, and ultimately paralyzing China’s centralized decision making. Both inside and outside forces could employ a variety of land-attack, anti-ship, and anti-air weapons to strike Chinese sensors and key nodes to degrade its C4ISR networks. Forces employing electronic warfare, counter-space, and cyber capabilities, augmented by CCD and tactical mobility, could confuse remaining sensors, degrade communications, and overwhelm Chinese information processing and decision-making.

Land attack: Land attack operations would degrade Chinese land-based A2/AD systems—including command and control nodes, sensors, long-range missile launchers, aircraft on the ground, and SAM systems—to create gaps that outside forces could exploit. As with sea denial operations, land-based strikes could be augmented by land-attack cruise missile strikes delivered by submarines, outside air and naval forces conducting standoff attacks with long-range missiles, and stealth aircraft staging attacks from closer in. Now unconstrained by the INF Treaty, the U.S. could regain land-based long-range strike capabilities, forcing China to devote more resources to air and missile defenses. Although not always cost-effective for delivering large salvos, they have considerable value in promptly striking time-sensitive targets such as aircraft on the ground, missile launchers, massed formations, capital ships in port, and critical C4ISR nodes.

Figure 3: Land-Based Long-Range Strike2 (CSBA graphic)

Preserving C4ISR: Attacking China’s C4ISR architecture alone would be insufficient to gain and maintain allied information advantage in a Western Pacific contingency. The U.S. military would also need to preserve friendly C4ISR in the face of Chinese counter-C4ISR capabilities. The U.S. military should thus seek to improve the resiliency of its C4ISR architecture to mitigate the impact of Chinese attacks. But given China’s vast and sophisticated counter-C4ISR capabilities, the U.S. military likely could not prevent disruption or even temporary denial of its networks. Therefore, the U.S. military must be careful not to build an overly centralized theater battle network that must be protected from any significant degradation to function. Rather, the U.S. military should accept that highly contested and degraded information environments will be the norm in future warfare. As such, the U.S. military should develop a C4ISR architecture built for sub-optimal conditions that leverages the inherent strength of the joint force to overcome adversity. In short, the U.S. military should confront China’s highly centralized system designed to operate under the optimal conditions of information dominance with a more resilient U.S. C4ISR system able to continue fighting despite the chaos of the modern battlefield.

Defending forces and bases: Since U.S. forces cannot perfectly hide or defend against China’s planned precision strikes, they must withstand the initial salvo. Hardening key nodes such as communications hubs, fuel stores, and aircraft shelters would help improve resiliency and increase the number of Chinese munitions required to suppress targets. Dispersal of ground and air forces to numerous locations along the First and Second Island Chains would minimize the loss of any large single location. Properly networked, these positions would be mutually reinforcing. Adopting an air defense concept focused on short-and medium-range (10–30 nm) engagements could give defenders greater capacity at less cost. Mobile, distributed launchers such as HIMARS and trailer-mounted containerized launchers would practice disaggregation, tactical mobility, and CCD while operating under IAMD to degrade enemy targeting.

Figure 4: Measures to Improve Resiliency of Inside Forces (CSBA graphic)

Sustaining forces: Inside-Out Defense would require sustaining highly geographically distributed forces operating in austere environments, all while under attack. Ground forces arrayed along the archipelagos of the First Island Chain would leverage pre-positioned stocks of munitions and supplies. Later, combinations of small air and sea assets could work together to resupply and add mobility to these small, dispersed formations. For example, in the near term, offshore support vessels could provide logistical support. In the future, extra-large UUVs—with a payload capacity of 2,000 cubic feet—could transport roughly eight tons of cargo to units operating near the coastline.3 Unmanned surface vessels and dracones could provide additional attritable cargo transport and refueling capabilities. From the air, rotary wing and tactical transport aircraft could operate from austere airfields and sea bases to transport cargo and assist with moving troops.

Recommendations and Costs

Having outlined the Inside-Out Defense concept, CSBA also assessed the current activities of U.S. and allied forces to illuminate where changes are needed most urgently. The report divided the assessment and recommendations into concepts, capabilities, and coordination to reflect Maritime Pressure’s emphasis on the United States pursuing countermoves in the areas of doctrine, technology, and allies, respectively.4 The report estimates that these actions would cost from $8 billion to $13 billion by 2024 depending on the specific investments selected by DoD. Although significant, such costs are affordable—especially if DoD spends less on legacy forces unsuited to contested environments and spends more on the innovative concepts and capabilities proposed in the report.

Concepts

Develop this report’s approach into a joint operational concept to support a strategy of Maritime Pressure in the Western Pacific. Over the last several years, the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force have developed new warfighting concepts that fit comfortably within a strategy of Maritime Pressure. While the Army’s Multi-Domain Operations, Navy’s Distributed Maritime Operations and Marine Corps’ Marine Corps Operating Concept, and the Air Force’s Multi-Domain Command and Control each break some new ground, the services still devote too much attention to preserving the traditional American approach to power projection in the Western Pacific. Furthermore, service concept development efforts are relatively disjointed and uncoordinated from one another, and joint operational concept development is currently lacking within DoD.

Experiment with new organizational structures for ground forces in the Pacific. Given that it is forward stationed in the Western Pacific, III MEF and its subordinate units could form the core of the inside forces in an Inside-Out Defense concept. III MEF would also likely need to be augmented as inside forces with U.S. Army units located in the Pacific Theater such as the 25th Infantry Division. However, both formations are maneuver warfare-centric organizations best suited for traditional amphibious or ground combat operations. The Marine Corps and Army should experiment with alternative force designs that take advantage of novel combinations of C2, fires, air defense, security, ISR, engineering, electronic warfare, and sustainment capabilities to permit distributed, multi-domain fires in highly contested environments along the First Island Chain.

Develop sustainment concepts to support a Maritime Pressure strategy. Supporting distributed operations along the First Island Chain requires new concepts for sustaining operations across great distances while under attack. Planners should explore innovative approaches to support distributed units, including greater use of pre-positioned stocks of munitions and sustainment materiel, manned and unmanned air and sea assets for mobility and resupply, and emerging technologies such as 3D printing to fabricate replacement parts.

Capabilities

Accelerate fielding of mobile, land-based, long-range missile capabilities. Ground force contributions to sea denial, air denial, and land attack operations along the First Island Chain require sharper and longer teeth. Current efforts of the Army and Marine Corps to develop and field longer-range, land-based anti-ship and land-attack fires should be accelerated and should incorporate weapons with ranges in excess of 500 km. The Army and Marine Corps should also develop more mobile and longer-range land-based air defense systems to provide wide-area air denial along the First Island Chain with sufficient survivability for inside forces to fight and persist within China’s A2/AD network.

Build a resilient multi-domain C4ISR architecture and develop and field counter-C4ISR capabilities. In a future conflict in the Western Pacific, the battle for information advantage would likely be critical and could potentially prove decisive. The U.S. military should undertake efforts to make its C4ISR architecture more resilient while developing and fielding active and passive counter-C4ISR capabilities such as jammers and CCD.

Integrate all bomber aircraft with payloads for offensive maritime missions. DoD should integrate anti-ship missiles into its entire fleet of bombers. Although anti-surface warfare would be a new mission for these platforms, it would be a return to a role the bomber community played during World War II and the Cold War. These capabilities are currently being fielded with several aircraft such as the B-1B, but integrating them with all platforms possessing comparable ranges would give the United States a more robust capability to attack enemy surface combatants and other high-value maritime targets in highly contested environments at range.

Coordination

Deepen cooperation with Indo-Pacific allies and partners. Allies and partners will be critical in a Maritime Pressure strategy, both in terms of accessing their territory and the capabilities and forces they contribute. The U.S. military should engage closely with Indo-Pacific allies and partners to form enhanced access agreements for both peacetime and war, as well as gain a better understanding of what roles each ally and partner may be willing to perform and with what forces in each potential contingency. The U.S. military should also work to deepen interoperability and developed combined concepts of operations among U.S. and allied and partner forces, particularly with Japan and Australia.

Reexamine Service roles and missions. As new concepts for warfighting in the Western Pacific continue to mature, so too should existing Service roles and missions. For example, Inside-Out Defense envisions both Army and Marine forces playing a larger role in anti-surface warfare missions. But key questions remain, such as whether they would provide similar or distinct capabilities for those missions and whether they would perform the missions in separate or overlapping geographic areas. Answering questions like these will help harmonize ongoing efforts to develop new concepts and capabilities across the services.

Consequences

Attempting to overcome these American A2/AD investments will likely push China toward prioritizing short-range counter-A2/AD improvements over long-range power projection investments. Such an outcome would appeal to the United States and its allies since it would keep China ensnared in its maritime backyard within the First Island Chain. Alternatively, China might view popping the American A2/AD bubble as too risky and expensive and, as a result, shift attention and resources away from its eastern maritime frontier to its western land frontier. President Xi Jinping has increased Chinese involvement in continental Asia through his Belt and Road Initiative, so Maritime Pressure might reinforce an existing preference within the Chinese government for westward expansion. On the negative side, Maritime Pressure might encourage China to escalate horizontally by shifting the competition to other domains, including the economic or diplomatic spheres. Despite this risk, a Maritime Pressure strategy represents a feasible, affordable, and sophisticated approach for responding to China’s rise in the years ahead.

Peter Kouretsos is an Analyst at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. He is the co-author, with Thomas G. Mahnken, Travis Sharp, and Billy Fabian, of Tightening the Chain: Implementing a Strategy of Maritime Pressure in the Western Pacific.

References

1. Ranges and their proxies in parentheses serve as examples, not as specific recommendations. With additional cooperation from partner governments, similar systems could also be placed elsewhere (e.g., Vietnam and Indonesia). NSM, Type-12, and SM-6 ranges are from IHS Jane’s. PrSM range is from Jen Judson, “U.S. Army to Prioritize Long-Range Missile Capability to Go After Maritime Targets,” Defense News, March 26, 2019, available at https://www.defensenews.com/digital-show-dailies/global-force-symposium/2019/03/26/army-to-prioritize-long-range-missile-capability-to-go-after-maritime-targets/. LRASM range is from Oriana Pawlyk, “Live LRASM Test from F/A-18 Super Hornet Expected This Year,” DoDBuzz, April 10, 2018, available at https://www.military.com/dodbuzz/2018/04/10/live-lrasm-test-f-18-super-hornet-expected-year.html. Tomahawk range is from “Tomahawk Cruise Missile,” U.S. Navy factsheet, April 26, 2018, available at www.navy.mil/navydata/fact_display.asp?cid=2200&tid=1300&ct=2.

2. Past CSBA wargames used a notional target set depicting the depth and concentration of Chinese military facilities, mobile weapons systems, airbases, and other sites of military value. Approximately 70 percent of the target set’s 50,000 aimpoints are located within 250 nm of the coastline of mainland China. The deepest aimpoints (red circles) indicate locations of known or suspected space installations, anti-satellite weapons sites, and other high-value targets.

3. The United States only intercepts 25 percent of the homemade submarines carrying narcotics across the Caribbean into the United States from Colombia. Logisticians should incorporate lessons gleaned from these smuggling operations into future sustainment concepts for heavily monitored and contested environments. Joe Gould and David B. Larter, “In America’s Opioid Crisis, Military Lets Drug Shipments Go By,” Defense News, February 15, 2018, available at https://www.defensenews.com/congress/2018/02/16/in-americas-opioid-crisis-military-lets-drug-shipments-go-by/

4. The current activities assessment is limited primarily to the missiles and sensors the authors recommend fielding in precision-strike networks along the First Island Chain. The authors acknowledge that the networks would contain many capabilities besides missiles and sensors. They also recognize that prevailing against China will require more than precision-strike networks. Previous CSBA research has explored other necessary capabilities in detail; interested readers should consult those studies for more information. For the present section, however, the authors have chosen to focus on the strike forces forming the backbone of a Maritime Pressure strategy.

Featured Image: A Japan Ground Self-Defense Force Type 12 Surface to Ship Missile System display its range of movement as part of the Orient Shield 2019 media day, Sept. 17 2019, Oyanohara Training Area, Japan. (U.S. Army Photo by Staff Sgt. Jacob Kohrs, 20th PAD)

Current Operations

With One Hand Tied: Naval Auxiliaries and Their Ability to Conduct Belligerent Acts

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By David T. Lee

Introduction

It is an oft-repeated axiom of international law that vessels which serve as auxiliaries to a state’s armed forces may not lawfully commit a belligerent act in an international armed conflict. The presence of civilian personnel aboard many auxiliaries (including those employed by the U.S. Navy) raise law of war rules governing the use of civilian personnel in armed conflict. But why should ship type – particularly auxiliaries – be a factor in assessing the lawfulness of committing belligerent acts? Instead, it should be considered they be able to do so in the same manner as warships.

Warship or Auxiliary?

The similarities between warships and naval auxiliaries are striking. Naval auxiliaries are vessels under exclusive military control for non-commercial service. Both warships and naval auxiliaries are led by a person subject to the orders or direction of a military chain of command, to potentially include a geographic combatant commander, Navy component commander, or a task force commander. Even with recognizing the different statuses of individuals serving aboard naval auxiliaries, personnel aboard both types of vessels typically may incur some degree of adverse administrative, civil, and disciplinary measures from the military for any failure to follow those orders. While there are nuances in how governments may acquire vessels for the exclusive use of its military forces, some of which may include time-chartered or voyage-chartered vessels, all naval auxiliaries share a warship’s right to exercise sovereign immunity because both conduct only non-commercial government service. Finally, both are lawful military targets in international and non-international armed conflicts, regardless of whether the ship is manned by uniformed military personnel or civilians. Yet despite being subject to hostile attacks, naval auxiliaries may only lawfully act in self-defense.

The limitation imposed on naval auxiliaries makes little sense and has important operational implications. It harkens to an earlier era seeking to protect unarmed mariners. But with the targeting leash loosened, the desire or need to impose legal restrictions on ships based on how they contribute to the fight is unclear. Until the rule changes, U.S. Navy auxiliaries have been intentionally designed and utilized to perform only supporting tasks which fall well within current legal norms. These include providing logistical support, or serving as air or seaborne launch pads to transport troops and ammunition. But there is an increasing desire to expand the functions which auxiliaries can execute, including electronic attack, intelligence collection, command and control, and mine countermeasures. To the extent these and other missions could be construed as belligerent acts, the current rule straitjackets auxiliaries in armed conflict. As the potential list of activities performed by auxiliaries expands, the legal restriction against belligerent acts by auxiliaries has imposed an unnecessary hurdle in operational planning and execution.

The presence of civilians aboard many naval auxiliaries should not impose a limitation on belligerent actions based on ship type. Recognizing that noncombatant civilians may not directly participate in belligerent acts, the possibility for the vessel to exercise combatant functions remains undiminished so long as there are personnel aboard who may lawfully carry them out. The domestic legal hurdles in activating or deputizing civilians to serve in a combatant capacity does not eviscerate the underlying principle authorizing naval auxiliaries to conduct belligerent acts. An auxiliary ship manned exclusively by uniformed military personnel (as is the norm for many countries such as Japan) certainly should raise no concerns warranting imposition of any legal limitations about whether it commits belligerent acts or not. Accordingly, even if there may be legal restrictions on who commits such acts, there should be none based on the class of ship or the functions it performs.

Origins of the Prohibition

The current prohibition against belligerent acts by auxiliaries may originate in large part as a legacy of pre-World War I conventions seeking to protect civilian merchant ships from unnecessary harm. Consistent with notions of fairness among the advanced powers at the time, the 1909 London Declaration Concerning the Laws of Naval War imposed a requirement on warships to distinguish between the enemy’s warships and their merchant ships. If a warship encountered an enemy merchant ship, they were generally not authorized to immediately attack and destroy it even if they had war-sustaining equipment and supplies aboard. Instead, warships were required to first search the merchant ship and take it to a prize court if contraband was found. They could destroy it only in exigent circumstances after safeguarding its crew.1 The presumption was that even public vessels (but not warships) under the orders of an enemy government were manned by noncombatant civilians unable to inflict harm to any warship. This guidance was reaffirmed by the 1936 London Treaty, and the U.S. considers these procedures legally valid even today. In exchange for these protections, merchant ships were reasonably prohibited from engaging in belligerent acts, but could act in self-defense.2

Yet there was strong recognition that at some point, any vessel controlled by a belligerent government should be treated akin to a warship. During the negotiation of the 1907 Hague Convention Relating to the Conversion of Merchant Ships into Warships, the British delegation suggested the establishment of a special category of warships called ‘auxiliary vessels’ covering neutral or enemy merchant ships which directly aid the enemy’s military forces.3 Although the proposal was subsequently withdrawn, the parties did create a construct allowing the targeting of enemy merchant ships converted into warships. Notably, the conversion process did not require any physical alterations to the merchant vessel which would give it the ability to fight with traditional warships; it only required the ship to be commanded by individuals commissioned by their government, subject to military discipline, and under government control – administrative changes allowing both the ship and its crew to lawfully fight as combatants.4 Even though it did not directly authorize auxiliaries to conduct belligerent acts, the convention established a path allowing merchant ships and other support vessels to do so.

Disconnect Between Targeting and Conduct

Problems implementing the conversion process in World War I led to a relaxation of the targeting rules against belligerent merchant ships while keeping in place the restrictions against belligerent acts. States such as the U.S. continued to demand an evaluation of armament to determine if a merchant ship was actually a targetable warship. But after this evaluation process exposed German submarines to harm, all merchant ships became eligible targets, and the protections bestowed by pre-war conventions were rendered useless. Any ship conducting war-sustaining activities was targeted and sunk by belligerents during the war, regardless of whether it was legally characterized as a warship or not. Yet even armed merchant ships ordered by a belligerent government to attack enemy submarines (i.e. ships that had arguably been converted into warships) did so at considerable legal risk. One British merchant ship captain trying to ram a German submarine was subsequently executed by the Germans as an illegal combatant.5 Because he acted prior to the issuance by the British Admiralty ordering all British-flagged merchant ship masters to take such offensive measures, it is unclear whether the German court would have found him guilty subsequent to the Admiralty’s orders.

The Shipping Act of 1916 strengthened the U.S. military’s authority to directly control the U.S.-flagged merchant marine fleet in wartime. The law authorized placement of its merchant marine under direct U.S. government control for use as an auxiliary force in support of military wartime needs. The law made a clear distinction between the Naval Reserve, which included civilian ships available for requisitioning by the government, and naval auxiliaries, which were ships used by the U.S. government for its military needs in support of the combatant forces, and manned by a crew subject to its direction. When the law was invoked after the U.S. entered the war in 1917, some vessels reported to a civilian Shipping Board, and others came under direct Navy or War Department control. In practice, ships under military control were armed only for defensive purposes, and unlike their British counterparts were never directed to attack the enemy. Nonetheless, for purposes of the 1907 Hague Convention, they were arguably converted into warships because the government had direct control over the actions of a crew subject to military discipline. Otherwise, they were essentially auxiliaries which lost the targeting protections afforded under the 1909 London Declaration without an accompanying legal right to engage in belligerent acts.

World War II strengthened in practice the legal right of armed merchant ships to engage in belligerent acts because they were so closely integrated with the combatant fleets. Both sides treated them in the same manner as warships, both in terms of targeting them, as well as in the scope of belligerent activity they performed. The Allies struggled to prosecute German Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz for violating a provision of the London Naval Treaty of 1930 affirming the requirement to avoid destroying merchant ships unless necessary, and only after safeguarding the lives of merchant ship crews prior to destruction. Doenitz was ultimately acquitted of the charge in large part because the Allies also practiced unrestricted submarine warfare, targeting enemy merchant ships and merchant mariners because they were deemed combatants integrated with fighting forces.6

Establishing a New Rule

Even as World War II saw the de facto incorporation of each side’s merchant marine into their armed forces, the U.S. continues to restrict auxiliaries from committing belligerent acts based on its interpretations of the law of naval warfare, while also recognizing them as lawful targets in international armed conflict. It carefully scrutinizes the intended mission of each ship to determine if it needs to be ready to commit belligerent acts. If it does, it is commissioned as a warship (i.e. with a “USS” designation) rather than brought into service as an auxiliary (i.e. with a “USNS” designation). Any changes in mission may require adjustments in the ship’s status. Although seemingly just a paper drill, the reality is that it significantly impacts manning, maintenance, planning, and operations, and reduces the flexibility of the operational commander in executing desired missions.

There should be no prohibition against auxiliaries committing belligerent acts. They are fully integrated into naval forces for the sole purpose of prosecuting the conflict onto the enemy, and as such are lawful targets. Indeed, the enemy will evaluate the ship’s targetability based on the platform rather than the personnel aboard, whether military or civilian. Potential law of war restrictions on embarked civilian personnel to exercise combatant functions are only administrative impediments that can be adjusted consistent with domestic law procedures, and should have no bearing on whether the execution of belligerent acts should be limited based on ship type. When subject to the direction of the armed forces on non-commercial service, naval auxiliaries are not innocent merchant ships posing no threat. These vessels execute a vital military mission and as such are lawful targets as much as any traditional warship. To the extent naval auxiliaries have the capacity to commit belligerent acts, it should be lawful for them to do so.

Commander David Lee is a military professor at the Stockton Center for the Study of International Law, located at the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, RI. He most recently spent five years practicing international and operational law in support of U.S. Naval Forces Europe/Africa and U.S. SIXTH Fleet in Naples, Italy.

References

1. 1909 Declaration Concerning the Laws of Naval War, Chapter IV.

2. 1913 Manual of the Laws of Naval War, Article 12.

3. Proceedings of the Hague Peace Conferences, Vol. I, Oxford University Press (New York: 1920), 235.

4. 1907 Hague Convention Relating to the Conversion of Merchant Ships into Warships, Articles 2-7.

5. Charles Dana Gibson, Merchantman? Or Ship of War, Ensign Press (Camden, ME:  1986) 46.

6. Id., 119-121.

Featured Image: USNS Carson City (T-EPF- 7) entering the Black Sea on Aug. 15, 2018. Photo by Yörük Işık, @YorukIsik.

Call for Articles

Call for Articles: Integrated Naval Force Structure Topic Week

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By Dmitry Filipoff

Submissions Due: November 4, 2019
Week Dates: November 11-15, 2019
Article Length: 1000-3500 words
Submit to: Content@cimsec.org

The U.S. Navy and Marine Corps are initiating an Integrated Force Structure Assessment to help chart the course of their future composition.

This force structure assessment process is unique in its emphasis on unmanned platforms by considering “an optimal force mix that includes Large Unmanned Surface Vessels, Extra Large Unmanned Undersea Vessels, and Expeditionary Advance Bases.” 

It may also look to overhaul the Marine Corps’ force structure, where in reference to its longstanding use of large, expensive platforms the new Marine Commandant Gen. Berger wrote in his planning guidance that they must “seek the affordable and plentiful at the expense of the exquisite and few when conceiving of the future amphibious portion of the fleet.”

The assessment hopes to nest future force structure within emerging warfighting concepts such as Distributed Maritime Operations (DMO), Littoral Operations in a Contested Environment (LOCE), and Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations (EABO). (Click below to read the memo from the Navy’s Chief of Naval Operations and the Marine Commandant.)

What ships and platforms will best serve the national security interests of the nation, capture technological opportunities for advantageous capabilities, and meet the challenge of great power competition? Authors are invited to answer these questions and more. Please send all submissions to Content@cimsec.org. 

Dmitry Filipoff is CIMSEC’s Director of Online Content. Contact him at Content@cimsec.org. 

Featured Image: PACIFIC OCEAN (Jan. 20, 2018) Amphibious assault ship USS America (LHA 6), front, transits the Pacific Ocean next to Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson (CVN 70). (U.S. Navy Photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Sean M. Castellano/Released) 180120-N-BL637-0045