Shortly after midnight on February 3rd, 1943, the SS Dorchester was torpedoed by a German U-boat near the southern tip of Greenland. If the name Dorchester sounds familiar, it may be because its sinking made famous the selfless sacrifice of the Four Chaplains. What is also notable about the Dorchester is that the sinking of that troopship was the greatest single loss of life—674 of the 904 men on board were killed—in the Battle of the Atlantic, the Allied effort to sustain the campaign to defeat the Axis Powers in Europe. Despite the singular tragedy of the men lost on the Dorchester, it is easily lost among many such sinkings; by war’s end, nearly 38,000 Allied nation merchant sailors had perished in the North Atlantic.
A campaign like the Battle of the Atlantic, in which thousands of ships fought their way through U-boat-infested waters to keep alive the Allied war effort, seems unimaginable today. U.S. forces have not been threatened during the ‘expedition’ part of expeditionary operations since 1945, and in the three decades of unipolarity since the fall of the Soviet Union, the only threats of concern have been isolated, individual attacks on U.S. troops moving between theaters. If this historical trend were to continue, then United States Transportation Command’s (USTRANSCOM) problem of recapitalizing the sealift fleet would be straightforward; a new surge sealift fleet would require only the most basic capabilities and crews with only basic mariner skill sets. Is this a valid expectation, or should U.S. forces expect formerly permissive environments to become contested? If it is not a valid expectation, what should USTRANSCOM do to increase the defensive capabilities of its sealift fleet?
The Ever-Developing Threat Environment
Operational access is a strategic requirement for the United States. As noted by the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the Joint Operational Access Concept (JOAC), protecting global interests as a global power requires the ability to project military force into any region of the world. In spite of the historical assumption of unfettered U.S. access to the global commons, American military planners can no longer assume that U.S. forces can move to theater free from conventional military threats. Published in 2012, the JOAC notes three challenges for U.S. force projection in the future: the proliferation of antiaccess and area-denial (A2/AD) weapons technology, the rapidly changing U.S. overseas defense posture, and the increase in cross-domain threats, specifically in space and cyberspace.
The concerns outlined in the JOAC dovetail with concerns in the National Defense Strategy (published in 2018) and the President’s Interim National Security Strategy (published in March of this year) which clearly identify strategic competition with near-peer rivals as the greatest threat to American interests. Power projection and operational access, two of the seapower functions identified in joint doctrine, are increasingly at risk from the rising capabilities of adversaries. Should the U.S. find itself entangled in large scale combat operations in a distant theater, the chances that U.S. forces could be threatened while transiting to those theaters are greater now than they have been in several decades. What does this new threat environment mean for USTRANSCOM, given its responsibility for force projection and sustainment for the U.S. military?
USTRANSCOM has given thought to these developments. Since 2016, USTRANSCOM has conducted at least 11 studies on mobility capabilities in contested environments, which yielded at least 59 recommendations for shaping future mobility capabilities (the reports are all at least partially sensitive or classified). The Government Accountability Office (GAO) surveyed just the unclassified portions of these reports to assess how effectively USTRANSCOM’s service components were adapting to the developing threat environment. The GAO concluded that while USTRANSCOM and the greater Department of Defense (DoD) were acting on information in the reports, they were not systematically implementing or even tracking compliance with the recommendations.
Air Mobility Command (AMC) has made some changes to its contested environment capabilities. In addition to adding defensive systems to aircraft, it has revamped its aircrew training programs, reducing more mundane training sorties focused on basic flying skills in favor of adding integrated mission sorties across AMC’s major missions sets (airlift, aerial refueling, and aeromedical evacuation).
Having been assigned to an AMC tanker squadron shortly before the integrated mission sorties were implemented, I had the opportunity to witness this training evolution in action. The new sortie structure—which emphasized countering near-peer capabilities, especially of an A2/AD variety—required crews to plan, execute, and adapt missions in a way they had not in at least the previous decade. One of the key components of this training evolution is that the capabilities exercised were influenced by inputs from the geographic combatant commands (GCCs). This was a key factor in ensuring that limited training resources were directed towards skills and capabilities relevant to expected threats.
MSC’s Preparation for Future Threats
What has Military Sealift Command (MSC) done in response to USTRANSCOM’s studies? Last October, MSC added contested environment training to the program for its strategic sealift officers. In 2018, MSC also created a Tactical Advisor program to supplement the mariner crews who would operate both organic USTRANSCOM shipping and contracted commercial vessels. This program is expected to yield up to 150 advisors by this year, but given that the Tactical Advisors are Navy Reserve strategic sealift officers and surface warfare officers, there may not be enough to supplement sealift crews during a major contingency (many of these officers would be called to man surface combatants or USTRANSCOM’s organic sealift assets). MSC has also begun training enlisted communications technicians to operate mobile secure communications equipment issued to surge sealift ships in a major contingency, but as of September, only 22 such personnel had been trained.
The missing link in MSC’s preparation for future threat environments seems to be the bulk of the sealift force: the citizen mariners who will crew America’s sealift fleet should a major war break out. MSC and the Department of Transportation’s Maritime Administration noted that training requirements for these crews are specified in contracts with sealift companies. Skills like ship maintenance, cargo loading and unloading, and navigation are critical day-to-day competencies, but these sailors have received effectively no contested environment training. MSC has attempted to remedy this during exercises like Turbo Activation wherein Tactical Advisors conduct training with the sealift crews, but noted that the small number of advisors and limited number of ships involved (about 25% of the sealift fleet) in the annual exercise limited the distribution of training across that force.
Similar to AMC’s efforts to replace aging platforms, MSC has made plans to replace its aging surge sealift fleet. As of February, 2021, the Navy had still not published a capabilities document for a future sealift platform, but the final phase of its sealift recapitalization anticipates initial delivery of such a platform in 2028, with service life extensions and used commercial ships bridging the gap. A capabilities document is expected to outline any defensive capabilities the Navy would require of a new sealift ship.
The Other War: Fighting to Modernize on a Limited Budget
What can USTRANSCOM do in the short term to maximize the defensive potential of its sealift fleet when replacement of older vessels with newer, more capable platforms and training systems that saturates the force with applicable skills are both years and billions of dollars away? A large-scale program to equip the current fleet with defensive systems and crews fully capable of sailing into or through contested waters is certainly out of the question; from the perspective of the resources required and current priorities as the entire military shifts focus to great power competition, it simply will not happen.
What is the alternative? One might be the measure AMC took to develop more targeted and tailored mission training for its aircrews. USTRANSCOM could survey the GCCs for what they consider to be the greatest tactical threats to shipping and aim its limited training resources to optimize the benefit to future operations. Another avenue is to consider the balance of training funds versus recapitalization; ultimately, the fleet must be renewed with new ships that can reliably deliver forces to the point of conflict, but that fleet is years away.
What current capabilities can bridge the gap? The program to train merchant mariners with tactical advisors could be expanded, and older ships with better-trained crews could improve survivability in a threat environment for far fewer dollars than a crash program to build new ships. If the priority is high enough, those tactical advisors could be temporarily brought in from active duty Navy forces, rather than relying solely on reserve forces.
Ultimately, the GAO highlighted that USTRANSCOM does not have a program to track modernization and training prioritization as it related to contested environments. With proper oversight, USTRANSCOM could develop an overarching program that integrates analysis of likely future threats and develops training tailored to meet those threats with modernization and recapitalization of both sealift and air mobility platforms. USTRANSCOM could also coordinate these efforts with our allies through avenues like Joint Force Command Norfolk, NATO’s answer to maintaining security of the critical Atlantic sea lanes.
Conclusion: Past Performance Isn’t Predictive, but It Can Inform Us
At the height of the Second World War, the Allies were operating sealift vessels in the tens of thousands; what is remarkable is that over 3,500 noncombatant ships like the Dorchester were sunk—and the Battle of the Atlantic was still a resounding victory for the Allies! The scale of shipbuilding and crew training required to sustain such a campaign is truly mind-boggling. The industrial nature of that campaign, during the height of which over 100 new ships were built per month in the U.S. alone, is unlikely to ever happen again.
Sealifting forces on the scale of WW2 is no longer required (a single M1 Abrams probably outmatches ten or more M4 Shermans in combat effects) and is it also unlikely to be reproduced (just nine construction shipyards are active in the U.S. today; during WW2 there were over 50 in operation). It is not unreasonable to conclude that America does not need a more capable sealift fleet given the safety U.S. forces have enjoyed when deploying and redeploying from theater for the last 70 years. However, no one can deny that the environment in which U.S. forces operate is fluid and unpredictable; counting on the threats to remain at their current level would be both foolish and irresponsible. As the long arm of American military power, USTRANSCOM must have the capability to deliver forces anywhere in the world at lightning speed. Maintaining this capability means deliberately monitoring competitors’ capabilities and countering them when they threaten the ability to deploy military force.
Major Phillip Amrine is an operations planner at Headquarters, Fifteenth Air Force. He has combat deployments in the KC-135 Stratotanker, C-5 Galaxy, and MC-12 Liberty. He is a 2008 graduate of the United States Air Force Academy and is currently a candidate for Master of Arts in Strategic Studies at Norwich University.
Featured image: A 22-aircraft “freedom launch” took place Sept. 11, 2013, at Travis Air Force Base, Calif. Seven C-17 Globemaster IIIs, 11 KC-10 Extenders and four C-5B Galaxies from the 60th Air Mobility Wing lined up in what is historically referred to as an “elephant walk,” then launched consecutively over 36 minutes to take part in Air Mobility Command missions. (U.S. Air Force photo/Ken Wright)
The U.S. Transportation Command (TRANSCOM) Deputy Commander and the former Commandant of the Marine Corps are in one accord. These leaders have effectively parsed out two distinct dilemmas — an “away game” fight and a battle to get to that fight. The wicked problems facing the Marine Corps, its fellow services, and TRANSCOM are, in fact, components of a collective dilemma. The strategic competition milieu no longer differentiates between the frontline and the homefront as if there were combatants and non-combatants. It is a singular fight.
As the TRANSCOM component that bears the preponderance of sustainment requirements for the Joint Warfighting Concept, Military Sealift Command (MSC) faces a boatload of wicked problems. The Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments’ 2019 report “Sustaining the Fight: Resilient Maritime Logistics for a New Era” clearly articulates these challenges. The 18 May 2021 House Armed Services Committee’s hearing on “Posture and Readiness of the Mobility Enterprise” was another prescient reminder for General Lyons, TRANSCOM’s commander, and Congress of the myriad national security challenges weighing on MSC.
MSC’s ships are too big and too tired – and those are the ships that work, but they must fight with the fleet they have, not the fleet they want. It is time for Congress and the Defense Department to build a sealift force capable of handling the multiplicity of challenges presented in competition, crisis, and conflict by giving MSC warfighters, a fleet, fuel, flexibility, and friends.
The Fighting Sustainers
A dangerous mindset has crept into sustainment organizations like MSC. “Warfighter support” is a moniker these organizations should find patronizing. Sustainment is a warfighting function; ergo, those organizations which sustain forces are warfighters. The notion that there is somehow a divide between combatants and sustainers as de facto non-combatants has led to casualties throughout history, from the English baggage train at Agincourt in the Hundred Years War to ambushed refueling vehicles during Operation Enduring Freedom.
Maritime sustainers should consider the hulking watery graves of “warfighter supporters” littering the harbor entrances along the Eastern Seaboard, casualties of the Battle of the Atlantic. If the wrecks off America’s coastline are not enough of a harbinger, the hunter-and-prey carnage of the 2020 movie Greyhound illustrates the even grimmer tale of combat in the North Atlantic sea lanes.
Alongside these sunken graveyards, however, are the rusting steel coffins of U-boats, a testament to the eventual shift in mentality when sustainers became part of a convoy system of hunter-killers.
Today, sustainment organizations are under attack from the factory to the fleet and the fighting hole through cyberattacks and disinformation. America’s pacing threats are already in our “backyard.” MSC must embrace a warfighter ethos now, as the sustainment gun trucks of Vietnam did after taking significant casualties, or risk joining its predecessors on the ocean floor. The Department of Transportation’s Maritime Administration (MARAD) has begun taking steps to change this by recruiting veterans through its Military to Mariner program. MSC and MARAD should capitalize on these veteran warriors’ expertise to hone the next generation of Strategic Sealift Officers into fighting sustainers.
The Fleet: Joint Sustainment Ships
Warfighters need weapons. While the primary mission of MSC is sustainment, it should be well-prepared to have its mission contested as aggressively as any other warfighting unit. MSC must clarify its need for defensive resources in the budget debates for research, development, and operational funding. In a contested military campaign, enemies will target sustainment vessels, arguably more than their surface Navy counterparts. Adopting platforms and training that better prepare MSC for wartime will dramatically improve the strength of the joint force as a whole.
MSC is responsible for transporting the equipment sets associated with the Army’s Multi-Domain Operations, the Naval Services’ Advantage At Sea, and the Air Force Future Operating Concept. Not surprisingly, these concepts envision tanks, trucks, and aircraft consuming significant amounts of fuel to accomplish their tasks. To move these forces and the fuel they need for combat, MSC’s fleet will need its own separate ocean of fuel. The projected escort requirements to protect the volume of convoys needed to support these force flows would be astronomical. In a major conflict with a peer competitor, it is anticipated the surface Navy will have no resources to spare for escort of shipping. Expected shortfalls in surface combatants so severe, the Navy has essentially told MSC “you’re on your own” when it comes to a major war.
To address this challenge, MSC needs the maritime equivalent of gun trucks that can self-secure convoys across the seas. These ships would be the naval equivalent of the Army and Marine Corps Logistics Vehicle System Replacement (LVSR), the backbone of sustainment operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Like the LVSR, these ships should carry containers and come equipped with an onboard crane to support transferring cargo where no external lighterage equipment is available. MSC’s new fleet must also include container-capable connectors, perhaps leveraging wing-in-ground effect technology to rapidly close the last tactical sustainment mile from seabasing platforms such as the USNS Hershel “Woody” Williams.
General Lyons has stated that MSC needs ships capable of moving into the smaller ports of the world with “shallow draft kinds of vessels,” based on rapid mobility to support dynamic fleet operations. The Navy’s research and development for the Overlord–class unmanned surface vessels and the Coast Guard’s Fast Response Cutters provide foundational designs with the mobility required to fulfill the needs of maritime platforms for fighting sustainers.
US Coast Guard Fast Response Cutter Kathleen Moore makes way during sea trials in the Gulf of Mexico Feb. 27, 2014. (USCGC photo by PO1 Mark Barney.)
Defensive capabilities are essential for self-securing sustainment ships. Due to their smaller size, these ships may be more challenging to detect from long range and could use torpedoes for defense in open water. They could be outfitted with missiles like the Harpoon or the Naval Strike Missile for protection while providing limited strike capabilities close to advanced bases. By investing in multiple smaller ships instead of larger platforms, MSC would be in more places at once, thereby enhancing the sustainment force’s self-protection posture while increasing the ability to provide intelligence to the larger force.
The Fuel: Energizing the Fight to get to the Fight
Ever since there has been combat at sea, fleets have needed energy. Robert Fulton’s steamboats revolutionized commerce and control of the seas in the age of sail, with iron-clad steamships making their debut as weapons fighting for the inland waterways of a divided United States. Wood and coal were the dominant fuels until Winston Churchill navigated the shift from “Coal to Oil.” As nations learned to harness the atom, nuclear power became a critical energy source for fleets during the Cold War and beyond.
Nuclear power has been the primary technological enabler of the Navy’s submarines and aircraft carriers, allowing the Navy to achieve key advantages over comparable conventionally-powered platforms. Most critical for logistics is extending refueling cycles up to twenty years, relying on the large quantity of energy stored in the highly-enriched uranium fuel. This technology has not been extended to other maritime applications partially due to cost, but more importantly due to weapons proliferation risks of increased production of highly-enriched uranium, which could be used either as a fuel or in nuclear weapons production. Generation IV reactor designs, adapted for ship propulsion and power, have the potential to solve both the issues of proliferation concerns and high costs. Fast spectrum nuclear reactors designed for maritime applications are already in development, and based on current projections, will eventually be more economical than fossil-fuel powered shipping, while still maintaining a refueling cycle of up to 20-30 years.
Fleet sustainment is at the crux of naval strategic thinking, and reduced sustainment chains are the real strategic advantage achieved through this technology. Until fleets can economically convert to something akin to nuclear power, refueling on the timeline of decades, energy sustainment will continue to impact war at sea and capital costs will remain high for ships in harm’s way.
Integrated Power System illustration, credits: Norbert Doerry, Henry Robey, John Amy, Chester Petry, “Powering the Future with the Integrated Power System,” Naval Engineer’s Journal, May 1996. Click to expand.
While there is no magic bullet for the myriad challenges facing MSC, part of the solution may come from a single element with a single electron— hydrogen. Hydrogen has been used by the military since World War I, and since the Clinton Administration, every president has pursued a national hydrogen roadmap. Today, hydrogen energy looks increasingly feasible as a replacement for existing fossil-fuel-based power systems.
The International Energy Agency’s Hydrogen Projects Database tracks “320 green hydrogen production demonstration projects worldwide.” Even Saudi Arabia, where Marine Colonel William Eddy brokered the enduring U.S.-Saudi petroleum relationship, is now seeking to “rule the $700 billion Hydrogen Market“. China has publicly stated that it intends to be carbon neutral by 2060 and has showcased its vision to “harness the rock star of new energies” in its hydrogen-powered Qingdao Port Facility. A cynical observer could view this apparent international race to develop green hydrogen technologies as energy profiteers simply taking advantage of climate alarmism in the Western world, but even a cynic should not deny the potential for technological advantages offered by alternative energy. No advantage should be abandoned simply because of the lack of an obvious reward in the short term.
Hydrogen-fueled engines can be part of deepening the concepts of standardization, resilience, and self-reliance in naval ship design. The “Liberty Ships” of WWII exhibit many elements of design that were adopted solely for ease of manufacture and maintainability, enabling them to be deployed in great numbers at short production lead time, fulfilling logistical needs that supported more intense combat operations in geographically disparate theatres. Energy advancements in the current day should be viewed as a similarly powerful enabler. Hydrogen is a flexible fuel that can be burned directly by engines as a fuel, or in fuel cells to produce electricity, allowing it to be used as either a fuel or an energy storage medium. If designed as the fuel supporting ship designs utilizing Integrated Power Systems, the result would be greater standardization and maintainability supported by the electrification of propulsion.
Hydrogen fuel for large vessels is unlikely to be practical without first being combined with a carrier liquid (like ammonia) due to hydrogen’s low volumetric energy density, but for smaller vessels employed in defensive or escort missions compressed hydrogen used in fuel cells should be considered a viable option. Fischer-Tropsch processes produce synthetic fuel from a wide range of possible feedstocks, like captured carbon dioxide, making them a potential direct replacement for existing fossil fuels. The highest aim would be to achieve a process that can use feedstocks easily procured or produced anywhere in the world.
Technologies like electrolytic cation exchange modules could reduce the need for feedstocks dependent on sources other than water. The yield relative to the energy required will likely remain a challenge, one which could be solved by the employment of hydrogen and synthetic fuel production in nuclear cogeneration plants deployed close to the point of use.
A recent Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory “BruteCast” provides a plausible system design for production and use of hydrogen at the front lines of deployed ground units, a system which would mesh neatly into a larger upstream supply chain of hydrogen-based production and transportation. Designs currently under development, including some already approved by the American Bureau of Shipping, would have advanced nuclear reactors (such as those discussed above) employed as floating power plants. If built as a cogeneration plant for hydrogen and synthetic fuels, these floating power plants could become a self-sustaining source of fuel for a wide variety of vessels and other military equipment stationed close to any theatre of operations. The ultimate goal of this design philosophy, whether or not the technologies discussed here are actually adopted, is deliberate development of a fuel system of systems, a network of independent processes which are simultaneously self-sustaining and mutually supportive.
Earlier in the 21st Century, the Navy explored ways to “flip the fleet” from fossil fuels to biofuels with the “Great Green Fleet.” This endeavor ultimately proved untenable, mainly because of supply constraints of biofuels, but also because the focus of the program was on creating a market for politically-popular biofuels, instead of improving the Navy’s ability to sustain itself. Bureaucracies, politics, and budgets will always be a constraint for applications of new technology.
Despite the failures of the Great Green Fleet, the Navy should nevertheless confidently endeavor to forge a fleet based on advanced energy systems and bold new designs, with stubborn insistence on the goal of increased resilience and flexibility of the fleet. Following the advice of Admiral Rickover: “Good ideas are not adopted automatically. They must be driven into practice with courageous impatience.”
Astute sustainment planning and technological prowess can turn energy risk into a strategic advantage. Technological dominance in weapons of the more traditional sense has contributed to the rules-based international order, energy superiority can also contribute to achieving global peace and cooperation.
The Flexibility: Creating an Afloat Containerized Sustainment Kill Web
The Defense Department has developed the concept of cross-domain kill webs to address strategic competition dilemmas. Whereas kill chains have exploitable weak links, kill webs are flexible, resilient, and lethal. The INDOPACOM Commander, Admiral Aquilino, stated that he does not need another carrier. Instead, he and every geographic combatant commander need sustainment forces fully integrated into Joint All Domain Command and Control kill webs. Ultimately, America needs an MSC with the capability and capacity to put boots on the ground and boats on the water to ensure the nations’ deeds can match its words. America’s ability to sustain its resolve is a powerful deterrent and a quintessential part of ensuring freedom of navigation.
A fleet carrying containerized command and control nodes and missiles becomes a potential floating kill web. Modular capabilities are not new to the Navy’s ship designers, but use of the concept to deploy weapons on platforms where they would not be expected is novel. The joint force should focus on designing modular capability sets that are rapidly deployable, transferrable, and even operable from MSC platforms.
Containerized flexibility for sealift is not solely about lethality, it must also be included in the Navy’s artificial intelligence and information warfare planning, as well as its “presence” and sustainment missions.
The need for flexible manufacturing systems in modern industries has enabled technology built for ease of assembly and configuration changes. This same innovation applied to equipment for a modern machine shop, including additive manufacturing, could enable depot-level repair capability closer to advanced bases. The aggregation of these capabilities would give MSC a fleet that is leaner, meaner, and smarter.
MSC is at the forefront of supporting whole-of-government efforts led by the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development. Containerized humanitarian assistance, disaster recovery, and Expeditionary Medical Facility sets remain crucial to America’s response to disasters at home and abroad.
The Navy’s new fleet of sustainment ships could follow a similar cooperative program. Although such programs are complex, they incentivize defense industries to innovate with the promise of a larger market with economies of scale for their production, which, in turn, keeps the American industrial base warm. International defense partners, in return, are provided with reliable, well-supported systems, greater interoperability, and overall greater confidence in the cooperative partnership.
MSC is crucial to operationalizing agreements like these as its Indo-Pacific headquarters, as CTF-75 has done with their JMSDF counterparts. With a more agile and dispersed fleet, MSC could increase these partnerships because of its ability to deploy and sustain itself longer. Combatant commands are recommended to map out engagement plans that consider how MSC can contribute to further optimization of relationships established by the Navy’s Maritime Partnership Programand the National Guard’s State Partnership Program. MSC has the unique ability to engage local civil and military partners close to the spheres of influence of great power rivals without implication of commitment to a binding military alliance, allowing the Navy to maintain long-term presence in key regions without high-profile, large-scale exercises.
MSC’s new hydrogen-fueled fleet could leverage the Defense Logistics Agency’s existing energy partnerships and tap into the burgeoning hydrogen infrastructure evolving around the globe. MSC would then be well-positioned to facilitate “whole of government” maritime sustainment networks analogous to the Northern Distribution Network’s contribution to the State Department’s Silk Road Initiative. Built to sustain operations in Afghanistan, the Northern Distribution Network was an excellent case study demonstrating how to leverage short-term, concrete logistical needs of building and maintaining sustainment networks to create a wider network of engagement in regions of strategic importance.
Conclusion
The same day General Lyons briefed Congress on TRANSCOM’s readiness dilemma, the Marine Corps Commandant, General Berger, addressed the Brookings Institute on the future of warfare and his warfighters’ sustainment dilemma. If properly equipped, MSC can address these interwoven challenges. Congress and the Navy have the opportunity to rekindle the innovative spirit of America’s first fleet, as told in Ian Toll’s Six Frigates as it designs and builds a fleet for the 21st Century.
America needs a warfighting sustainment fleet organized, trained, and equipped to shoot, move, and communicate in a major combat operation or add value during a humanitarian response. China has weaponized its supply chain. America needs its own afloat sustainment kill web hinged on MSC’s fleet. Such a fleet would move the Joint Concept for Contested Logistics from aspirational to operational. Moreover, building this fleet would reinvigorate American shipbuilding. Most importantly, launching this fleet will signal America’s friends and foes alike that it is committed to maintaining freedom of the seas, even in the face of the threat of total war.
Benjamin Clark is a contract electrical engineer for the U.S. Coast Guard and a five-year U.S. Navy veteran. He earned his Master’s in Electrical Engineering from the University of California, Riverside, specializing in power systems and electrical power markets. He is a 2012 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy. His views are his own and do not necessarily represent the official views of his employer or the government departments he is associated with. He can be contacted at clarkbenjamin71@gmail.com.
Greg Lewis is a contract Operational Logistics Planner and Instructor at the Navy Expeditionary Combat Command’s Warfighting Development Center. He is a retired Marine Logistician and Regional Area Officer. He earned his Master’s in National Security Affairs from the Naval Postgraduate School and is a 1996 graduate of Norwich University. His views are his own and do not necessarily represent the official views of his employer or the government departments he is associated with. He can be contacted at gregway@hotmail.com.
Special thanks to Commander Bill Balding (USN, ret.), Lieutenant Commander Chris Blake (USN), Major Brent Jurmu (USMC), and Captain Walker Mills (USMC).
Featured image: Capt. David Gray, the military detachment officer in charge of the Military Sealift Command expeditionary sea base USNS Hershel ‘Woody’ Williams (ESB 4), gives guidance and direction to Sailors while leading a training evolution aboard one of the ship’s ridged-hull inflatable boats while the ship was at anchor in the Chesapeake Bay, Sept. 15, 2019. (U.S. Navy photo by Bill Mesta/Released)
In the third peer-to-peer competition in the Cold War, from 1949 to the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, the United States possessed a large and capable military with a global presence, bases in multiple countries, and an ability to power project on a scale never before seen. The United States Navy did not initially face a peer, as noted by Samuel Huntington in his 1954 article in U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, “National Policy and the Transoceanic Navy.” As he stated, “This new doctrine as it emerges from the writings of postwar naval writers and leaders basically involves what may be termed the theory of the transoceanic navy, that is, a navy oriented away from the oceans and towards the land masses on their far side.”
To ensure that the United States was able to meet this need, and in alignment with efforts to create a tri-elemental military, the new Department of Defense created the Military Sea Transportation Service (MSTS) in 1949 under the Navy. Bringing together the Army Transport Service with its large fleet of troopships and cargo vessels utilizing government employed merchant mariners; the Naval Transportation Service with its fleet of auxiliaries and amphibious craft with naval personnel on board; and a vast tanker fleet under the office of the Chief of Naval Operations operated by four commercial shipping firms; the new MSTS possessed a fleet larger than the pre-World War II American merchant marine. Initially protested by commercial shipping firms, MSTS proved its worth the following year when it supported the rapid shifting of U.S. forces from Japan to Korea, the amphibious invasion at Inchon, and the dual reinforcement of both Korea and Europe with the latter establishment of the North American Treaty Organization.
As the Navy and merchant marine faced the block obsolescence of their World War Two-built fleets, both had to face difficult choices. The first head of the new Maritime Administration (MARAD), Edward L. Cochrane, initiated the Mariner program to build 35 C-4 freighters across seven shipyards. These ships, owned by the government, would be leased to commercial firms for their operation, with options to purchase. The military retained the first opportunity to charter. They were used late in the Korean War to replace many of the Victory-ships broken out from the vast National Defense Reserve Fleet of laid-up ships left over from the Second World War. The Mariners proved so successful that five were taken by the military for conversion into auxiliaries and the other 30 were purchased by commercial firms and became a basis for nearly all future American freighters until the advent of containerships. To provide tankers for the fleet, MSTS in conjunction with MARAD conceived a build-and-charter program. By assigning operating contracts to companies for a set period, usually five years, companies were allowed to build ships in U.S. shipyards knowing they had assured business.
Following the Vietnam War, the fleet of troopships and government-owned freighters were largely eliminated, with movement of personnel shifting to aircraft and contracts awarded to American shipping companies to handle cargo. MSC also rediscovered an old mission when the oiler Taluga was transferred to their control and the Navy crew replaced by merchant mariners. Civilian crews on Navy supply ships date back to the age of sail, and in the modern Navy to 1899, when the fuel ship USS Alexander received a merchant marine crew. That mode of crewing ended at the start of the First World War. But with the Navy facing personnel issues and the priority to crew warships over auxiliaries, the Navy resurrected this concept.
Over the span of decades, civilian crewing of auxiliaries grew with MSC operating not only shuttle ships – those that provide fuel and supplies from shore facilities – but to station ships providing underway replenishment to strike groups. The first MSC station ship went online in 1991. By the time of the Iraq War in 2003, half of the oilers, store and ammunition station ships supporting strike groups were operated by MSC. In 2010, the last Navy auxiliary transitioned over to civilian merchant marine crews. This change, along with a realignment of missions in the mid-1990s that transferred container operations to U.S. Transportation Command, oriented MSC to more of a Navy fleet support vice cargo mission.
The end of the Vietnam War coincided with a rising threat from the Soviet Navy. In 1979, Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Thomas B. Hayward wrote his views on this subject in the U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, “The Future of U.S. Sea Power.” While the Soviets did not possess the ability to contest the U.S. Navy everywhere on the world’s oceans, according to Hayward:
“It does mean that we must control those areas which we need to use in peace and war, against whatever forces may challenge that control. These essential sea areas include the strategically critical waters around the Eurasian periphery, and the economically vital sea lines of communication (SLOCs) through the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans on which the advanced industrial economies of the United States, Western Europe, and Japan so heavily depend.”
As the Navy embraced the concepts espoused by Admiral Hayward, the merchant marine continued its decline. While the Soviet merchant marine operated more as a naval auxiliary and not as a true commercial entity, the Merchant Marine Act of 1970 with the objective of building 300 American ships in 10 years fell short of its goal. Added to this, the Reagan Administration announced, as one of its goals, to deregulate industries and end government support. This equated to the end of construction and operational differential subsidies created under the Merchant Marine Act of 1936 for vessels in international trade. These helped offset the higher costs associated with building and operating a ship under the American registry. Additionally, the call for a 600-ship Navy and the end of construction in naval shipyards meant the displacement of American merchant ships by naval contracts in private shipyards.
In the coastal trade, which had been a bulwark for the merchant marine and national sealift in the previous two peer-to-peer conflicts, the construction of the Interstate Highway System, along with a network of interstate pipelines, and the shifting of passenger travel into airliners and freeing up space on railways for freight meant a marked decline in cargo for ships in the protected cabotage trade. All of this, the decline of the MSC fleet, the end of differentials for ships in the international trade, and the massive reduction of cargo along the American coast resulted in the U.S. merchant marine declining from 16.9 percent of the world’s fleet in 1960 (2,926 ships) to 3.7% (857) in 1975, down to 2.6% (619) in 1991, and in 2019 sitting at only 0.4% (182).
The reduction in the merchant marine was offset by the creation of several programs to ensure that military operations could be executed again. New programs such as the Afloat Prepositioning Force, the Fast Sealift Ships, and the Ready Reserve Force provided the military with the means to rapidly deploy forces, while still relying on the commercial merchant marine for their supply and sustainment. This was tested at the end of the Cold War when the U.S. dispatched over a half a million personnel to Saudi Arabia in the Persian Gulf War of 1990-91. Due to the rapidity of the operation, about a quarter of the cargo went on ships chartered from the open market, which was better than that achieved in World War One or World War Two.
Oshkosh M-977 heavy expanded mobility tactical trucks are parked on the deck of a Military Sealift Command vehicle cargo ship for redeployment to the United States in the aftermath of Operation Desert Storm. (Photo via U.S. National Archive)
With the end of Operation Desert Storm and the end of the Cold War, the United States faced a new situation. The Navy underwent a massive downsizing and the American merchant marine accelerated its reduction while global maritime trade grew ever more expansive. In 1990, maritime trade stood at 4 billion tons, doubling the total from 1970 and eight times that of 1950. By 2000, it stood at 6 billion tons and in 2018 topped 11 billion tons. To meet the needs of the military, the Department of Defense at the end of the Persian Gulf War obtained twenty Large Medium-Speed Roll-on/Roll-off vessels (LMSRs —15 newly built and five converted from existing ships; the latter a questionable decision). Additionally, MARAD bought 17 “ro/ros” from the commercial market to augment the Ready Reserve Force. To prevent the disappearance of the American international cargo fleet, the Maritime Security Program provided a yearly stipend to 47 ships, later increased to 60, to maintain a network of ships on the world’s ocean, but lacked a means to ensure the domestic shipbuilding of such vessels.
With the dawn of the new millennium and the perception that Francis Fukuyama’s notions in The End of History and The Last Man were taking hold, there seemed little need to worry about the future with the U.S. Navy remaining the dominant force on the world’s oceans and world commerce in the hands of multi-national corporations with their ships flying the flags of open registries, such as Panama, Liberia, and the Marshall Islands, all headquartered and established in the United States.
Peer-to-Peer Conflict #4
In 2019, I penned an article for the Chief of Naval Operations Naval History Essay Contest entitled, “Suppose There Was a War and the Merchant Marine Didn’t Come?” In it, I reviewed the capabilities of American sealift forces and the U.S. merchant marine to wage a war but did not play it out to its conclusion. So, what if there was a need of the United States to stage an operation similar to Operation Desert Shield/Storm of transporting a half million forces in approximately six months to an ally in the Far East opposed by a potential peer, such as China? Could the United States sealift and merchant marine perform this mission?
In the area of Naval Fleet Auxiliary Force, MSC has 15 Henry J. Kaiser-class oilers (soon to be exchanged for new John Lewis-class vessels), 12 Lewis and Clark-class dry cargo/ammunition ships, and two Supply-class fast combat stores ships. As the Supply is roughly equal to one Lewis and Clark and a Kaiser, this translates to roughly the equivalent of 14 resupply groups: all devoid of any self-defense protection.
During the Cold War, in operations in Korea, Vietnam, and the Persian Gulf, the United States had the luxury of utilizing secure supply bases, well forward in Japan, the Philippines, and in the Gulf States. A potential war with China in the Far East could involve missile strikes on forward supply infrastructure, and may necessitate an abandonment of such forward bases in Japan, Okinawa, or Guam, and relying on resupply from Hawaii or even as far as the continental United States.
Add to this the distances from past forward bases were in the hundreds of miles, whereas Hawaii and the continental United States are in the thousands of miles, and there is a potential for these to be unsecure sea lines of communications – threatened by submarines or ballistic missiles. This means that the 14 resupply groups, which are split between the Atlantic and Pacific, will be hard pressed to maintain the Navy’s frontline assets, particularly due to the tyranny of distance.
The Afloat Prepositioning Force of 14 ships supporting the Marine Corps, two for the Air Force, and eight for the Army are split between Maritime Prepositioning Squadron Two at Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean and Maritime Prepositioning Squadron Three in the Marianas. These ships provided the initial heavy equipment in both Operations Desert Shield and Iraqi Freedom. Squadron Three finds itself based within range of China’s medium-range ballistic missiles and generally exposed to potential naval threats being moored in open anchorages off the Marianas. Squadron Two could have to navigate through the Strait of Malacca and the South China Sea to be of use and therefore expose themselves to potential threats by Chinese bases within the Nine-Dash Line. They could divert and sail around Australia, but that would entail a longer sea voyage and delay their arrival. As with the ships in the naval fleet auxiliary force, these ships are also unarmed and vulnerable.
To deploy forces from the United States across the Pacific, there are the 41 ships in the Ready Reserve Force and 13 vessels maintained by the Military Sealift Command. These 54 vessels are intended to provide 10 million square feet of cargo capacity to a combatant commander, such as Indo-Pacific Command. At issue is the decreased readiness of this force. Just recently, there were 61 ships in the surge fleet, but MARAD and MSC are in the process of purging older and poorly performing vessels. MSC is expected to phase out more vessels, further shrinking this fleet.
In September 2019, General Stephen Lyons, the commander of United States Transportation Command – which overseas MSC for its sealift mission – and Mark Buzby, the Maritime Administrator, orchestrated a large-scale test of the surge sealift fleet. Known as Turbo Activation 19+, it activated 33 ships (27 MARAD and 6 MSC) between September 16 and 21. Each ship was brought from reduced operating status, to full, and then sent on a three to four-day sea trial. The goal for the surge sealift was to have an 85 percent availability. The after-action report highlighted the issue, “The low Cumulative Fleet Success Rate (40.7%) suggests the Organic Surge Fleet is challenged to be immediately available for a large-scale inter-theater force deployment without delays/impacts to force closure due to degraded readiness.”
Soldiers and Marines load equipment aboard the USNS Watkins in preparation for Resolute Sun 2019’s joint logistics over-the-shore scenario outside of Norfolk, Va. (Steven J. Mirrer/U.S. Army)
While one would think that a 40 percent vice 85 percent availability is damning, in truth, this test did not even adequately assess the true capabilities of the fleet. For example, there was no discussion on where the crews of the vessels came from, meaning would they be available for an oceanic voyage versus a short test sail. Many of these crews were between sailing contracts and could accommodate a few days at sea, but not several months. There was no determination if ship performance would degrade beyond the three to four days at sea. One ship, SS Regulus, was stuck in harbor due to insufficient air draft to exit the port as a result of flood waters in Beaumont. Many of the ships activated, two-thirds, were based on the East and Gulf coasts, necessitating a passage through the Panama Canal if they were to deploy to the Pacific. As we have seen recently in the Suez Canal with the case of MV Ever Given, access and use of the canal is in the hands of the host state, and whether China could exert political, economic, or military exertions against Panama (the single largest registry of ships in the world are under Panama) to prohibit transit of American sealift vessels could substantially slow any deployment.
Finally, there is the sustainment issue for forces once they arrive in theater. In Korea and Vietnam this was provided by Victory-ships broken out from the National Defense Reserve Fleet until replaced by Mariners in the Korean War and containerships of Sea-Land in the Vietnam War. During the Persian Gulf War, MSC contracted with seven commercial firms under the Special Middle East Shipping Agreement to ensure the transportation of containers to the regions, later incorporated into the MSP and Voluntary Intermodal Shipping Agreement (VISA).
Behind the ships of the Maritime Security Program come the vessels in the cabotage trade, those supplying Hawaii – Matson and Pasha – and Alaska – TOTE, along with tanker companies such as Crowley and OSG. In a peer-to-peer confrontation, as in the world wars, these ships could be shifted into sustainment operations and the off-duty crews used for the 54 surge sealift vessels. But perhaps the greatest underlying issue is whether the U.S. merchant marine would even support a contested sealift operation. John Konrad in a May 2019 editorial for gCaptain, entitled his piece, “Admiral, I am NOT Ready for War,” and highlighted some of the significant concerns expressed by merchant mariners on their readiness.
Conclusion
Today, China is in the position that the U.S. found itself on the eve of the Second World War, with a large maritime infrastructure supporting a growing Navy and commercial merchant fleet with a global presence. China’s COSCO Shipping is the single largest maritime company in the world. At the same moment, U.S. Navy programs are foundering and most of the protections once in place to ensure a large domestic merchant marine and industrial base have been dismantled. One must envision what the next peer-to-peer naval conflict could look like for the United States, with a U.S. Navy that is first in the world, but severely challenged, and a merchant marine that is 21st and declining, versus a nation like China whose navy and merchant marine ranks second in both categories and climbing.
The challenge for the United States in a fourth peer-to-peer conflict would be the same in the previous three: to ensure that there was a requisite force of merchant ships to support their maritime strategy (there is not). Next, it would have to ensure the safe transportation of cargo, via these ships across a contested sea, necessitating a system of convoying and escorts (which the Navy currently lacks). Finally, without sufficient ships, the nation has to fall back upon its domestic maritime infrastructure to build new cargo vessels (which is also not present). Lacking all this, the nation may face a situation akin to the first peer-to-peer conflict and have to charter from foreign firms (if they are willing to risk their vessels) or seize commercial shipping and replace their crews with personnel from a depleted American merchant marine or stretched U.S. Navy. Based on history, it appears that the United States is ill-prepared to sustain a large military force overseas, across a contested sea.
Salvatore R. Mercogliano is a former merchant mariner, having sailed and worked ashore for the Military Sealift Command. He is an associate professor of history at Campbell University and an adjunct professor at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy. He has written on U.S. Merchant Marine history and policy, including his book, Fourth Arm of Defense: Sealift and Maritime Logistics in the Vietnam War, and won 2nd Place in the 2019 Chief of Naval Operations History Essay Contest with his submission, “Suppose There Was a War and the Merchant Marine Did Not Come?”
Featured Image: November 11, 1990 – A Military Sealift Command-chartered vehicle cargo ship prepares to offload equipment during Operation Desert Shield (Photo via U.S. National Archive)
“. . . without their skill and devotion to duty our men and materiel could not have been delivered. . . “–President Franklin D. Roosevelt
The U.S. flag commercial fleet and government owned vessels serve a crucial capability to successfully execute and accomplish USTRANSCOM’s (USTC) worldwide operations by sea. Ongoing issues occurring in the global commons have pressured USTC reliance on the U.S. Merchant Marine through the Military Sealift Command (MSC) and the Maritime Administration’s (MARAD) Ready Reserve Force (RRF).1
Enduring commitment to historic naval functions of deterrence, sea control, power projection and maritime security remains essential to American national strategy; however, the security conditions have become more sophisticated and uncertain, forcing the Department of Defense to change how it conducts sustainment operations. Through a distinguished history of sacrifice, valor and courage, the U.S. Merchant Marine has proven its tenacity in support of a common calling to serve the nation.
Today, threats continue to compel the United States’ need for strategic sealift. Considering the nation’s dependency on imported products, it is timely to reconsider just how dependent the international supply chain is on the primary conveyance for cargoes coming to and from the United States. Over 90 percent by volume or weight comes by sea, but American flagged carriers account for less than 2 percent of these cargoes. American dependency on foreign-flag vessels will inevitably become more problematic with the continuation of stop-gap measures to meet national security requirements.
With a bi-polar hegemonic world, the U.S. needs to take an immediate and serious deep dive into guaranteeing commercial cargoes for U.S.-flag carriers. This is not a new idea, but one worth revisiting. This proposal, if enforced by treaty or legislation, would have negligible impact on shippers while significantly improving the capacity and number of both the U.S.-flag fleet and U.S.-mariners.
Domestic Shipbuilding Capacity
The United States’ sealift fleet has received limited Congressional attention over decades of continued use. New construction and conversion of Maritime Prepositioning Ships and the development of large medium speed roll-on/roll-off vessels achieved successful results, but the alignment of sealift ships under a 30-year shipbuilding plan has never materialized. Most recently, the Navy’s 30- year shipbuilding plan and the SECNAV’s Sealift that the Nation Needs (STNN) report to Congress (2018) considered sealift vessels or auxiliary vessels.
However, its vessel proposals are not in sufficient numbers and the timeline described to achieve increased readiness and availability is not effective. Sealift vessels generally fall into 10-15 year shipbuilding periods, with long lapses between programs that can exceed 10 or even 20-years. These aging vessels are often managed with decreasing levels of resourcing over time, despite the increasing need. The greatest shortfall in plans for a viable sealift fleet involves short-term programs of 20-25 years or less, for a fleet intended to last 50 or even 60-years.
Philly Shipyard (Photo via Clem Murray/Philadelphia Inquirer)
The sealift fleet includes both commercially-operated vessels, in-service, as well as organic sealift vessels, many of which were former commercial vessels or built to rigorous commercial classification society standards. Both the United States government and the shipbuilding industry would benefit from a shipbuilding plan that identifies ship construction opportunities over a 20–30-year timeframe.
The Navy’s existing Long-range (30-year) Shipbuilding Plan narrowly focuses on Combatant and Auxiliary vessels; leaving sealift vessels for ad-hoc recapitalization strategies.
Acquisition and modernization of ships for defense agencies has been successfully executed since 1976. Capital improvements were executed through the modernization of Joint Logistics over the Shore (JLOTS), Offshore Petroleum Discharge System (OPDS), and an intentional shift from breakbulk cargo to roll-on/roll-off vessels. Staying current with modern technology, MARAD was forced to continually upgrade the organic fleet to deliver increased sealift capacity to meet the demand signal from USTC. Today, the STNN report outlines a path that provides limited resourcing of ships on a progressive, but low-accession rate. Newer ships, ships built today and those available for procurement do not match ships built 30-40 years ago in terms of structural arrangement (scantlings) or suitability for laid-up status – both of which are important considerations for strategic sealift.
RO/RO vessel MV Greene Cove (Photo via MarineTraffic.com)
Shipbuilding Plan
MARAD has proposed development of a long-term, planned sealift shipbuilding initiative that focuses on commercially-developed but militarily useful ships. The greatest gap in shipbuilding is the difficulty in constructing ships usable for commercial purposes that could also be useful as naval auxiliaries in time of war or national emergency. By developing a shipbuilding plan, MARAD seeks to coordinate with commercial ship owners, whereby the government invests a reasonable or an agreed upon portion of the cost at new construction for any vessel, and after operation for a period of ten years commercial service, accepts the vessel into the organic sealift fleet for an additional 20-25 years. By offsetting the initial, up-front costs for ship owners, and including national defense features in construction, MARAD would recapture a stake in the efficient construction and operation of a U.S. flag vessel. Participation would come with conditions including periodic inspection, equipment validation, modernization upgrades, and other program involvement as well as full Voluntary Intermodal Sealift Agreement (VISA)/Maritime Security Program (MSP) enrollment. This initiative works in conjunction with all other sealift programs to ensure a continuing supply of modern, U.S.-built ships for procurement for defense needs.
At scale, this plan could include the construction of four ships per year for ten years, for acceptance by the Government after ten years. The 4/10/20 plan involves initial investment by the Government, paired with industry financing to build U.S. flag ships in domestic shipyards. This accession rate exceeds the rate of the STNN report, decreases the average age of the commercial / organic sealift fleets, and reduces a reliance on foreign-built ships for defense purposes. Most importantly, this plan provides a predictable timeline of ship construction options at a rate of four ships per year. Because the government pays their share up front, concerns of subsidies can be avoided, and it combines both government funding and private financing for greater effect in the shipyard industrial base.
MARAD’s key focus areas for domestic shipbuilding capacity include:
Continuation and expansion with reduced barriers of application and award of the Title XI financing.
Development of a sealift plan that parallels Navy’s 30-year Shipbuilding Plan and provides insight to optioned ships (4/10/20 Plan)
Continued effort to align all non-combatant, national shipbuilding needs through the Government Shipbuilders Council (GSC-V)
Revision of the National Defense Features and Sealift Enhancement Features catalogues for outfitting on any U.S. flag ship
Availability of other sealift programs, including procurement for NDRF, Ship Disposal Programs, etc.
Single Sealift Manager
The nation’s sealift capacity exists in multiple organizations with potential shortfalls as these ships age and competition for resources does not match organizational objectives. Through multiple ship repair contracts of existing ships, both the MARAD and Military Sealift Command (MSC) compete for available dry-docks in an increasingly difficult regulatory environment. With ship repair availabilities taking longer, ships and their programs must choose to prioritize based upon the urgency of the ship’s required performance, e.g. prepositioning, and the regulatory requirements of American Bureau of Shipping and the U.S. Coast Guard. Aligning sealift capacity to one single manager could alleviate congestion and give greater insight to shipyards seeking work on up to 61 ships.
Reroute Ad Valorem Tax Funds
Domestic shipyard availability, increasingly longer and more complex repairs, and skilled worker shortfalls means that repairs in foreign shipyards may be more desirable or simply necessary due to availability and skilled labor pools that combine to meet an approved ship repair availability timeline. Today, MSC ships and even MARAD’s RRF ships still face 50% Ad Valorem taxes for repairs made overseas.2 The benefit of this tax is not gained by the industry, as the intent of the tax is meant, because it reverts only to the Department of the Treasury. Moving into a period of necessary ship construction revitalization, MARAD has proposed that the Ad Valorem tax be revised to fund activities that directly benefit domestic shipyards, through funds applied for increased infrastructure improvements, cybersecurity and industrial security, sill dredging, and skilled worker recruitment and training. By applying Ad Valorem funds directly, this initiative could be executed like the Small Shipyard Grant Program, through a validation process recorded and assessed by MARAD.
MARAD’s key focus areas for redirecting Ad Valorem funds to domestic shipyards include:
Select infrastructure improvements and modernization
Cybersecurity and industrial security measures
“Last mile” graving dock and floating dry-dock area sill dredging
Skilled worker recruitment, training, and apprenticeship programs
There are many factors to take into consideration in the rapid decline of the shipbuilding industry, including global oversupply, recessions and changing economic fundamentals, but one policy decision clearly stands out. For decades, countries around the world have subsidized their national shipbuilding industries. Up until 1981, the U.S. followed suite through the payments of construction differential subsides (CDS). As soon as foreign shipbuilding companies gained the advantage of subsidization from their governments, subsidization for U.S. shipbuilding went in the opposite direction leaving the U.S. industries at a disadvantage and unable to compete for business.
Currently, the U.S. ranks 19th in the world for commercial shipbuilding, accounting for approximately 0.35% of global new construction, which is a mere one-third of one percent of new commercial shipbuilding occurs in the United States, despite having the world’s largest economy.3 In the absence of any U.S government action to enforce fair market participation, the commercial shipbuilding industry almost immediately began to suffer a steady decline and struggled to remain competitive against foreign subsidization. The impact of these trends is evidently clear. South Korea has 37% of global shipbuilding, Japan has 27% and China has 21%.4 South Korea alone is building more than 100 times the number of ships as the United States.
Maritime Security Program
Military, congressional, and other government leaders noted that while MARAD’s RRF offered an effective and rapid source of ships for strategic deployment, even the RRF and the sealift capabilities of Military Sealift Command together could not sustain a serious and prolonged U.S. military deployment overseas. Additional support from a commercial U.S.-flag merchant marine is essential for strategic sealift requirements, as was proven in all American wars of the twentieth century, including Operations DESERT SHIELD and DESERT STORM. Accordingly, in 1996, Congress passed and the president signed the Maritime Security Act of 1996 (MSA), which established the Maritime Security Program (MSP).
The Maritime Security Program (MSP) maintains a fleet of 60 modern, privately-owned U.S.-flag ships, active in international commercial trade, yet available on-call to meet U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) contingency requirements during war and national emergencies. The MSP ensures a minimal but vital role for the U.S. in global sea trade, while employing some 2,400 of the trained, skilled U.S.-citizen Merchant Mariners needed to man the Government-owned surge fleet in times of crisis.
RO/RO vessel MV Liberty Passion (Photo via MarineTraffic.com)
The current MSP fleet includes 23 container ships, 11 geared container ships, 18 roll-on/roll-off (RO/RO) vessels, six multi-purpose/heavy-lift ships, and two tankers. The cargo capacity of the MSP fleet, now exceeding 3.4 million sq. ft., is at the highest level in the program’s history, including some 117,000 TEUs, 3.16M sq.ft. of RO/RO capacity, 335,659 sq.ft. of heavy-lift capacity, and nearly 667,000 bbl. of fuel transport capacity.
Cargo Preference
Cargo preference statutes are crucial to U.S.-flag vessels and American commercial sealift. Currently, DoD cargoes are contracted through USTC, either by Surface Deployment & Distribution Command (SDDC) or MSC for full ship charters. However, a large portion of other government cargoes are shipped by various other agencies. Centralizing the contracting of all government impelled cargoes under USTC could effectively and efficiently reduce cost, increase visibility, increase cargo preference adherence, and strengthen national strategic sealift capability. USTC has the robust transportation in place to support this centralization.5
Pasha Hawaii vessel Marjorie C (Photo via Pasha Hawaii)
Sealift Recapitalization
In an effort to increase the RO/RO capacity through the MSP, scenario comparisons were made to show a generic time line and cost to reach USTC requirement for sealift square footage. To start, data of the notional Army unit types was used to calculate the number of vessels of each class to carry a full complement, Table 1.
Next, three scenarios were created, with assumed variables, how much it would cost and how long it would take to bring American strategic sealift within mission readiness standards set by USTC.
Scenario #1: Emphasis on a new construction program with new Commercial off the Shelf (COTS) RO/RO vessels replacing Large Medium Speed RO/RO (LMSR)’s currently in the afloat prepositioning fleet, and shifting to surge. Estimated time to meet USTC mission readiness is 12 years.
Scenario #2: Double the commercial MSP fleet of RO/RO vessels and limiting the number of new COTS RO/RO vessels to analyze the commercial increase option. Fewer new vessels will be constructed leaving funding for purchasing used commercial RO/RO’s in the open market. Estimated time to meet USTC mission readiness is 7 years.
Scenario #3: Same as Scenario #1 with the exception of restricting the time limit met in Scenario #2 of 7 years. This scenario fails the square footage requirement to meet USTC mission readiness.
Table 1 – Notional Army Deployment Data
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Scenario 1: 18 MSP RO/RO Vessels w/ 50 New Build & 9 Used Foreign (12-year period)
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Scenario 1 Summary
Case maintains a status quo of 18 MSP RO/RO vessels in the fleet with 50 U.S. new construction incorporating commercial build specifications with national defense features and complying with the Jones Act. The time to meet the TRANSCOM requirement of 19.6 million sq.ft. is 12 years at $3.0B per year for a total cost of $37.0B. Factors in the estimate include an average attrition of 17% for shipyard availability, general repairs and maintenance. Average cost for a new U.S. built COTS vessel is estimated at $280M per ship with 4 new vessels planned per year. Purchasing used foreign RO/RO’s is estimated at $84M per ship with approval to purchase up to 9 off the open global market. Estimates do not include rate of which ships are removed from service and either scrapped or placed into the NDRF.
Scenario 2: 36 MSP RO/RO Vessels w/ 29 New Build & 9 Used Foreign (7-year period)
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Scenario 2 Summary
Case doubles the MSP RO/RO fleet to 36 vessels in the fleet with 29 U.S. new construction incorporating commercial build specifications with national defense features and complying with the Jones Act. The time to meet the TRANSCOM requirement of 19.6 million sq.ft. is 7 years at $3.0B per year for a total cost of $22.2B. Factors in the estimate include average attrition of 17% for shipyard availability, general repairs and maintenance. Average cost for a new U.S. built COTS vessel is estimated at $280M per ship with 4 new vessels planned per year. Purchasing used foreign RO/RO’s is estimated at $84M per ship with approval to purchase up to 9 off the open global market. Estimates do not include rate of which ships are removed from service and either scrapped or placed into the NDRF.
*** Notable savings with Scenario #2. Fleet restored to 85% mission readiness, which includes a 17% attrition, 40% of the time and 41% savings. ***
Scenario 3: 18 MSP RO/RO Vessels w/ 28 New Build & 9 Used Foreign (7-year period)
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Scenario 3 Summary
Case maintains a status quo of 18 MSP RO/RO vessels in the fleet with 28 U.S. new construction incorporating commercial build specifications with national defense features and complying with the Jones Act. This scenario fails to meet the TRANSCOM requirement of 19.6 million sq.ft. at the 7-year mark with a delta of 16.8%. With 17% attrition for shipyard availability, general repairs and maintenance, mission readiness fails to meet at 83%. All variables and assumptions were the same applied to Scenario 1 and 2.
Potentially increasing the MSP fleet size, MARAD’s selection criteria for new ships entering the current MSP fleet reflect DoD’s stated priority preferences by vessel type. With the priority emphasized on RO/RO’s, replacements are already under an MSP Operating Agreement tend to be the same types as those being replaced. Two key benefits of increasing the MSP RO/RO fleet, they are instantly mission capable and operationally ready for service.
There are inherit risks to increasing the MSP. Some of these capabilities can never be fully replaced without construction or modifications. However, vessels of the U.S. flag commercial fleet can be purchased and modified to replace some Ready Reserve Force/MSC assets, as provided for in the U.S. Navy’s current surge fleet recapitalization planning. For political or economic reasons, the U.S. military could find itself in a situation in which foreign-flag shipping is not an option to support U.S. military operations.
Philly Shipyard’s 29th vessel, Daniel K. Inouye, floats in the Outfitting Dock at Philly Shipyard. (Photo via Business Wire)
For instance, due to prior circumstances of particular conflicts, flag states may refuse to permit their vessels to enter a war zone so as not to offend an ally or related business interest or operators do not wish to charter vessels to the U.S. military because they could potentially lose market share from their regular, existing customer base and trade routes. From a foreign operator’s perspective, carrying U.S. military cargoes, even at premium rates, may be a poor business decision in the long term, which may discourage foreign-flag owners and operators from even considering such an option.
New Cargo to Maintain the Commercial Sealift Fleet
In the 1970s the United States negotiated a bilateral agreement with Brazil reserving 40% of each country’s exports for the merchant fleet of each trading partner and the remaining 20% was available for third country fleets. Shortly thereafter the United States negotiated a similar bilateral agreement with Argentina. These agreements gained the interest of many developing nations and thus the “40/40/20” became a new standard adopted by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) Code of Conduct for Liner Conferences. The UNCTAD Code came into force on October 6, 1983, six months after its ratification. However, the United States never ratified the Code even though the U.S.-carriers and the U.S.-maritime unions were supportive. The UNCTAD 40/40/20 was designed around the ocean shipping conferences that dominated ocean liner trade in the 1970s. Subsequently over the following decades, due to changing political environments, conferences have become unlawful in some parts of the world and are now practically non-existent. However, during this same period, carriers have developed operational conferences or cooperation in the form of vessel sharing agreements (VSAs), also referred to as liner consortia.6
Strategic Sealift Officers
Strategic sealift is essential to the U.S. Navy’s ability to carry out its sea control, power projection, and maritime security missions—and essential to strategic sealift is a cadre of Navy Reserve officers who provide emergency crewing and shore-side support for the Military Sealift Command’s Surge Sealift Fleet and the Ready Reserve Force in times of national defense or emergency.
Strategic sealift officers (SSOs) today have two priority missions: to provide strategic depth as tactically trained, experienced, and credentialed licensed mariners; and to deploy operational capability through their subject matter expertise in marine engineering, operations, and logistics and ties with the maritime ecosystem.
SSO Lieutenant David Gill runs radio tests onboard the RO/RO vessel USNS Benavidez (T-AKR 306) during Turbo Activation providing the subject matter expertise from the commercial maritime industry. (U.S. Navy photo)
This diverse maritime expertise is a force multiplier. The broad educational backgrounds, world- wide employment and specialties in work experience enable these dedicated mariners to apply critical skills and non-traditional methods to overcome current and future obstacles. Members will use their unique maritime industry understanding, training, and proficiencies in support of U.S. Navy and national-level requirements.
Years of specialized training and education are required to earn and maintain the U.S. Coast Guard Merchant Marine license and associated additional credentialing by the International Maritime Organization (IMO). The U.S. Merchant Marine must continue to attract, retain, and promote top talent from the nation’s maritime academies. This workforce is the key enabler to accomplish a vital mission.
Concepts of Maritime Solutions
Strengthen the Maritime Industrial and Innovation Base. Reinvigorate and promote a competitive modern maritime industrial and innovation base. Leverage commercial leading-edge suppliers to provide a strong and sustained competitive advantage within the global maritime commons.
Sustain the Forces. The Maritime Services should generate resilient and adaptable logistics to sustain forces globally in contested environments. Successful mission execution demands the planning, prioritization and modernization of U.S. flag strategic sealift capabilities, maritime prepositioning network forces, prepositioned forward munition stocks, warfighter provisioning, allied and coalition partner support coupled with distributed and agile logistics. Logistics investments needed include the Next Generation Logistics Ship – which could be a commercial-of-the-shelf (COTS) RO/RO vessel with NDRF capabilities, utilized to sustain afloat and ashore littoral forces and strategic sealift assets within the Ready Reserve Fleet – the Maritime Security Program, and a Tanker Security Program.
Outboard profile of a Container RO/RO (CON-RO/RO) vessel (Graphic via MarineLog.com)
Develop Integrated Maritime Forces with fiscal resources allocated to the U.S. Navy, Marine Corps, Coast Guard and Merchant Marine by the U.S. Congress. Consistent and sufficient funding will support the strong maritime defense industrial base needed to deliver future naval and strategic sealift ships, aircraft, munitions and supplies. Steady resourcing will allow the Maritime Services to invest efficiently, provide accountability, preserve military advantages and enable consistent strategy execution in contested environments.
Address the Strategic Sealift Gap and Restore the U.S. Merchant Marine. Both a robust maritime industry and the policies that aim to support it are increasingly important in an era of great power competition (GPC). DoD mobilization requirements depend heavily on the U.S. flag commercial maritime industry. However, with now fewer than 90 vessels, this industry continues to face mounting pressures ranging from fragmented and ineffective policies to highly subsidized foreign maritime assets that undermine its long-term viability, its ability to innovate, and its capacity to support future military operations. To effectively compete, the U.S. must break with a long-standing approach that assumes the commercial and military requirements of the maritime industry are the largely distinct. Instead, the U.S. must adopt an integrated approach that recognizes the inherent interdependence between the two and foster a healthier commercial maritime industry that can effectively support DoD force mobilizations. In just one example, American shipyards require modernization through capital improvements, infusion of more efficient processes and a skilled workforce to fully realize increased capacity and capability. To address this, the development of a long-term, planned shipbuilding and repair initiative that focuses on commercially-developed, but militarily useful ships would inevitability help close the gap in shipbuilding. Without a “leveling” of the playing field for commercial shipyards through some form of construction subsidy, tax incentives, or long- term government shipbuilding program, U.S. shipyards will be unable to construct large commercial vessels at a cost more competitive with heavily-subsidized foreign (primarily Asian) shipyards.
This plan would provide insight and predictability to shipbuilders and an opportunity to construct ships for U.S. flag carriers. MARAD would provide stability where boom-and-bust cycles of episodic sealift shipbuilding has been the norm by supporting a shipbuilding plan in coordination with commercial ship owners, whereby the government invests a significant portion of the cost at new construction for any vessel and after operation for a period of ten years commercial service, accepts the vessel into the organic sealift fleet for an additional 20-25 years.
By offsetting initial, up-front costs for ship owners and by including National Defense features in the construction, MARAD would reclaim stake in the efficient construction and operation of U.S. flag sealift vessels. Participation could come with conditions, including periodic inspections, equipment validation, modernization upgrades and other program involvement as well as full MSP/VISA enrollment. While not excluding Jones Act ships, this initiative would work in conjunction with all other sealift programs to ensure a continuing supply of modern, U.S. built ships in support of an effective military mobilization.
Conclusion
The United States is already emerging from a period of strategic atrophy. American competitive military advantage is rapidly waning. With increased global disorder characterized by the decline in international order, the global security environment is becoming far more complex and volatile than any of us have experienced in recent memory.7 The time is now to recognize and commit to a new and comprehensive National Maritime/Defense Strategy to rebuild America’s merchant marine.
The commercial U.S. shipbuilding and repair industry today exists solely on work provided by government contracts and Jones Act construction and repair work. Absent the Jones Act, virtually all remaining large shipyards would be forced out of business, with a negative ripple effect on the supporting supply chain. U.S. shipyards need some combination of subsidies, stimulus, and predictable demand to compete with foreign shipyards that enjoy all of those advantages. American yards require modernization through capital improvements, infusion of more efficient processes, and a skilled workforce to fully realize increased capacity and capability. Those investments are not likely without external assistance.
Ways of promoting the U.S. Merchant Marine and substantially increasing the number of U.S.-flag ships in international trade are available. First, negotiate bilateral agreements with the major United States trading partners like the Brazilian bilateral agreement of the 1970s construct. The agreements may be constructed around the new Vessel Sharing Agreements and with higher levels of third country participation. Bilateral agreements may be prioritized with other countries based on data as a trading partner with the United States. As opposed to 40/40/20 the agreements could be more reasonably negotiated as 10/10/80 agreements. This should increase U.S.-flag participation in U.S.-trade twofold from the current 2% to 4% and beyond in support of American national security and economic prosperity.8 Second, provide additional tax incentives to U.S. carriers, perhaps along with shipper tax incentives. Existing laws and regulations that discourage operators from flagging their ships in the United States could be revised. None of these efforts would require additional appropriations. As far as tax incentives are concerned, the U.S. Treasury is not currently benefiting from foreign-flag operators paying taxes, so having similar tax breaks for a larger number of U.S.-flag operators would have no significant impact on tax revenues.9 First and foremost, the United States should focus on meeting the requirement for strategic sealift capacity.
Leveraging the commercial employment of SSO members the Navy will strengthen strategic relationships with the maritime industry. Industry partners provide complementary capabilities, unique perspectives and information that improves collective understanding of the operating environment and expands options. Correspondingly, strategic sealift officer experiences within the maritime ecosystem enable rapid identification and development opportunities to apply commercial best practices to more efficiently use resources and optimize operations. Mutually beneficial partnerships within the maritime ecosystem are crucial to national strategy. By being an integral part of the maritime ecosystem and the Navy, the SSO force supports successful naval operations and helps strengthen the preeminence of America as a maritime nation.
The Merchant Marine through Strategic Sealift provides the Nation’s “fourth arm of defense” and has historically organized, trained, and equipped to perform three essential functions: sea control, power projection, and maritime security. Curiously, it was an American, Alfred T. Mahan, who dramatically energized global powers, including, eventually, the United States, about the critical importance of commercial flag-state merchant shipping and accompanying naval power.
Contrary to the term that “size matters”, sealift forces do not need another fleet of 250,000 square-foot capacity LMSR’s. They do need ships that are commercially viable for Jones Act and international trade and that have national defense capabilities incorporated in the early stages of construction and built to commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) specifications. Naval warship design technology is not applicable with strategic sealift vessels. Stick to the basics with the USTC 24-10 specification Appendix A for strategic sealift, not what the Navy assumes it needs for strategic sealift. Coincidently, RO/RO’s are built with similar USTC 24-10 specifications incorporated into the construction with ample deck strength on the permanent decks and clear overhead heights complying with basic sealift requirements.
U.S. strategic sealift needs to be both commercially and military viable, to serve dual purposes for the economic and national security interests. The fleet of strategic sealift vessels will serve no purpose sitting pier side in the U.S. waiting for the next conflict to arise. Ships need to be underway, making way and earning money for companies that have employed those vessels and U.S. merchant mariners.
Since World War II, the U.S. fleet has matured and withered to the laws of supply and demand due to the strength of foreign competition. As a nation, the United States have never let the fleet get too small without performing ambitious analyses in recapitalization or through creative means of subsidies and exclusive contracts.10 Through persuasive realignment of U.S. government policy and legislation that incentivizes the U.S. fleet to become globally competitive would be the fundamental basic principles of reviving a viable Strategic Sealift for the United States and allowing USTRANSCOM to successfully execute and accomplish worldwide operations that strengthen national security and directly contribute to achieving the nation’s objectives.
Captain Hiller is the officer in charge of the Naval Cooperation and Guidance of Shipping (NCAGS) for USCOMNAVCENT and USFIFTHFLEET in Bahrain. In his civilian capacity he works for the Maritime Administration as a naval architect in the Office of Shipyards and Marine Engineering. He holds a bachelor of engineering in naval architecture, U.S. Coast Guard Unlimited Tonnage License, and U.S. Navy commission from the State University of New York at Ft. Schuyler Maritime College and a master’s in national security and strategic studies from the Naval War College.
Endnotes
1. USTRANSCOM Nation Maritime Day Speech, General Paul J. Selva, May 2015.
2. Department of Transportation, Comparison of U.S. and Foreign-Flag Operating Coasts, Sept 2011.
3. Department of Transportation, Maritime Trade and Transportation, 2007, Table 7-2.
4. Ibid.
5. Joint Publication 4-01, The Defense Transportation System, July 2017.
6. Alex Roland, The Way of the Ship, page 328.
7. Letter to the Honorable Mark Esper, Secretary of Defense, Congresswoman Elaine G. Luria, 31JAN20.
8. Revive Merchant Marine, Owen Dougherty, 2017.
9. Back to the Future, Christopher McMahon, 2019.
10. William Geroux, Mathew’s Men Seven Brothers and the War against Hitler’s U-Boats, Penguin Books, 2016.
Feature Image: PACIFIC OCEAN (Oct. 28, 2019) Henry J. Kaiser-class underway replenishment oiler USNS Yukon (T-AO-202, right, prepares to conduct a consolidated loading with commercial tanker MT Empire State. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Patrick W. Menah Jr./Released)
