Strategic Sealift Topic Week

By Joshua Tallis and Ronald Filadelfo

Recapitalizing strategic sealift vessels would provide a needed catalyst for green maritime technology development, driving toward the Biden administration’s new shipping climate target while improving the US Navy’s warfighting edge. A greener merchant fleet, enabled by technology developed during the recapitalization of the aging sealift fleet (the vessels that bring US troops and materiel to foreign shores) would address an important source of climate change and increase the sustainment reach of the logistics fleet (the auxiliary vessels that keep warships on station). Such a maritime green revolution might even improve lethality.

Climate and the Shipping Forecast

Shipping is the most efficient way that humans distribute goods. Yet the industry’s scale still makes commercial vessels substantial global emitters. Ships often burn cheap, heavy fuels, the dregs of the refinement process, which means that as few as 15 of the merchant fleet’s largest vessels give off as much nitrogen and sulfur as the entire world’s stock of automobiles. Marine-related black carbon emissions, while not the world’s largest source of soot, are rising relative to other sources. This disproportionately impacts Arctic ice melt because the black specks settle lower in the atmosphere, landing on ice and absorbing more heat. In total, if shipping were a country, it would be the sixth largest emitter of CO2, behind Japan and ahead of Germany.

The merchant fleet has surely been moving to adopt more efficient vessels. A combination of optimized speed, more efficient engines, and larger hull sizes has contributed to substantial net improvements over time. Yet innovation has its obstacles. A recent move to low sulfur fuel in compliance with new International Maritime Organization (IMO) rules has allegedly increased emissions and may have contributed to a series of power failures at sea. Meanwhile, even in the face of environmental resistance by shipping lines to use Arctic routes, Russia continues to advertise the Northern Sea Route, raising the prospect of further environmental fallout from the shipping industry. It is in this context that the Biden administration has committed to join the IMO in reducing global shipping emissions to net zero by 2050.

A New Opportunity in an Old Problem

It is uncontroversial to note that the United States’ strategic sealift fleet—which includes ships operated by Military Sealift Command and those in the Maritime Administration’s National Defense Reserve Fleet and Ready Reserve Fleet—is aging and in need of recapitalization. During TRANSCOM’s 2019 “Turbo Activation” of the Ready Reserve Force, only 40% of vessels deemed “ready” (and only 60% of the fleet carried that designation to begin with) were able to get underway. The common culprit is age, with the average vessel maturity reaching around 45 years old. Therefore, the longstanding argument in favor of modernizing (ideally even expanding) the strategic sealift (and combat logistics) fleet is old in more ways than one.

What is new is the opportunity to push larger policy objectives through such a scientific and industrial effort as recapitalizing the fleet. Any such initiative should be used as an opportunity to push far greater federal funding into green maritime technologies, which would pay dividends for the sector at large. And where possible, it may even be the case that greener technologies could improve the US Navy’s warfighting edge.

There are any number of technologies that the nation’s sealift fleet could help iterate, including hybrid electric drives, stern flaps, and energy storage modules—each of which has been previously explored by the Navy for application among the combat and auxiliary logistics fleet.

Hybrid Electric Drive

Hybrid electric drives (HED) substitute a vessel’s gas turbine with stored electric power to propel the ship when operating at low speeds—somewhat akin to hybrid automobiles, which switch from gas to electric when conditions allow. Arleigh Burke-class destroyers (DDGs) are the Navy’s primary surface combatant with substantial remaining service life, so the Navy invested a significant amount of money to retrofit these ships with HEDs. The technology poses some risks, particularly given the short lag when shifting back to full power, which can be problematic for conditions that require high degrees of maneuvering responsiveness. As with many technologies that improve efficiency, the operational tradeoffs can be challenging to account for—one reason that the program resulted in most drives sitting on the pier.

Stern Flaps

A stern flap is a steel plate attached to the rear of a ship to extend from the hull bottom surface. This comparatively low-tech solution modifies the way water flows around the hull, reducing drag and hull resistance and yielding significant fuel savings. Stern flaps are one of the Navy’s main fuel-saving initiatives for DDGs. Pre-installation engineering studies estimated such additions would save about 4,000 barrels of oil per ship per year. Remarkably, in an era when estimates seem so often to miss the mark, real world implementation showed that those savings were indeed realized when assessed over the entire Arleigh Burke-class. Stern flaps are applicable to many classes of Navy and logistics ships, leaving room for further exploration.

Energy Storage Modules

Energy storage modules (ESM) are another fuel savings program previously considered by the Navy. To prevent total loss of electric power should a generator unexpectedly fail, Navy ships generally run more than one electric generator, even if the electric load is low enough to be serviced by only one. An ESM consists of a system of batteries that could provide sufficient power for the ship for the time it would take to bring a backup generator online, thereby allowing ships to operate with only one generator. As with HEDs, ESMs pose some operational risks, in this case particularly those of redundancy associated with single-generator operations. If the single operating generator fails, the ship could be left with little or no power. So to date, the technology is not used in the fleet.

Warfighting Edge

The policy and environmental mandates to move toward greener technology, including at sea, are straightforward and do not require modifications to existing operational policies (unlike other interesting proposals, such as changing minimal fuel requirements). And as seen, the Navy has been an innovator in pushing green technologies in the past. There is every reason to believe that a recapitalization of sealift forces could be a similar or greater catalyst today. Further research and development on technologies like the HED, to explore feasibility on other classes of Navy ships, including logistics vessels, is just one example of experiments ripe for a second look. Yet there is a final, added value from this experimentation for the Navy—a greener force is a more lethal force.

Already, tools that promote greener maritime operations could integrate well with missions that rely on slow, steady steaming—for example, station-keeping in a launch box, ballistic missile defense, or even some freedom of navigation operations. Strategic sealift vessels could similarly benefit from greater fuel economy, enabling this more vulnerable fleet to loiter or divert to secondary or tertiary ports of debarkation in the event a primary port is destroyed or inaccessible during conflict.

But the greatest single advantage to the warfighter from these capabilities is in extending, if not severing, the logistics cord with the combat logistics force. Logistics vessels with extended fuel economies would be able to stay on station for longer periods of time, capable of sustaining the combat fleet with greater responsiveness in the face of changing weather or operating locations.

Combat ships, outfitted with similar green adaptations, could expand their operating windows between replenishments at sea (RAS), which are the ultimate operational tether for non-nuclear surface forces. In theaters with expansive distances from at sea forces and onshore resupply locations (i.e., the Pacific), or where weather can force ships to divert or modify RAS schedules (i.e., the North Atlantic), substantive extensions of fuel economy could foster strategic innovations in fleet operations. And any cost savings from reduced fuel use are ideal funds to divert into training and maintenance pools, a small but valuable contribution that could contribute to extricating the Navy from its readiness debt. None of which is to comment on how a reduction in strategic reliance on fossil fuels might change how the Navy understands the strategic implications of certain maritime chokepoints in the event of open hostilities.

A green merchant fleet is an important contribution to combatting climate change. A green logistics fleet is a critical step toward more durable support to the Navy. A green combat fleet is a strategic asset in austere or hostile operating environments. And the first step to each of these objectives is taking the long-needed strategic sealift reinvestment as an opportunity to transform maritime research and development.

Dr. Joshua Tallis is a maritime and polar analyst at the Center for Naval Analyses. He is the author of The War for Muddy Waters: Pirates, Terrorists, Traffickers, and Maritime Insecurity.

Dr. Ronald Filadelfo is the research program director for energy, environment, and installations at the Center for Naval Analyses. The opinions in this article do not necessarily reflect those of CNA or the U.S. Navy.

Featured Image: U.S. sailors aboard the guided missile destroyer USS Fitzgerald pull in a fuel line on the ship’s forecastle during a refueling with Military Sealift Command fleet replenishment oiler USNS John Ericsson during Valiant Shield 2014 in the Pacific Ocean, Sept. 20, 2014.  (U.S. Navy photo)

Strategic Sealift Topic Week

By Salvatore R. Mercogliano, Ph.D.

To say that the nation’s sealift resources are in distress is an understatement. One only needs to examine some of the most recent articles on this subject: “Sealift is America’s Achilles Heel in the Age of Great Power Competition”; “The US Army is preparing to fight in Europe, but can it even get there?”; “Report: U.S. Sealift Lacks Personnel, Hulls, National Strategy”; Can the US Save Its Sealift Fleet?”; and “The Next Administration Will Need to Fix Military Sealift.” If the United States finds itself engaged in peer-to-peer competition and conflict, as it has in the past during the First World War, the Second World War, and during the Cold War, it will find itself in a position that it has not been in for over a century; of a nation lacking a dedicated sealift force and a merchant marine only a fraction of a percent necessary to carry its own commerce.

Today, the Naval Fleet Auxiliary Force provides the sole underway replenishment for the U.S Navy. The Afloat Prepositioning Force, which once included three squadrons, has been reduced to two. The surge sealift fleet has been similarly cut down from 61 to 54 ships, but still below the readiness threshold to be able to transport 10 million square feet of cargo to the combatant commanders. Finally, the U.S. merchant marine is down to just 180 ships. All of this means that should the United States become engaged in another peer-to-peer conflict, they may lack the requisite sealift, merchant marine, and maritime industrial base to support the Department of Defense. Current plans include a sealift recapitalization scheme that provided funds for two used ships last year, and five more this year, but none have yet to be purchased.

The current situation is unsustainable. An examination of the past can provide some alternatives and solutions to the current dilemma the United States finds itself in.

Peer-to-Peer Conflict #1 – The First World War

On February 5, 1917, with nations engulfed in a world war, President Woodrow Wilson issued the following proclamation regarding the situation:

“[I] do hereby declare and proclaim that I have found that there exists a national emergency arising from the insufficiency of maritime tonnage to carry the products of the farms, forests, mines and manufacturing industries of the United States, to their consumer abroad and within the United States.”

The state of affairs identified by the President, which is similar to that of today, stemmed from the fact that prior to the summer of 1914, the vast majority of American imports and exports were carried by foreign merchant ships, while the U.S. merchant marine was largely focused on coastal trade due to cabotage laws. When the German fleet sought refuge in ports around the world, and European merchant ships were diverted to carry war matériel, American goods piled up on the docks, another situation akin to today. Eventually, demand for products led to massive spikes in prices, with a ton of cotton going from $0.35 to $6.10. Even though the United States possessed the third largest Navy and merchant marine in the world, they proved ill-prepared for war.

As the conflagration progressed into its third year, the United States realized it needed to make itself less reliant on foreign fleets. The Naval and Shipping Acts of 1916 aimed to create a Navy and merchant marine sufficient to challenge either Great Britain or Germany. This was the backdrop to when Germany decided to resume unrestricted submarine warfare on February 1, 1917. This new maritime offensive found American ships shifted from the coastal trade, such as SS Vigilancia, to the international trade and hence targets for German U-boats. In the span of two months, ten U.S. ships were lost and 64 crewmembers killed, leading Wilson to ask for a declaration of war against Germany. As the nation debated entry in the war, Rear Admiral William S. Sims arrived in England and learned that German U-boats were achieving their goal of sinking 600,000 tons of ships per month, and even sunk in excess of 800,000 tons in one particularly hard month. Additionally, the amount of food on hand to feed the population was measured in weeks, indicating a dire predicament for the Allies.

Sims’ assessment of the situation required several immediate objectives: suppress the U-boats, increase the flow of goods and imports to Europe, and transport as quickly as possible an American military presence until the American Expeditionary Force could be fully trained, equipped, and shipped in early 1918. To meet this objective, the sealift forces available to the War and Navy departments was limited. The Army Transport Service (ATS) was concentrated in the Pacific and providing transport of troops to American possessions in the Philippines, Hawaii, and the Panama Canal Zone. The Navy Auxiliary Force provided fuel support to the fleet by delivering coal to American overseas bases.

To meet the sealift goals for the United States, the head of the U.S. Shipping Board, Edward Hurley, initiated a series of five steps. The first act in Hurley’s plan involved the requisitioning of 431 merchant ships under construction in American yards, and where nearly half of them were under contract for the Allies to replace ships sunk by German U-Boats. This was possible due to a robust maritime infrastructure in the nation and its expansion as a result of the war. Next, the Shipping Board requisitioned all U.S. flagged ships over 2,500 deadweight tons, thereby nationalizing the U.S. merchant marine. To expand the fleet, the German and Austrian ships interned in American ports since the start of the war were seized for modification into troopships and cargo vessels. The fourth pillar of Hurley’s strategy was to work with allies and neutrals to charter available tonnage, seek German and Austrian vessels in their waters, and even use the Right of Angary to seize all neutral Dutch vessels in American ports in March 1918, due to the desperate need of tonnage.

The final and longest-lasting element was a massive 3,282 ship construction program that aimed to provide 15 million tons of shipping. One of the key tenets of this effort was to incorporate several new technologies into the vessels, including pre-fabrication to accelerate construction and the use of oil as the primary fuel. This power source, which was more energy efficient compared to other sources, allowed for it to be carried in double bottoms thereby increasing both range and cargo capacity. This permitted the ships to compete against British merchant vessels powered largely by coal, but dependent on overseas bases for replenishment.

The collapse of the Central Powers in the fall of 1918 curtailed the full program, but the U.S. merchant marine had grown from 2 million gross tons to 12 million by 1920, while the British had restored their fleet back to 20 million tons. Even with this expansion, the U.S. was dependent on Allied merchant fleets to transport over 55 percent of the AEF personnel.

With the end of the war, the United States assessed its maritime capabilities. Both the Army and Navy modernized their sealift forces with the ATS taking some of the German interned liners and newly built domestic troopships. The new Naval Transportation Service followed similar lines, but retained all its military crews, purging the merchant mariners who had joined prior to the war. While the Navy would eventually curtail its capital ship construction under the Washington Treaty of 1922, the expansion of the American merchant marine fell under the first national maritime strategy, the Merchant Marine Act of 1920.

This piece of legislation not only reaffirmed the protected coastal trade for American-owned, -built, -crewed, and -operated ships, but also aimed to ensure that U.S. ships were active on key international trade routes, and that any excess ships from the Shipping Board program were retained in a reserve status for potential commercial and military use in the future. The hope was that America’s Navy would provide a bulwark against potential aggression, with U.S. ships more of a presence on the high seas, both military and civilian. But the Great Depression would have a massive impact on global trade, curtailing not merely the movement of goods, but the construction and operation of ships, and leading to the next major conflict.

Peer-to-Peer Conflict #2 – The Second World War

As in the previous world war, the U.S. entered this conflict with most of its military centered in the continental United States, with some elements forward deployed. The U.S. Navy and America’s merchant marine were the second largest in the world, behind the British, but unlike the First World War, they were much better prepared for a peer-to-peer confrontation. The passage of the Merchant Marine Act of 1936 and the Navy Act of 1940 put in motion the construction of the fleet to transport the Arsenal of Democracy, and the Navy to ensure the control of sea lines of communication.

The Second World War was fought on multiple continental and oceanic fronts with a requirement to support not only American, but also Allied forces under Lend-Lease. With the U.S. Pacific Fleet forward deployed to Pearl Harbor, and the Atlantic Fleet escorting convoys to Europe and reinforcing the British Home Fleet, the nation was poised to support the Allies. When the United States entered the war in December 1941, the nation itself fell under immediate attack with a fleet of nine Japanese I-Boats and five German U-Boats arriving off the west and east coasts of the nation. As the planes of the Kido Butai were unleashing their attack on Pearl Harbor, I-26 sank the U.S. Army chartered freighter SS Cynthia Olsen enroute to Hawaii, with the loss of all onboard. While the Japanese submarine offensive would be limited, it caused hysteria along the West Coast, particularly after a surface attack against an oil refinery off Santa Barbara by I-17 on February 23, 1942.

On the East Coast, with Hitler’s declaration of war on America on December 11, 1941, Admiral Karl Dönitz dispatched all his available long-range Type IX subs to raid American waters. These five boats, part of a much larger vanguard that in the first half of 1942 sank 609 ships of 3.1 million tons, found the East Coast, the Caribbean Sea, and Gulf of Mexico devoid of American escort ships and unprepared. The reason for this has been laid directly at the feet of the new commander of the U.S. Navy, Admiral Ernest J. King, and in early 1942 he was confronted by a difficult situation.

King was responsible for all U.S. Navy forces and he faced a situation more challenging than the First World War. In this case, King had to deal with the need to protect trans-oceanic convoys not only across the Atlantic to England, but also across the Pacific to Hawaii and as far as Australia and New Zealand. He also had to oversee the immediate shipment of units to replace forces needed in other theaters. This forced King to prioritize the allocation of escorts, leaving ships on the east coast unprotected. This lack of suitable escorts is a situation that the United States finds itself in again.

There was also the issue of the divided command structure regarding American sealift and merchant marine forces. Pre-war agreements called for the Navy to assume control of the Army Transport Service, which meant replacing their merchant marine crews with naval personnel, but in May 1941, the Navy was unable to do this due to the lack of personnel. Later when war was declared, and the submarine offensive in full force against the United States, the issue over the role of command came to the forefront.

Vice Chief of Naval Operations, Vice Admiral Frederick Horne wanted to militarize the merchant marine as the Navy did in World War One. His concept was to create the War Overseas Transportation Service, but his plan was stopped by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Instead, FDR placed the management of the merchant marine under the U.S. Maritime Commission, with the creation of the War Shipping Administration (WSA) under Emory S. Land on February 7, 1942, which included all U.S. flagged merchant vessels on April 18, 1942.

In the First World War the United States Navy assumed a greater role in the oversight and management of the sealift operation. In the Second World War, Emory Land, through the U.S. Maritime Commission, had to build the ships; the War Shipping Administration had to operate the vessels through commercial firms; and the U.S. Maritime Service had to train the crews and oversee the sealift and merchant marine operations for the nation.

As Land supervised this, the Navy and military greatly benefitted from the early resumption of American commercial shipbuilding started under the Merchant Marine Act of 1936. With the nation in the Great Depression and many shipyards and shipyard workers unemployed, Land initiated a program to build 500 ships in ten years. With a series of standardized ship designs to choose from, the first 50 ships in the program proved essential to American victory with 37 taken over by the military as auxiliaries; this was later expanded to oversee the construction of emergency Liberty and Victory-class freighters and T-2 tankers.

Perhaps the best demonstration of why a viable maritime infrastructure and commercial merchant marine is so essential in a peer-to-peer conflict is to look at two specific examples. The first is the amphibious forces used to invade Guadalcanal in August 1942 as part of Operation Watchtower and Operation Torch off North Africa in November 1942. In both those operations, which spanned two different sides of the globe, the troop transports, cargo ships, and oilers used to land American forces and support the fleet all came from the commercial merchant marine. They were either built under the U.S. Shipping Board program of the First World War, during the interwar years, or a result of the U.S. Maritime Commission’s efforts. Additionally, many of the follow-on troops, cargo, and fuel were transported in commercial ships of the merchant marine.

The second example is the 12 T-3 tankers built as part of that initial 50-ship program which included specific National Defense Features that allowed for their conversion into naval auxiliaries. The ships included larger than normal engines and twin screws for higher speed. They were built to a higher standard to resist damage, and while many of them entered commercial service, several were immediately taken over by the Navy for conversion into fast oilers. Whereas the previous class of oilers were limited to 14 knots and 100,000 barrels of fuel, Cimarron T-3 tankers could sail at 18 knots and carry 150,000 barrels of fuel, allowing them to support the Navy’s fast carrier task forces early in the war. Throughout 1942, wherever USS Enterprise, Yorktown, Hornet, Wasp, Lexington or Saratoga steamed, so did Cimarron, Guadalupe, Neosho, Platte, Sabine, and Kaskaskia, backed by several dozen slower WSA tankers hauling fuel from the U.S. to forward bases or rendezvouses with the fast oilers. While eight were converted into oilers, four underwent conversion into escort carriers of the Sangamon-class. With only USS Ranger left in the Atlantic at the time of Operation Torch, the four Sangamon ships filled the temporary role of a fleet carrier.

The merchant marine was essential to Allied success in the Second World War, and one can read comments by the principal military commanders attesting to their essential role. Yet most histories record very little about this, including those of the U.S. Navy. In Beans, Bullets, and Black Oil: The Story of Fleet Logistics Afloat in the Pacific During World War II, the merchant marine is present early in the war, yet later, as the Navy success mounts, the merchant marine disappears from the narrative. While the mobile bases and service squadrons provide direct support to fleets off the Marianas, the Philippines, and Okinawa, War Shipping Administration tankers and freighters are sailing to forward bases with little fanfare, even though these ships suffered losses at the hands of Japanese forces off Mindoro and Okinawa. Even Samuel Eliot Morison paints a very dim view of the merchant marine and this has tarnished their image in most post-war histories. The one branch that elevates the sealift and merchant mariner is in the official Army history, the Green Books, that puts shipping as the great limiting factor of the war.

With victory in 1945, the U.S. merchant marine emerged from the war having lost 733 ships and over 9,500 personnel. The merchant marine and the Navy had grown from the second largest on the ocean to the most dominant naval and commercial force the world had ever seen. It is estimated that American merchant ships transported 63 percent of the world’s trade in that last year of the conflict. While the Navy remained prominent, with no enemy competition, the merchant marine began to decompensate.

To rebuild the world, the Ships Sale Act of 1946 aimed to restore depleted merchant fleets with surplus American-built Liberty freighters and T-2 tankers. The Marshall Plan of 1948 provided loans to rebuild destroyed and damaged shipyards and incorporate the prefabrication method used by Henry J. Kaiser in America on a massive scale. Additionally, the use of the Panama registry prior to U.S. entry in the war to circumvent American neutrality laws proved enticing to ship operators as it did not have the follow American rules, crewing practices, or pay U.S. wages.

The door was open for the U.S. Navy to be the dominant force on the world’s ocean. But meanwhile the American merchant marine was facing mounting challenges.

Read Part Two here.

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 2^nd 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: Aerial starboard side view of the Military Sealift Command (MSC) strategic heavy lift ship USNS WATSON (T-AKR 310) underway on sea trials off the coast of San Diego. (Photo via U.S. National Archives)

Strategic Sealift Topic Week

By Dr. Daniel Goure

The Department of Defense (DoD) has focused heavily on modernization and its associated concept, innovation. Emblematic of the enthusiasm for change is the strategic approach memorandum published last year by Air Force Chief of Staff General C.Q. Brown, titled “Accelerate Change or Lose.”¹ Each of the services has ambitious acquisition programs in place intended to radically change their force structures by adding new, advanced capabilities. These vary from long-range precision fires and hypersonic missiles to sixth generation fighters, a new generation of attack submarines, and a new large surface combatant. While many of these programs and plans predate the November election, the evidence to date suggests that the Biden Administration plans to continue supporting the Pentagon’s drive for modernization and new operating concepts.

The drive to acquire new platforms and weapons systems is understandable. For the first time in 75 years, the United States faces the prospect of having to contend with not just one but two great power competitors, both of whom are investing heavily in advanced capabilities. However, the intense focus on acquiring new and better combat capabilities with which to establish overmatch vis-à-vis emerging high-end competitors may have hampered Pentagon leadership from recognizing the fact that without sufficient strategic sealift, many modernization efforts may be for naught.

It is difficult to overstate the dependence of the U.S. military on strategic sealift to both reach the fight and sustain itself during a crisis or conflict. Personnel and some critical equipment and supplies can be moved by aircraft. But for any major deployment overseas, much less a high-end conflict, the U.S. military is and will remain dependent on sealift. As Rear Admiral Mark Buzby (ret.), former head of the Maritime Administration (MARAD), observed: “This is how we move our forces from [the continental United States] to anywhere else in the world. We can stuff some of it in the back of a C-17 [aircraft] but not a whole lot…If you’re going to take real combat power someplace, it’s got to be in a ship.”²

While the overall size of the U.S. military has shrunk substantially since the end of the Cold War, as has the number of forward deployed formations in Europe and the Indo-Pacific, this does not mean that the demand for strategic sealift has declined proportionately. Rather, the opposite may be the truth. Because it is primarily based in the continental United States, the U.S. military will need to move large amounts of equipment and supplies across thousands of miles of ocean in the event of a crisis or conflict in Europe or the Indo-Pacific. Once deployed, these forces will need to be resupplied and sustained.

In addition, the U.S. military is looking to operate these forces in new ways, generally characterized as distributed operations, with small formations spread out over large swaths of space, moving continuously to enhance survivability and strain adversary targeting. For example, the Marine Corps’ new operating concept envisions smaller formations capable of fighting at a moment’s notice and surviving inside the threat ranges of adversaries’ long-range precision strike weapons through a combination of reduced signatures, mobility, and relative freedom from a visible logistics tail.³ For several years, the U.S. Air Force has been experimenting with its Agile Combat Employment concept, in which units avoid large, developed facilities and move among dispersed, austere bases with limited logistics and maintenance support to complicate an adversary’s ability to detect and target them.⁴

These distributed forces will not be able to carry large amounts of supplies, reloads for their missile systems, or fuel. They also want to free themselves from dependence on large, fixed installations, whether for operations or logistics support. But this means that U.S. forces will be even more reliant than they currently are on just-in-time resupply. While some of this responsibility can be met by airlift assets, there will be an increased requirement for strategic sealift if DoD is to sustain a force posture consisting of more widely distributed and frequently maneuvering forces, particularly in the vast Indo-Pacific theater.

This is a particularly worrisome situation because of the precarious state of the U.S. strategic sealift fleet. In peacetime, the movement of some supplies can be done by contracting with commercial shipping, but in the event of conflict, the willingness of commercial shippers—virtually all foreign-flagged—to enter a conflict zone is doubtful.

The ability of the U.S. military to reach a large-scale fight and sustain itself once deployed is dependent on a little over 100 ships: 46 in the Ready Reserve Force (RRF) operated by the Maritime Administration (MARAD), 15 ships for surge operated by the Military Sealift Command (MSC) and some 60 U.S.-flagged commercial ships that are part of the Maritime Security Program (MSP), which provides a retainer incentive to the ships’ owners to ensure that these vessels are available to DoD if needed.⁵

But over the past several decades, the number of hulls in the government-owned portion of the strategic sealift fleet (the RRF and MSC) has declined and those that remain are aging badly. In testimony, the then-MARAD Administrator Buzby warned the House Armed Services Committee that the RRF and MSC surge sealift fleets, about half of the total strategic sealift capability available to the military, are aging severely and in need of recapitalization.⁶ To underscore the problem, MARAD and MSC conducted a “turbo activation” exercise designed to test their ability to surge for a major contingency in September 2019.⁷ Of the 39 vessels that were called on to support the exercise, only 25 were ready for tasking and just 16 were able to operate at the expected level of performance.

This test simulated what is possibly the most serious vulnerability the U.S. military faces in preparing for a high-end conflict. The lack of adequate strategic sealift could outright negate the billions of dollars the U.S. military is investing in next-generation platforms and weapons systems. The military will not be able to get these “wonder weapons” to the fight or support them if they are deployed. According to the U.S. Army’s G-4 logistics directorate: “Without proactive recapitalization of the Organic Surge Sealift Fleet, the Army will face unacceptable risk in force projection capability beginning in 2024.”⁸

It should seem obvious that the recapitalization of the strategic sealift force should be at the top of the Pentagon’s list of modernization objectives. If DoD truly desired to fully secure its strategic sealift capability, it would actively work to do so by recapitalizing the U.S. sealift fleet with ships designed and built in the United States.

But this is not possible. There is neither the shipbuilding capacity nor the supply chain to support such an effort. Moreover, in an era of constrained defense budgets, the cost would be prohibitive. Buying new ships in foreign ports would send scarce defense dollars overseas while not doing anything to support and sustain domestic U.S. shipbuilding, repair, and maintenance capabilities.

It appears that the only viable approach to revitalizing the strategic sealift fleet is to acquire used commercial vessels that would then be refurbished and modernized in U.S. commercial shipyards. These new ships would be placed in the RRF, replacing its aging and increasingly obsolescent assets. An efficient way of revitalizing this portion of the strategic sealift force would be to convert these used commercial ships into multi-mission supply vessels rather than for single-purpose use.⁹

The current plan to recapitalize the RRF is a step in the right direction. It will slow the erosion of the U.S. strategic sealift force. But this should be just the start of the effort to restore the nation’s capability to project power globally. Sea power advocates have proposed a $25 billion fund to accelerate the Navy’s shipyard revitalization plan.¹⁰ This is a great example of smart infrastructure spending that would benefit national security and the economy.

In keeping with that plan, consideration should be given to expanding the strategic sealift force. One simple step would be to increase the retainer provided as part of the MSP program, incentivizing private companies to make their ships available to the military when needed. Another step would be to expand the size of both the RRF and MSC surge fleets. A new Mobility Capabilities and Requirements Study currently underway is likely to support the conclusion that the U.S. military needs a larger strategic sealift fleet, which similar studies have recommended in the past. It would also make sense to create a special fund for strategic sealift recapitalization, a parallel of the proposed fund for modernizing U.S. shipyards.

Recapitalizing the government-owned portion of the strategic sealift force should be one of DoD’s topmost priorities. Without adequate, accessible, and responsive sealift, the U.S. will find itself at a profound disadvantage in its efforts to deter or otherwise counter the growing might of great power competitors.

[1] https://www.airforcemag.com/app/uploads/2020/08/CSAF-22-Strategic-Approach-Accelerate-Change-or-Lose-31-Aug-2020.pdf

[2] https://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2020/1/16/sna-news-nations-strategic-sealift-ships-reach-critical-status

[3] https://warontherocks.com/2019/10/a-striking-new-vision-for-the-marines-and-a-wakeup-call-for-the-other-services/

[4] https://www.defensenews.com/opinion/commentary/2020/11/12/air-bases-are-at-risk-without-the-agile-combat-employment-approach/

[5] https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2018/10/08/the-army-is-preparing-to-fight-in-europe-but-can-it-even-get-there/

[6] https://www.transportation.gov/testimony/sealift-and-mobility-requirements-support-national-defense-strategy

[7] https://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2020/1/16/sna-news-nations-strategic-sealift-ships-reach-critical-status

[8] https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2018/11/12/us-army-warns-of-crippling-sealift-shortfalls-during-wartime/

[9]https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2021/05/04/great_power_competition_demands_revitalization_of_americas_military_sealift_775610.html

[10] https://www.defensenews.com/congress/2021/04/28/seapower-backers-propose-25b-to-fix-us-shipyards/

Featured Image: Atlantic Ocean (March 3, 2006) – The Military Sealift Command fast combat support ship USNS Supply (T-AOE 6) conducts a connected replenishment (CONREP) and vertical replenishment (VERTREP) with the guided-missile frigate USS Taylor (FFG 50) and nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Enterprise (CVN 65). (U.S. Navy photo by Photographer’s Mate 3rd Class Rob Gaston)

Strategic Sealift Topic Week

By Nicholas Ayrton and Brandon Walls

Introduction

Ensuring the strong naval presence and military deterrent of the United States also means guaranteeing that American troops will get the supplies they depend on, no matter where confrontation may arise. As a key provider of surge forces to crisis locations around the world, United States Transportation Command (USTRANSCOM) must confront any and all potential challengers it might face in the 21st century, specifically the rising maritime power of the People’s Republic of China. Challenges USTRANSCOM could face in this regard are threefold—the aging and inadequate nature of the American sealift force, the vulnerability of said forces to strategic chokepoints in the event of conflict, and the versatility and strength of the Chinese People’s Armed Forces Maritime Militia (PAFMM).

Aging Forces and Recapitalizing Sealift

The growing age of the ships available to the United States for sealift operations is perhaps one of its most obvious and most dangerous problems. With an average age in excess of 40 years, many of these ships are either outdated or would need to be retrofitted to maintain the standards of a modern force. To add to this, the size of the fleet itself has dwindled greatly, such that it is nearly a tenth of what it was during the early years of the Cold War, an era where similar pressures for a rapid movement of men and materiel were an object of much concern. While some of that decline could be explained by the scaling down of the fleet after the Second World War, the fact remains that the current fleet is woefully inadequate to fulfill the needs of the United States Armed Forces during a time of major conflict, to paraphrase General Stephen Lyons, the current commander of USTRANSCOM.

While the United States could simply seize ships for use during wartime, as it has done in the past, it still needs capable crews for such vessels, rendering this a half-solution to a critical vulnerability in the event of a conflict. A more expensive proposition, though perhaps economically beneficial in the long-run, would be to begin the arduous process of revitalizing the domestic American shipbuilding sector, jumpstarted by the recapitalization of the sealift fleet. Some estimates of the timetable for such a feat reach into decades of time required. Such an effort would feature challenges, such as maintaining continuity across administrations and procuring sustained funding from Congress.

One option to accelerate this, specifically for the sealift force of the U.S. military, would be the expensive option that has allowed the Chinese shipbuilding sector to grow so rapidly in so little time—heavy subsidies. Though the practice has noted adverse effects on the global marketplace, it should be considered as a serious option for the United States, if it wishes to maintain and grow its sealift capacity in the shortest possible timeframe.

A concurrent shortfall in combatant warships lends itself to an escort shortfall for the logistics force. More combatants would need to be diverted from forward combat zones and other hotspots to provide escorts and bolster logistical survivability, but at the expense of the availability of those combatants. Or the Navy would need a greater volume of sealift ships to make losses of its precious few logistical vessels more tolerable.

Chokepoint Vulnerabilities

Global chokepoints also place limits on U.S. sealift and could provide easy avenues of attack during a time of conflict. Two chokepoints are of particular concern, with the first being the Strait of Malacca. Being one of the busiest sea lanes through which a significant portion of the world’s trade pass, the Strait of Malacca presents a unique geographic chokepoint. Forces belonging to COMSPRON 2 in the Indian Ocean and transiting materiel into the Pacific theater during conflict may be confronted by a lack of escort through what would be a contested region. What makes this even more daunting task is that while the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) may lack in a large carrier force, it has established sizable contingents of strike aircraft and missile batteries on islands in the South China Sea, which could allow for it to threaten military sealift vessels across a broad variety of Southeast Asian maritime chokepoints.

Seeing as the combined 42 sealift vessels in the Gulf of Mexico and on the East Coast would need to make use of the Panama Canal to quickly transport their cargo into the Pacific, this chokepoint presents a particularly vital area the U.S. needs to retain influence in. With Panama having recently withdrawn its recognition of Taiwan in favor of the PRC without previously notifying Washington, it is clear that American influence is facing challenges over a piece of infrastructure indispensable to American strategic goals and access. In the event of conflict, the possibility of either indirect military or political obstruction of the canal would greatly hinder the transfer of forces and supplies from the Eastern U.S. to a potential conflict zone in East Asia, with ships instead being forced to transit around the southern tip of South America, adding long delays to any deployment effort.

The United States must act to confront the waning influence in its own backyard and ensure that a nation with critical infrastructure remains a friend in the western hemisphere, lest the canal zone become yet another area of conflict in the event of a crisis in the Pacific.

Sealift and China’s Maritime Militia

The issue of the Chinese Maritime Militia must be confronted. This force operates largely as a paramilitary group, able to exert pressure in a given region, often through moving in incredibly large numbers to crowd out other maritime actors while bolstering Chinese maritime claims. They can disrupt civilian activities in other regions, such as by the Galapagos Islands off the Ecuadorian coast. In a conflict, these militia ships may harass, intimidate, or report the positions of transiting seaborne logistics vessels. Indeed, given the already paramilitary nature of these vessels and their crews, they may be equipped with small arms and could provide a ubiquitous and cost-effective shipping harassment force seemingly disguised as civilian vessels lurking among commercial maritime traffic.

With recent Chinese advancements in developing swarms of small suicide drones, compact containers could be filled with such an armament that, while not critically dangerous to a ship, could be useful in intimidation or general disruption of shipping operations. With this, a threat would be posed to sealift vessels attempting to supply American armed forces in the region. Vulnerable sealift vessels carrying vital military equipment could be disrupted by a swarm of hostile forces able to slip back into the stream of normal civilian traffic the moment a threat appeared.

Reviving the armed merchant vessel could provide a solution. During both world wars, merchant vessels armed with basic weaponry were far from unheard of. In those days, the U.S. faced the same problem it does today, with more transport ships needing to get to their destinations than there were available navy ships to escort them. By developing modular, containerized weapon systems and attaching small crews to handle their operation, the problem of a thinly-stretched naval escort force could be somewhat alleviated against the Chinese Maritime Militia, with logistics ships able to defend themselves against similarly lightly-armed vessels. 

Conclusion

If the U.S. wishes to remain a global power with the ability to project influence anywhere on the globe, a strong and well-equipped navy, with a robust sealift force behind it, is a necessity. While the sealift force faces numerous issues in the event of a hypothetical conflict, solutions can be found with forward-looking thinking.

Nicholas Ayrton is a U.S. Navy Veteran and Current Undergraduate Student at American Military University

Brandon Walls is an undergraduate at the University of California, Davis.

Featured Image: A port side aft view of the Military Sealift Command (MSC) vehicle transport ship USNS SHUGHART (T-AKR-295) underway on sea trials off San Diego steaming at about 20 knots. (Photo via U.S. National Archives)