By Salvatore R. Mercogliano, Ph.D.

Peer-to-Peer Conflict #3 – The Cold War

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.

Throughout the first half of the Cold War, MSTS provided the necessary logistical support for the Department of Defense. The Vietnam War witnessed not only a name change for the organization, from MSTS to Military Sealift Command (MSC), but a new operating concept. Between 1965 and 1975, both the fleet of MSTS/MSC and the American merchant marine decreased by half in terms of ships and personnel.

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).

An examination of the current MSP contracts indicates an issue regarding a war in the Far East. In term of containerships, Maersk Lines Limited, Hapag-Lloyd, and APL provide specific services. Hapag is focused on the North Atlantic and Maersk performs similar services, plus to the Middle East. The only container line focused on the Far East is that of APL with six ships on the trans-Pacific route (although MV President Eisenhower is currently out of service due to a recent engine room fire) and three for local service between Japan, Korea, and Guam. US Ocean provides heavy-lift capacity world-wide. In terms of roll-on/roll-off ships, American Ro/Ro Carriers, Waterman Steamship, and Liberty Marine provide global service, with many of the ships recently involved in the Defender exercises in Europe.

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 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: 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)

Strategic Sealift Week

Solutions to Revitalizing America’s Strategic Sealift

June 28, 2021 Guest Author 2 Comments

Strategic Sealift Topic Week

By Todd M. Hiller, P.E.

“. . . 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 19^th 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

Scenario 1: 18 MSP RO/RO Vessels w/ 50 New Build & 9 Used Foreign (12-year period)

(Click to expand)

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)

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)

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)

Podcast

Sea Control 261 – Service Support Squadron 10 with Ryan Hilger

June 27, 2021 Guest Author Leave a comment

By Jon Frerichs

Lieutenant Commander Ryan Hilger joins the program to discuss his recent CIMSEC article that explores current gaps and opportunities in maritime mobile basing and expeditionary logistics through a historical deep dive into the evolution of Service Support Squadron Ten and its contribution to the fight in the Pacific.

Download Sea Control 261 – Service Support Squadron 10 with Ryan Hilger

Links

1. “Service Squadron Ten and the Great Western Base,” by LCDR Ryan Hilger, CIMSEC, April 15, 2021.

Jon Frerichs is Co-Host of the Sea Control podcast. Contact the podcast team at [email protected].

This episode was edited and produced by William McQuiston.

Strategic Sealift Week

For a Greener, More Lethal Force, Look to Strategic Sealift Recapitalization

June 25, 2021 Guest Author 1 Comment

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)

Center for International Maritime Security

American Strategic Sealift in Peer-to-Peer Conflicts: A Historical Retrospective, Pt. 2