‘Responsive and Relevant’
(See M. C. Manazir, pp. 16–21, February 2014 Proceedings)
Scott C. Truver—Admiral Manazir makes a strong operational-technical case for continued investment in the nation’s nuclear-powered aircraft carriers (CVNs). However, his discussion of “best value”—“worth, importance, or usefulness”—reminded me of the economics classes I struggled through, but from which I learned that true value is what a person is willing to pay for something. In that regard, U.S. aircraft carriers are indeed valuable, as measured today by the nation’s willingness to allocate increasingly scarce resources for the first and follow-on carriers of the Gerald R. Ford class.
This is not solely a U.S.-centric phenomenon. Aircraft carriers are held in value throughout the world, with China, France, India, and several other countries investing in them.
And so it has been for the U.S. Navy during the past 60 years. According to Norman Polmar’s Ships and Aircraft of the U.S. Fleet (Naval Institute Press, 19th edition, 2013), beginning with the first post–World War II “super carrier,” the USS Forrestal (CVA-59), the nation found a way—fueled by the Cold War and the occasional hot war, too—to buy increasingly capable and expensive ships, sometimes in rapid succession. The four Forrestal-class carriers were funded in Fiscal Years 1952–55, followed by the four-ship Kitty Hawk/John F. Kennedy carriers in FY 1956–63, with the first nuclear-powered carrier, the USS Enterprise (CVAN-65), shoehorned into the 1958 building program. In 1967 the Navy ordered the first of the ten Nimitz (CVN-68) nuclear-powered carriers, and from then on the funding interval grew to about four and a half years (taking into account the six years between CVN-76 and -77). But that time line masked the remarkable events of two carriers funded in 1983 and another two in 1988. Now that’s value!
And, as it turns out, an aircraft carrier really is one of the cheapest deals around. As Dr. Loren Thompson explained in a February 2014 Forbes commentary, “The U.S. Navy operates more aircraft carriers than the rest of the world combined, and its carriers are by far the best. But the cost of designing, developing and building such vessels is a minuscule portion of the federal budget. Navy shipbuilding costs will total $15–20 billion annually through the end of the decade, representing 3–4 percent of defense spending and less than 1 percent of all federal spending.” Put another way, the $12 billion for the Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78) represents about 31 hours of federal spending, according to Thompson’s analysis.
So when all is said and done, America’s carriers will continue to be responsive, relevant—and did I say mention valuable?
Deterring the Dragon . . . From (Under) the Sea
(See V. L. Vescovo, pp. 52–58, February 2014 Proceedings)
Gene Porter, former Chair, Naval Mine Warfare: Operational and Technical Challenges for Naval Forces—It is encouraging to see the discussion of potential problems with China being addressed at a more strategic level than has recently been the case wherein the focus was on Air-Sea Battle operational concepts and tactics. Colonel T. X. Hammes’ thoughtful articulation of an offshore-control concept (“Offshore Control is the Answer,” December 2012, pp. 22–26) and now Commander Vescovo’s elaboration on the deterrent effect of an offensive mining program are important contributions to this dialogue. Apparently lost to both authors was the strikingly persistent effectiveness of the Navy’s aerial mining of Haiphong and other North Vietnamese harbors in 1972.
There are two aspects of Commander Vescovo’s article that warrant foot stomping. First is the need for the Navy to build an inventory of smart mines for prospective use in the envisioned blockades. Until senior officials in the Pentagon and National Security Council take to heart the potential deterrent effect of a demonstrable blockade capability that minimizes direct threats to the mainland, Navy programmers and acquisition officials will continue to focus on other more traditional warfare areas. The second foot stomp is the need to emphasize that offensive mining is a uniquely suitable primary mission for the Navy’s modern fleet of nuclear-powered attack submarines. In no other important mission area is there clear justification for the ongoing heavy annual investment in new nuclear submarines, particularly in the face of declining budgets.
Those interested in pursuing this issue in more detail should look at the details in Chapter 3 of the National Academy’s 2001 Report on Naval Mine Warfare, a product of the Naval Studies Board that I was privileged to chair. Our conclusions and recommendation a dozen years ago are even more relevant today:
Modern sea mines could provide the United States with critically important capabilities that will not be available under current plans.
The Navy budget for mines is negligible. The [recommended] funded program should include explicit plans for retaining a U.S. naval capability, and an associated industrial base, for mine and valid minefield system design, and for acquiring mines deliverable by naval and Air Force aircraft as well as by Virginia-class nuclear-powered attack submarines and current attack submarines.
The United States should consider a range of potential uses of naval mines in a less-than-full-scale-war scenario, such as the imposition of economic sanctions, or, more generally, calibrated coercive threats to shipping of many types.
In Defense of Taking Risks
(See J. A. Craig, pp. 60–64, February 2014 Proceedings)
Commander Robert H. Downie, U.S. Navy Reserve (Retired)—There was a time when U.S. Navy officers were allowed to make mistakes and learn from them. John Paul Jones stressed the need for seniors to recognize “well-meant shortcoming” and to make appropriate allowances. When a young Chester W. Nimitz ran his ship aground in 1907, he was allowed to continue his career.
But in the years leading up to U.S. entry into World War II, risk avoidance was the rule. As a result, in the first year of the war, 30 percent of U.S. submarine skippers had to be relieved of command. They were ineffective because of their overly cautious upbringing. These were good officers who had simply had the aggressiveness and innovation bred out of them by a risk-averse, mistake-fearing culture.
In my own active-duty days, the “zero-defects” attitude was alive and well. I never saw a case where a junior officer who had made an error of any significance was given “another chance” as advocated by Commander Craig.
Lessons from the Somali Pirate Experience
(See J. Farrant, pp. 76–78, February 2014; and C. Berube, p. 10, March 2014 Proceedings)
Remo Salta—Lieutenant Commander Farrant states that “Despite the decline in Somali piracy, statistics gathered by the International Chamber of Commerce show that the scourge is spreading, with recent incidents reported off the west coast of Africa, Indonesia, and South America.” If this is true, one must ask, “Why?”
It is good that piracy off the coast of Somalia is going down, but if it is spreading rapidly throughout the world, this should be an indication that pirates feel that they can engage in and profit from piracy with little fear of either being caught or going to prison. And with shipping companies willing to pay high ransoms for a ship and crew rather than seek a military solution to the problem, one can understand why piracy is on the rise.
So why not adopt the solution the Royal Navy used to eradicate piracy in the late 18th and early 19th centuries? It was a simple policy that brought successful results. That policy was to actually kill pirates.
For the Royal Navy, the punishment for piracy was death by public hanging. But before everyone starts screaming that this is a barbaric and uncivilized solution to what many people consider a law-enforcement problem, remember that the United States currently has a very active policy of firing Hellfire missiles from drones at suspected terrorists. These people have not been charged with anything, and we ignore the collateral damage caused by the missile strikes. Yet a group of heavily armed men attacking a defenseless cargo ship or fishing boat should be treated like common bank robbers and not as terrorists?
Piracy is a form of terrorism. Its victims are defenseless mariners who are subjected to terrifying captivity, brutal torture, and even death. Whether terrorizing people for political purposes or for profit, the criminal is achieving his goals through the use of terror. And there is no question of the pirates’ guilt. A group of heavily armed men trying to illegally board a merchant ship in international waters are not innocent bystanders.
In 1801, President Thomas Jefferson sent the U.S. Navy to stop the Barbary pirates from attacking American merchant ships and holding their cargoes and crews for ransom. President Jefferson was not interested in arresting the pirates. He was interested in killing them and defeating them militarily. It was a difficult struggle, but eventually the Barbary pirates were defeated. The Royal Navy had the same policy toward pirates and achieved similar results.
Cargo ships steaming in the more dangerous waters of the world should have armed guards on them and use deadly force to repel pirates. Any pirate vessels seen by warships should be automatically sunk with no quarter given. And pirates who are captured in the act of attempting to board a cargo ship should be brought back to land and executed. These protocols certainly are no harsher than blowing up terrorists in drone strikes.
Piracy goes back hundreds of years. So does the solution to piracy.
We Must Have Nuclear Deterrence
(See B. Bruner and M. Cockey, p. 10, February 2014 Proceedings)
Captain David Scott, U.S. Navy Reserve (Retired)—Admiral Bruner and Captain Cockey make valid points regarding the follow-on to the Ohio-class ballistic-missile submarines, the so-called SSBN(X) project. The enormous cost of these boats, missiles, and crews, however, could be better justified if we moved beyond the paradigms of the 20th century and scrapped the land-based component of the nuclear triad. As the most vulnerable part of the triad, our Minuteman missiles are thus the most destabilizing because of their constant “launch-on-warning” posture. The accuracy of the Trident D-5 system plus the cost constraints of the new century mean our defense establishment must move beyond Cold War thinking and spending.
As for China, it will take note of such a program, but not in a way advantageous to the United States. China long ago decided on a minimal nuclear deterrent. Its defense spending is focused on conventional forces, particularly the navy. The inevitable cuts to other ship construction associated with a new SSBN program may well embolden the Chinese to take even more aggressive actions in the South and East China seas. A robust expansion of our most modern surface forces, attack submarines and mine-warfare capabilities will be more effective in curbing Chinese ambitions than a dozen new ballistic-missile boats.
Nuclear deterrence remains a fact of life. It should not, however, take on a life of its own. It must be thoughtfully integrated into the totality of our defense requirements and budgetary realities.
Time for a U.S. Cyber Force
(See J. Stavridis and D. Weinstein, pp. 40–44, January 2014; and A. Perumal, pp. 8–9, March 2014 Proceedings)
Vice Admiral Robert F. Dunn, U.S. Navy (Retired)— Admiral Stravridis and Mr. Weinstein write about the need for a single U.S. Cyber Command to serve the nation and all the services. I leave it to others with more knowledge about such things to debate that issue, but I do object to the example used in the beginning of the piece—the example set by Billy Mitchell regarding a single air service.
Not only was Mitchell a single-minded firebrand prone to stack the deck on any issue in which he got interested, but if he had won his way there never would have been any naval aviation and, concomitantly, no carrier-based air to support the rest of the Fleet and the Marines as the naval services (and Army General Douglas MacArthur) fought their way to Japan in World War II. Mitchell’s philosophies—really the philosophies of Italian Air Marshal Giulio Douhet—led directly to the massive World War II bomber raids over Europe, raids that never lived up to their hype. Instead, it was the Mitchell-maligned close-air support P-47 fighter-bombers that did the best job for the troops fighting their way to Paris and Berlin. Nor was it the “Politics of the day that prevailed,” to quote the article’s fourth paragraph. It was the needs of the two services later confirmed by a 1925 Presidential commission, the Morrow Board. Time and again history has proven the wisdom of the members of that commission and their observations, the theatrics of Billy Mitchell notwithstanding.
Revisit the Next Security Frontier
(See T. B. Hayward, E. S. Briggs, and D. K. Forbes, p. 10, January 2014; and E. M. Mitchell, J. Sandison, D. Connell, B. A. Williams, S. Y. Cho, pp. 86–87, March 2014 Proceedings)
Captain David Burns, Royal Navy—I found the article by Admiral Hayward, Vice Admiral Briggs, and Captain Forbes troubling. The veracity of scientific evidence for anthropogenic climate change is hardly a subject I would expect to find in the pages of Proceedings.
The principal assertion of the article, that energy independence should be an objective of national-security policy, would be a fine subject for discussion with clear implications for national maritime strategy. This might be extended to a discussion of the degree to which energy security and climate change have become facets of a tendency to “securitization” in international relations, which arguably reinforces military consideration of particular national challenges where this may not be appropriate. Instead, the authors chose to present a risibly narrow and biased section of opinion that could not hope to do justice to genuine scientific debate. It cast little or no light on national security or the business of arms at sea. Increasing population, competition for resources, and their impact on the environment are central features of the future geopolitical climate and worthy of debate, regardless of any physical alteration of the troposphere. If I want to know about the actual science of climate change I will subscribe to a peer-reviewed scientific journal.
Strategy and Submarine
(See W. J. Holland Jr., pp. 48–53, December 2013; and N. Polmar, pp. 9, 82, February 2014 Proceedings)
STSCS(SS) Scott Ragsdale, U.S. Navy (Retired)—With all due respect to Mr. Polmar, his remarks on Rear Admiral Holland’s article contain some errors as well. Regarding the Seawolf (SSN-21) design, Mr. Polmar only takes into account the cost of the three boats and not the cost of buying the entire flight. The Seawolf was designed to augment the 688 class and counter the next generation of Soviet submarines. The political canceling of the class was unfortunate. There is nothing else in the world that approaches the Seawolf’s overall capabilities. This is speaking from experience, having crewed or ridden numerous SS/SSN/SSGN classes. Nothing matches all of the Seawolf-class capabilities—and I do mean nothing.
The comments on the Soviet Alfa nuclear-powered attack submarine and Papa nuclear-powered guided-missile submarine are also guesstimates, as Mr. Polmar does not actually know the speed of a Seawolf. I know émigré reports on the speed of the Alfa make some interesting claims, and I also know what the observed speed is, but I suspect that the Russians, true to form, will never divulge the real speed of the Alfa. However, her reputation for noise was renowned among NATO sonar operators afloat and ashore. Per Mr. Polmar’s Guide to the Soviet Navy, the Papa suffered from balancing issues with her shafts and could only reach 80 percent of her reactor limit, which yielded a maximum speed, according to the Soviets, of around 39 knots during trials. However, the Papa and the USS Albacore (AGSS-569) were one-off engineering builds and offer lackluster comparisons to the Seawolf.
Finally, Mr. Polmar makes an incorrect statement regarding the record for the longest construction time, as he should consider the time lines of the Severodvinsk or Yury Dolgorukiy nuclear-powered submarines. The Seawolf: keel laid 25 October 1989, launched 24 June 1995, commissioned 19 July 1997 (7 years, 8 months, 25 days). The Severodvinsk: keel laid 21 December 1993, launched 15 June 2010, commissioned 30 December 2013 (20 years, 10 days). The Yury Dolgorukiy: keel laid 2 November 1996, launched 13 February 2008, commissioned 10 January 2013 (16 years, 2 months, 9 days).
Robots Roam the Deep
(See D. Walsh, p. 88, January 2014 Proceedings)
Thomas E. Crew, Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Command—Proceedings has run a number of articles in recent issues about unmanned vehicles. Yet as we continue to replace manned capabilities with unmanned technologies, we lose the intangibles of having a human on scene with the control stick in his hand. That uncanny sixth sense that good pilots have that is so valuable when things go wrong or when the weather unexpectedly worsens is no longer available. This is even more the case for autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) that operate without the radio-frequency-control and video feeds that many of their unmanned aerial cousins rely on. What this does is make the understanding of the physical environment more important than ever. An extra knot or two of ocean current can easily spell the difference between mission success and failure in AUV operations. Dr. Walsh in his column makes the logical connection between AUVs and increased efficiencies in ocean exploration
While the Navy research-and-development community continues to champion the development of AUVs, they are also being quietly employed by the Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Command in the execution of combatant-commander requirements in multiple theaters. As Dr. Walsh envisions, Navy AUVs hold great promise for mine neutralization and seafloor mapping surveys. While we continue to expand our reliance on AUVs we would be well served to remember that the capabilities to plan for and mitigate their vulnerability to the physical environment already exist within the Navy’s oceanographic community.
The book review on page 77 of the March 2014 issue incorrectly referred to Theodore Roosevelt as Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s uncle. Theodore Roosevelt was FDR’s fifth cousin.