President George W. Bush wants to put in place the most significant increase in defense spending since the first Reagan administration: $379 billion for fiscal year (FY) 2003, a $48 billion increase. Considerable sums will go to prosecute the war against global terrorism, meet routine and emergency commitments, and bolster homeland-security needs. And there looks to be a funding component for future readiness and research and development (R&D) to usher in military transformation, a key plank in the President's campaign. But if the past proves to be prologue, much of the proposed budget will be chimerical.
The President's budget for FY 2003 increases funding for all the services. However, the Navy's budget increases are less than those of the others, especially in procurement. This bodes ill for tomorrow's fleet and brings into doubt the administration's understanding of the enduring value of naval forces in the 21st century—a quality that has been underscored dramatically by operations in Afghanistan.
With one exception—Air Force bombers operating initially from the United States and eventually from Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean—naval forces were the only U.S. military elements able to bring effective conventional force to bear within hours of the terrorist attacks and without concern for host-nation obstacles. Four months into Operation Enduring Freedom, the Navy and Marine Corps had accounted for more than half of the aircraft launched and cruise missiles used. They flew about 70% of the tactical sorties, and Marine expeditionary units (special operations capable) [MEUs (SOC)] had captured key objectives, all from Arabian Gulf sea bases 400-- 900 miles away.
Last year, the continuing usefulness of sea bases—aircraft carrier battle groups (CVBGs) and amphibious ready groups (ARGs)—was questioned in the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD). At one point during the 2001 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), a force of 6 CVBGs and 8 ARGs, versus today's 12 CVBGs and 12 ARGs, was debated. The remarkable striking power of sea-based forces, coupled with the operational flexibility demonstrated by the Kitty Hawk (CV-63)—which, instead of its normal air wing, embarked special operations forces for a variety of clandestine tasks—should have put to rest any doubts about the value of naval power in support of 21st-century joint operations. Nevertheless, the OSD jury is still out.
Smoke and Mirrors?
Even during the highly touted defense buildup of the early and mid-1980s, major increases usually were shifted to the out years of annual programs. (In the FY 1984 program, for example, projections for FY 1988 called for 28 surface warships alone.) But the good times lasted only six years; the 1986 budget was the last time (until 1999) that defense saw a real increase in spending compared to the previous year. Between 1986 and 1999, through Republican and Democratic presidencies, no matter which party controlled the Senate and House, defense total obligational authority declined in real terms by more than 40%. By way of comparison, the FY 1985 defense budget of $286.8 billion translates to $451.8 billion in 2002 dollars—16% more than the Bush administration's FY 2003 request.
From the post-Desert Storm "build-down" through base closures, roles and missions controversies, and various reviews, the U.S. military became an increasingly hollow force. Since 1991, the fleet has gotten smaller and the number of ships that deploy routinely with each battle group has decreased. During post-Cold War downsizing—from the planned 600-ship, 15-CVBG, 14-carrier air wing force of the mid-1980s to the current 318 ships and 12 CVBGs—the demand for deployed naval forces has increased. Operations since 2000 have been almost twice as frequent as during the height of the Cold War, with naval forces committed to some crisis or contingency once every four weeks on average. Because CVBGs and ARGs deploy with fewer warships than ten years ago, theater commanders have fewer assets to cover diverse commitments and occasionally must "time share." The Enterprise (CVN-65) CVBG already had started for home when word of the terrorist attacks caused her to turn back to the North Arabian Sea to support combat operations there.
Fewer assets have meant more underway time per unit. Increased operational tempo has resulted in additional wear and tear on ships, aircraft, and equipment, requiring more maintenance to be deferred because of insufficient resources. It is little wonder that, in one way or another, Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) Admiral Vernon Clark's top priorities relate to readiness issues: manpower, current readiness, future readiness, quality of service, and Navy-wide alignment.
Navy Department funding for FY 2003 has been pegged at $108.3 billion, including $24.9 billion for procurement and $12.5 billion in R&D. The Navy received the smallest increase of the three departments. The Air Force's increase was $12.7 billion; the Army's, $10 billion; and the Navy Department's, $9.5 billion. Figure 1 shows the implications for the Navy of the 1990s "funding holiday."
The CNO noted that the Navy needs many more than the 305 ships and 10 air wings currently programmed for FY 2003 (a result of the 1997 QDR) to meet anticipated operational and personnel tempos in the years ahead. To sustain that constrained force level and modernize, the Navy should be acquiring 10 ships and as many as 210 aircraft per year, marks that probably will be missed by wide margins. More uncertain are prospects for a fleet of "about 375 ships" that the CNO and Secretary of the Navy Gordon England noted in February. Admiral Clark told a Defense Forum audience, "You have to get headed on a trajectory and the trajectory we are on takes us to larger numbers, and I believe that is what our nation needs." Even so, not everyone shares his optimism about current and future trajectories.
Navy shipbuilding plans show only 40 new ships for the FY 2002-2007 period (6.7 per year), 15 of which (38%) are support vessels, not warships (see Figure 2). More than half (24) are requested in 2005-2007; the President will ask for just 10 ships in the next two years. (These do not include the two cruise ships under construction in Mississippi, which the Navy may acquire by default.) In addition, the Navy plans to modify four of the early Ohio (SSBN-726)-class ballistic-missile submarines to a guided-missile (SSGN) configuration. Representative Ike Skelton (D-MO), the ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, reportedly sees the administration's request as continuing the trend toward a 200-ship Navy—a totally inadequate level for the protection of U.S. maritime interests.
Naval aircraft procurement is similarly anemic: 703 aircraft of all types (90% tactical—one good thing) and 117 per year on average. (See Figure 3.) However, 445 (63%) of these are to be requested after 2004. Where is the "beef" in these programs? If history repeats itself, the Navy will have 250 ships by 2015-2020 and sufficient aircraft for possibly eight carrier air wings. Doing more with less continues to be the order of the day.
Carriers and Naval Aviation
Carrier underway time during deployments has risen steadily. In 1998-1999, as well as last fall, the carrier home ported in Japan had to respond to unplanned deployments to the Persian Gulf and Arabian Sea. The Navy had no other recourse than to "surge" the Kitty Hawk into a forward operating area, although critical maintenance remained to be completed. Likewise, at the start of Operation Allied Force in the spring of 1999, there was no U.S. carrier battle group in the Mediterranean, which constrained the pressure that NATO could put on Serbian forces. Carriers had to be redeployed from other operating areas; the growing number of operational gaps has led to internal assessments of the need for at least 15 aircraft carriers.
The near-term future of sea-based tactical aviation will be focused on the Nimitz (CVN-68)-class nuclear-powered aircraft carriers that are replacing the aging oil-fired carriers on a one-for-one basis. Since the 1960s, when the baseline CVN-68 design was completed, the carrier force has not had the advantage of an aggressive R&D program to insert leading-edge technologies into subsequent hulls. From CVN-69 on, all have been "modified repeats"—if not "straight-stick" repeats—of carriers that went before. For this reason, in 1993, the Navy established a future sea-based air platforms working group to investigate requirements, available technologies and systems, and needed R&D to ensure a new class of carriers could capture elements of the incipient revolutions in military and business affairs.
Based on these initial studies and acute awareness of the fiscal difficulties of leaping a generation of carrier design, the Navy established a program to develop the future nuclear carrier. The CVNX- 1 is scheduled to reach the fleet in 2013, in time to replace the nation's first nuclear-powered carrier, the Enterprise (at 52 years old). The Navy has crafted an evolutionary program to incorporate warfighting improvements and widespread cost-saving measures in three consecutive hulls, beginning with CVN-77—a modified repeat of the CVN-76—to replace the Kitty Hawk in 2008. Initial investments will be made in new integrated combat systems for CVN-77, which, along with other improvements, will be carried forward to CVNX-1 and follow-on carriers. The main design objectives for the CVNX class are to provide a flexible infrastructure that will facilitate insertion of new capabilities and reduce total ownership costs greatly during each carrier's 50-year service life. Follow-on, evolutionary CVNXs are planned for construction starts at roughly five-year intervals beyond 2006. We can expect units of the CVNX class to be in service at the turn of the next century.
The Kitty Hawk's experience in Enduring Freedom has led to several initiatives to reexamine aviation-capable afloat staging-base concepts. While numerous configurations are being debated, all are seen as providing critical support to forward-stationed—as opposed to forward-deployed—naval forces and joint forces ashore. Both new construction and modifications to ultra-large commercial vessels are being investigated. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has commissioned yet another study (this time by the Defense Science Board) to assess future carrier alternatives. It is the latest in a long sequence of carrier studies since the late 1940s, and will lay the groundwork for future reassessments and disputes.
As carrier work moves forward, other areas of naval aviation are bleak. The Navy's aviation force is now the oldest it has ever been—aircraft have an average age of about 18 years. The Director of Naval Aviation expects the average age to increase by six months per year, assuming continuance of the programmed procurement rates shown in Figure 3.
The Navy is growing critically short of certain "high-demand/low-density" aircraft, especially the EA-6B Prowler electronic-warfare (EW) aircraft. The decision to retire the Air Force EF-111A Raven EW aircraft and assign all radar-jamming missions to the Prowler has increased demands on these aging aircraft. The Kosovo supplemental and FY 2000 congressional funding additions accelerated procurement for several EA-6B EW upgrades. Congress also authorized funding for conversion of several test and evaluation aircraft to full operational status, resulting in the stand up of an additional expeditionary squadron in FY 2003. All these measures are gap fillers until the airborne electronic attack analysis of alternatives recommends a new aircraft to begin replacing the EA-6B in FY 2010—which might be too late given current operational demands.
The mainstays of near- and medium-term naval aviation are the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet and the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF). Ultimately, the F/A-18E will replace older F/A-18s and the two-seat F/A-18F will replace the F-14. The F/A- I 8E/F will incorporate the advanced targeting forward-looking infrared for its first deployment in 2002 and the shared reconnaissance pod in the F model on the second deployment in 2003. In February 2001, the Navy awarded a contract for development and production of the active electronically scanned array radar scheduled to reach initial operational capability in FY 2006.
With an emphasis on affordability, the JSF program is developing a common family of next-generation strike aircraft in three variants-the Navy's for carriers, the Marine Corps' for short takeoff/vertical landing (STOVL), and the Air Force's for conventional takeoff and landing. The family of aircraft concept allows a high level of commonality while meeting unique U.S. service and allied needs. After a five-year design competition with Boeing, Lockheed Martin was selected in October 2001 to build the JSF. The first operational naval aircraft, the Corps’ STOVL variant, will be delivered in FY 2008; delivery of the Navy’s carrier variant is scheduled for two years later.
Expeditionary Warfare
"The requirement for our amphibious warfare forces is the capability to lift the assault echelon of three Marine expeditionary brigade (MEB) equivalents," Major General William Whitlow, Director of Expeditionary Warfare, explained in a February interview. According to the Defense Planning Guidance and the 2001 QDR, programmed lift is available for 12 amphibious ready groups, which could carry only 2.5 MEB equivalents. However, fiscal reality has limited assault-lift capacity to less than that objective. "Today the Navy has a 2.1 MEB lift force," General Whitlow said. "And we must continue to focus on the transformation of our expeditionary warfare shipping to a force that can affordably meet future needs."
Critical elements of the Navy's plans to support emerging sea-basing and maneuver concepts of operations include: acquisition of 12 San Antonio (LPD-17)-class amphibious platform docks; design, engineering, and acquisition of the next-generation amphibious assault ship, the LHA(R); and modernization of in-service ships. "If we become frustrated in our goal for the LPD-17 program," General Whitlow cautioned, "our lift capability will atrophy to less than the current 2.1 MEB equivalents by the end of the decade."
All politics being local, the Navy might yet again be the beneficiary of congressional largesse to keep the Wasp (LHD-1) program under way. So far, the LHD-1 class comprises eight 40,650-ton multi- purpose amphibious assault ships whose primary mission is to provide embarked commanders with command-- and-control capabilities to deploy landing force elements in helicopters and amphibious vehicles. Originally conceived as a ten-ship program, funding constraints curtailed acquisition with the fifth ship. Since then, Congress approved a sixth, seventh, and eighth LHD, with the USS Iwo Jima (LHD-7) commissioned last June. The eighth ship was authorized and advanced procurement was provided in FY 1999, 2000, and 2001 appropriations; the Navy anticipates full funding in 2003 to support delivery of LHD-8 in 2007. In January, Senator Trent Lott (R-MS) suggested yet another LHD to sustain critical elements of the U.S. shipbuilding industrial base.
The eighth LHD is scheduled for contract award in 2002. It has significant design changes that incorporate gas turbine propulsion and all-electric auxiliary equipment. Otherwise, LHD-8 will be a modified repeat of LHD-7, except for changes made necessary because some older systems no longer are available. The Navy is taking advantage of several "not-invented-here" technologies and systems—including "SmartShip" and human-systems integration initiatives—to modernize LHD-8 and lower costs.
These and other design changes will be important as the Navy considers the next-generation LHA replacement, the LHA(R). The five Tarawa (LHA-1)-class amphibious assault ships commissioned between 1976 and 1980 are reaching the ends of service lives already extended from 20 to 35 years through limited mid-life upgrades. Although the Navy considered a more extensive LHA service-life extension program, it was judged to be technically infeasible and unaffordable. In late 2001, the Navy began an analysis of alternatives to determine the appropriate design for the LHA(R), with the aim of incorporating leading-edge technologies from the CVNX, DDX, and CGX programs.
The most dramatic increase in capabilities comes with the LPD-17, which is optimized for operational flexibility and designed to meet Marine air-ground task force lift requirements in emerging expeditionary maneuver warfare concepts of operations. With 12 LPD-17s and all other amphibious ships, including the 12 landing ship docks (LSDs), the Navy will be able to meet fiscally constrained lift requirements for the 2.5 MEBs required to sustain nearly continuous forward deployment of three MEUs (SOC). Without the LPD-17s, lift capability will fall to less than 2.1 MEB-equivalents. At that point, it is doubtful the Navy-Marine Corps team will be able to execute new concepts of operations successfully.
The San Antonio-class design calls for a medium-sized ship 684 feet in length, with a beam of 105 feet, maximum displacement of 25,000 long tons, and a crew of about 360. Other characteristics include: sustained speed of more than 22 knots; 25,000 square feet of space for vehicles; 34,000 cubic feet for cargo; accommodations for embarking about 720 troops (800 surge); and a medical facility with 24 beds and three operating rooms. The aft well deck can launch and recover traditional surface assault craft, two air cushion landing craft, and the Marine Corps' new advanced amphibious assault vehicle. Aviation facilities include a hangar and flight deck for a mix of aircraft, including tilt-rotor aircraft such as the MV-22 Osprey. Early design and schedule difficulties have caused the Navy to restructure the program and delay it for two years. The keel was laid in December 2000 and the Navy expects the ship to be delivered in FY 2005. "I believe one of our most pressing needs is in the amphibious area—we need LPD-17," the CNO remarked at a House Armed Services Committee hearing in February.
As the naval services investigate innovative networked operations, command and control of widely dispersed manned and unmanned assets is becoming the one critical node in transformation.
To generate and sustain knowledge superiority in future crises, the joint command-and-control ship, JCC(X), will provide joint force commanders and their subordinate units with enhanced mission capabilities for sea-based battle management. It will be the Navy's first new afloat command-and-control center in more than 30 years. It will be built around an advanced command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance system that can be tailored to meet specific mission requirements and is readily adaptable to incorporate the new technology necessary to conduct sustained operations at sea.
The Joint Requirements Oversight Council validated the JCC(X) mission need statement in September 1999, and the program will have a decision review in FY 2002. The analysis of alternatives has been completed and the preferred alternatives were developed and briefed to the Director of Warfare Requirements and Programs. The Navy will select the preferred option, which will become the requirement for replacement of the four current command ships some time after 2010.
Surface Warfare
The Navy's surface combatant forces also are experiencing high operational and personnel tempos. The 1997 QDR concluded that a force of 116 surface warships was needed, including some varying number of Oliver Hazard Perry (FFG-7) guided-missile frigates in the Naval Reserve Force (NRF). Force structure and force mix requirements are two surface warfare concerns that have been assessed and reassessed several times since the mid-1990s:
- Surface Combatant Force Level Study (1995): 146 ships (26 Aegis guided-missile cruisers; 70 Aegis guided-missile destroyers; 30 Spruance [DD-963]-class destroyers; 10 guided-missile frigates in the active fleet and 10 in the NRF.)
- Surface Combatant 21 Study (1998): 194 warships (98 Aegis guided-missile cruisers and destroyers, 96 destroyers and frigates).
- Office of the CNO (N3 and N5) Forward Presence Workshop (2000): 134 warships (74 Aegis guided-missile cruisers and destroyers, 60 destroyers and frigates).
- Surface Combatant Force Level Study II (2000): 138 warships (30 Aegis guided-missile cruisers, 66 Aegis guided-missile destroyers, 30 DD-21s, and 12 guided-missile frigates).
It is noteworthy that all these studies found that more than 116 multimission warships will be needed to meet the operational requirements of the 21st century. "I am very concerned about the number of surface combatants going down," Vice Admiral Timothy LaFleur, Commander of Naval Surface Forces Pacific, remarked in a November interview, when various projections showed the surface fleet declining to 85 ships by 2015. "There is a certain quality to quantity. If we don't have enough to go around, it is a problem. The solution we have come up with is the right one for the long term."
Much has been made of the need to transform the Navy for the future. Indeed, "transformation" has become a frequently used—and perhaps abused—word lately. As Department of Defense (DoD) reviews put into play last year were revealed in various transformation reports, the services recognized that the new platforms, systems, and weapons they hoped to develop and field had to carry a transformation logo to survive in the new environment.