The Future of U. S. Naval Power

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_8t>% Planting the poles of debate at the U. S. Naval In- 0 (;^C _K^S/'^rst three-day international conference, “Future

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t(,_0r ^md> President of the Military Reform Institute and coau- 4/d '^Vlt*¹ f^ormer Senator Gary Hart of the controversial book l9jj^e/,^,Ca Can Win: The Case for Military Reform (Adler,

"le tj ^^r' hind galvanized the conference by declaring that e_Xerc.' Navy’s maritime strategy is “little more than an

_rcc ^ln self-justification for preferred roles, missions, dice’^Structures, and budgets.” In contrast, in the confer- _Spok^s keynote address delivered 12 hours before Mr. Lind of ^ ’ Admiral Trost advocated the vitality of a central tenet c_(Jrt]e 'Maritime strategy, arguing that “as all submarines be- a_reas ^more quiet, offensive operations in heavily defended ^Wlll offer increasing advantages.” pc_ns^e inference brought together military and civilian ex- ofjj ^<’ⁿ foe U. S. Navy and Marine Corps to address the use Wa_r r ' ^nava* forces in peacetime, international crises, and of . Sponsored with the Naval Institute by the University ^c°nfe ^aWare’^s Center for the Study of Marine Policy, the

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‘lave f ^envir°nments in which the Navy and Marine Corps leolj .^aced and will continue to face calls for revolutionary Inc] ’ ^tact*cal, and strategic changes.

P^ar>ts^Cec*’ throughout the conference panelists and 700 partici- itig ^emPhasized that the Navy and Marine Corps are enter- ^focal period of potentially radical change. Block ob-

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^av'ati"o^{nCG                sur}*^acc combatant, aircraft carrier, tactical

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onary” new weapon systems and platforms have clod'- ^{Jr s}°on will be introduced into the naval arsenal, in- crgft ® the Aegis combat system, the advanced tactical air- W_hii’_e^and $^eaw°lf (SSN-21)-class attack submarine. ho]₀ ■ tttany of these new systems and their supporting tech- ®spe_Ct ^S °^^er the prospect for revolutionizing the technical str_at . °t naval warfare, several commentators noted that ^at ^anc* ^tact*^{cs W}*H have to change as well, to accom- Sut ^neVV technologies and geopolitical realities.

Na_Vy ^many observers also forecast dramatic reductions in Otis _a ^and Marine Corps budgets for ship, aircraft, and weap- d_eyei qiatsition; operations and maintenance; and research and °fr,_Ce^Pment- Indications are that whoever occupies the Oval ospecj. l!¹ 1989 will be forced to make do with much less, that _ar^a y *f both Houses of Congress return with majorities N$t Preceptive to the pro-defense arguments made these Nst_s , ^Ven years. If these forecasts are accurate, several ana-

hu ^r^^Uet^ that plans to maintain current force levels may Ma_rjn^Strated, bringing into question whether the Navy and foei_r ? ^°rps could carry out the operations that underpin M_e.^Cclared maritime strategy.

hic_e ^nwhile, as several observers at the San Diego confer- V_arif.°^ted, threats to all of the Navy and Marine Corps

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Platforms are proliferating both in quality and quan-

^eapo " ^rninor nations possess sophisticated and deadly ^May *987 Iraqi attack on the USS Stark * and the 1987 “Mines of August Crisis” in the Per­

sian Gulf brought home to many observers both the dangers naval forces confront even in “peacetime” operating environ­ments and the continuing need for a capable Navy. Several participants noted that the 1983 Beirut tragedy continues to pose the question of whether the United States knows how and when best to use its Marine forces. Also constantly in mind as the participants debated the implications of advanced technology and tactical doctrines for the Navy and Marines was the shooting down of Iran Air flight 655 by the USS Vincennes (CG-49).

It was at the conference’s convening banquet on 27 July that Admiral Trost spoke of future opportunities and con­straints facing the Navy. He foresees technological develop­ments that would permit the Navy to adopt a “triad of strike forces,” one which would lessen what is today an almost complete reliance on large-deck carriers to carry out strike and power-projection operations. Submarines will be able “to undertake, with high confidence, new missions” that were denied to them in the late-1980s, according to the CNO. Admiral Trost also noted that technological advances would enable the Navy to maintain maritime superiority, so neces­sary to protecting the interests of the United States as an is­land nation dependent on the free use of the seas.

Overshadowing these optimistic predictions were Admiral Trost’s concerns about the nation’s ability to produce suffi­cient numbers of skilled engineers and scientists. “Where are the technically trained youths who will invent the 21st- century equivalent of radar?” he asked, and warned that “the secrets of science will not come readily to a society preoccu­pied with leisure and recreation.”

The “Once and Future Maritime Strategy” panel opened with short remarks by the moderator, Captain James M. Pat­ton, a retired Navy submariner now employed by Lockheed, on the need for a coherent strategy built on a national con­sensus. Mr. Lind spoke on “Strategy and a Future Navy”; Captain James Lynch, U. S. Navy, recently Chief of Staff, Commander, Submarine Group Six, and now a member of the CNO’s “Strategic Think Tank” commented on the “Fu­ture of the Navy’s Maritime Strategy”; Robert Weinland,

Vice President of the RTA Corporation and a former analyst at the Center for Naval Analyses, remarked on “Soviet Counter-Strategies and Implications for U. S. Naval Power”; and recently retired Royal Navy Admiral Sir Peter Stanford offered his personal views on the maritime strategy in re­marks entitled, “Folly or Genius: The Allies’ Views.”

This was perhaps the most controversial panel of the pro­gram, as both Mr. Lind and Sir Peter challenged Navy and Marine Corps complacency about the maritime strategy. Mr. Lind argued that the strategy is an irrevelant “artifact.” In offering several alternatives to both the Navy’s strategy and the U. S. national strategies, he offered that if the United States allows its postwar strategies to outlive their usefulness, “we may pay a high price, the price of national failure on a truly strategic scale.” Sir Peter’s remarks focused on the ob­servation that the NATO allies do not “trust” the U. S. mar­itime strategy. The apparent shift in U. S. strategic thinking that foresees a long conventional war could make all of Eu­rope a battlefield, he said, and that prospect is not well re­ceived on the continent. Noting that the maritime strategy

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Major General Fred Haynes, U. S. Marine Corps

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now Vice President for Planning and Analysis at the LTV Company, brought the audience attending his session to

deck departments in aircraft carriers and other ‘aviation that only naval aviators can rise to command.” He fore “business as usual” approach in the surface navy for m 20 years or more. The byword will be “Aegis forever ^

cause of institutional caution and conservatism, althoug

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ous landings of the scope and character of Iwo Jima- cautioned the Marine Corps not to consider alternative sions that will dilute its raison d’etre, to continue to t° "

ahead with the over-the-horizon assault concept, and to

appears to lack sufficient resources—“Just how important are 600 ships?” he asked—Sir Peter concluded by observing that “ ‘Folly’ is too harsh a word to describe the maritime strat­egy, but a bit of ‘genius’ might make it work.”

To some extent. Captain Lynch agreed with Mr. Lind that the Navy’s maritime strategy must evolve to address the changing global balances of power and technology. But Cap­tain Lynch also argued that the major tenets of the strategy— forward operations to bottle up the Soviet fleet, combined- arms operations with the U. S. Air Force and Army, coalition strategy with U. S. allies, and “horizontal escalation” in the event of a global conflict—would remain important facts for future naval operations.

Robert Weinland catalogued the changes in Soviet strategy and doctrine, operational art, and force levels and mixes that have occurred in the last 20 years. He forecast that a future Soviet response to “changes in the frame of reference caused by the maritime strategy” will be but one aspect of the So­viet Union’s overall approach to the West: “neutralize the West’s tactical/strategic nuclear capabilities and make the world safe for conventional war.”

Commandant of the Marine Corps General Alfred M. Gray, Jr., spoke at a luncheon following the first panel, focusing on the “perceptions of people down at the local 7­11 store.” He said they wondered what all the fuss was about with NATO and America’s relationships with its allies worldwide. What should concern the nation, General Gray noted, was the shrinkage in the number of U. S. bases over­seas in the last decade from about 100 to 37, a reduction that amplifies the U. S. reliance upon sea power. This issue clearly was much more important to General Gray than dis­cussions such as whether the United States should build more carriers, “which is pretty irrelevant. We’ve got 15 carriers and we will have 13 to 15 at least until the year 2000. We ought to be discussing how we are going to use them, not whether we will have them.”

Looking to the future, the Commandant questioned whether the United States should continue to shape its forces to defeat the Soviets, “or do we shape them for the most likely kind of conflict . . . Third World brushfire wars?” Indeed, Gen­eral Gray allowed that in the immediate future “We are going to get enormous pressure to reduce tensions and view the Soviet threat as less great”; U. S. conflicts in the 1990s will not directly involve the Soviet Union, he predicted. He sug­gested that in the future the United States should improve its capabilities without spending a lot of money: “we should capitalize on air, land, and sea coordination”—an obvious reference to doing more with less through combined-arms operations. General Gray argued also that more informed de­bate about military actions and consequences needs to take place, especially focusing on strategies and plans. But, he conceded, “it’s hard to get that kind of debate going in D.C.”

Panelists at the “Naval Warfare—The ‘Unions’ and Their Future” session which was moderated by Vice Admiral Wil­liam E. Ramsey, Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the U. S. Space Command, challenged the Navy and Marine Corps to think critically about their warfare specialties. Kenneth J. Moore, President of Cortana Corporation, spoke on “Present and Future Challenges for Submarine Warfare,” delineating the “hierarchy of challenges” confronting the submarine community: security, policy, technology, principles of war­fare, and the submarine’s ability to manifest the principles of war.

Answering “Hell, no!” to the title assigned to his part of the panel, “Are Manned Tactical Aircraft and Large-Deck

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Admiral Trost and General Gray at the Naval Institute ^s conference in San Diego.

Carriers Bound for Extinction?” retired U. S. Navy Adn¹'¹^ Wesley L. McDonald enthusiastically talked about the ^eX ,, panded role TacAir [tactical aircraft] will play in the fuW^ While recognizing that new technology will make it p^oSS1 to address threats with a variety of weapons, Admiral M^c'^ Donald argued that “we will still need a human to make necessary high degree of discrimination to carry out mis- ^ sions.” He noted as well that “there have been several g° _t reasons for small carriers, but these were not and still a^re ^ compelling.” As long as conventional takeoff-and-landmg craft are the mainstay of the Navy’s power-projection ' it is most cost-effective to stay with the Nimitz (CVN-6°1 class carrier, according to Admiral McDonald. ^ with a look into the future before presenting his formal t® _a marks on “Surface and Amphibious Warfare—In Search Mission for the 21st Century?” General Haynes started J stating, “In 2025 the carrier battle group is dead; the amp ious ready group is dead; and the resupply of Europe is dead.” General Haynes noted that “surface warfare is ¹,, least prestigious of the three naval warfare communities- because, first, unlike the aviators and submariners, surfa j_at- warfare officers are not identified with a specific type ⁰ ^ ₀j form; second, many of the surface community’s ships ^arL, warships at all; and “worst of all, some [surface warriors have the ignominious duty of running the engineering ^aI^j₁jps’

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admitted that the surface forces may take advantage ¹ “revolutionary” technological developments to supp^ort tional missions. Turning to the Marine Corps, General j_ng Haynes argued that “amphibious warfare will be an en p mission,” but that there will be “no more opposed arnp

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sure its concepts and hardware work in the heat of bah jV Norman Polmar, naval author and Director of the Military Database, rounded out the second panel’s deba with his analysis of “U. S. Naval Forces in an Uncertm ^ Future.” Starting from his doubt “whether the U. S. > the future will be able to successfully engage the S°^vie Union,” Polmar articulated six areas of uncertainty *^aC'_jrg_S. Navy and the Marine Corps: budgetary limitations; cong

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Navy, one that echoed the CNO’s earlier com- ciyji ‘ ^Was “no secret,” according to Admiral Meyer; “the h_eril0^Service and officer corps are suffering from a ‘technical forj ^^a§^e’’ with highly skilled officers leaving the service g oustry, where the real challenges are still to be found.” bm f ” ^^r' Skolnick and Dr. Berman addressed space issues, that .j^>rn distinctly different perspectives. Dr. Skolnick noted spa_Ce ^e applications potential in space is great, but ... Aci(_n P⁰** severe challenges to engineers and logisticians.” ll. '^''edging that the Navy uses space more than any other Prepa ^Serv'ce, he nonetheless decried the lack of service wide B_erm ^atl°n for the Navy’s future exploitation of space. Dr. he_ei ^{an sta}ted that space is the Navy’s “primary Achilles’ §enc_e? ,9^^ [command, control, communications, and intelli- Ieip_s ’ and that the failure of the Pentagon and Navy sys- ^rnan<j^C°^{lr,mantls t0} provide an infrastructure for space com- Berr,, ^and'Control issues compounds the shortcoming. Dr.

'be f|_eⁿ called for a “dispersal of C3I capability throughout o<'t° support the warfare commanders,” something that ^f0rt_s j .accomplished until the Pentagon reorganizes its ef- ^am ^arena’ 'ⁿ h^er view.

Pfojq ^a'ⁿ Arnest examined what the Soviet Union and its °gi_Cs ^s have been doing recently to acquire advanced technol- Wg_estAcceding to Captain Arnest. the Soviet Union has the niilitary/industrial/research base in the world, as well

°nal and public perceptions that the United States is in a ^ⁿ°d of military drawdown; the attitude that the “Navy and p ,^arines got theirs during [former Secretary of the Navy John turn’>*^lman'^{S tenure}’ ^now >t’^s the Army’s and Air Force’s ₀j-            ’ ^a general lack of understanding within the Department

a_re ,^nse and the Congress that the Navy and Marine Corps and ^hfcrent” from the Army and Air Force; the continuing fail ^lncreas’ⁿg parochialism of Navy “unionism”; and the nin ^ ^t*^le hf^avy and Marine Corps to do strategic plan- q₀®' Colmar concluded that unless the Navy and Marine Q₍₎^fP^{s m}ake major changes in their ways of dealing with Plan^^{reSS anc}* ^outs'^^e “pundits,” develop a “strategic f_ut ⁿⁱⁿ8 capability,” and cease the “union” bickering, “the Ttf   ^vcry hleak for the naval services.”

_Cu ^e Naval Power in a ‘Star Wars’ World'

a on the harnessing of advanced technologies to ensure t_e(j^{1 lrne} superiority. Admirably moderated by the quick wit- acerbic retired U. S. Navy Vice Admiral Joseph Met- ^ "> this panel presented the diverse views of retired Rear _Ae/^a> Wayne E. Meyer, former project manager of the ^.shipbuilding project, who spoke on “Advanced Tech- Alf ^'^es—Implications for Naval Power and Operations”; Dr. 0^ Skolnick, Vice President for Advanced Technologies at pj ’ *^nc-> who offered comments on “Space—The Navy’s Frontier”; Dr. E. Ann Berman, Director of Space and th_e sterns ^at United Technologies, who critically examined Na ^aVy’^{S comrnan}d-and-control capabilities in her paper, N_av^dVy C3I: Achilles’ Heel of the Future Fleet”; and U. S.

N|_a ^y Captain Charles S. Amest, commanding officer of the V,e^ Technical Intelligence Center, who remarked on “The tW ‘^r°m the ‘Other Side’: Exploitation of Technology to Future U. S. Naval Power.”

Pane/ ^{dlng 0n} Admiral Metcalf’s opening remarks that the s_erj ^Was “not going to strategize ... but would examine ⁿanc_e ^{S c}^^aHenges facing the Navy to build things to get ord- ‘‘_e>, °ⁿ target,” Admiral Meyer focused on the need for t’tfe n,^Ut'⁰ⁿ ' ’ . acquiring the technologies to defeat the fu- tot ^reats.” Admiral Meyer argued that the “challenge is to ^P^ortunity; we have the opportunities and technologies gi_es° ^t*^le job, but our problem is selecting the right technolo- fa_Cj_n ^{0 sat}isfy the Navy’s requirements.” A major roadblock as the largest, and in some cases the best, espionage effort. As an example, espionage has allowed the Soviets to save more than five years of development time by obtaining both highly classified and unclassified information on the Navy’s F/A-18 aircraft. Captain Amest also warned of the growing supply of “very useful” unclassified information available in U. S. scientific papers, journals, on-line data bases, and pro­fessional conferences. “In fact,” he said, he “would not be Surprised to leam that agents of foreign governments were attending the ‘Future Navy’ conference.”

Moderating the final event, a congressional roundtable, was retired U. S. Navy Rear Admiral Edward J. Hogan, Jr., the Navy’s former Chief of Legislative Affairs and now Presi­dent, Westinghouse-Airship Industries, Inc. The panel in­cluded Representative Duncan Hunter (R-CA), Representative Mac Sweeney (R-TX), former Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Thomas B. Hayward, the current Navy Chief of Legislative Affairs, Rear Admiral Thomas C. Lynch, and Thomas S. Hahn, counsel for the Research and Development Subcommittee, House Armed Services Committee. Admiral Hogan stressed that no matter whether Congress is seen as helping or hindering the Navy and Marine Corps, “Congress will be intimately involved, and by and large will be helpful if the Navy provides them the right information.” Admiral Lynch underscored Hogan’s assessment, noting that “Con­gress is not an evil.” Admiral Hayward, however, used the forum to castigate what he sees as the congressional penchant for politicizing important national security issues and for not heeding the advice of senior military leaders. Admiral Hay­ward also spoke out against the desire of congressional staffs to “micromanage” the acquisition process; he argued that congressional oversight should focus on major policy issues rather than questions of how many items of various systems the Navy should acquire.

Representative Hunter, however, said that Congress “usu­ally makes its battle with the administration, not the Navy,” a statement that seemed not to mollify many people in the audience. Representative Sweeney argued that “perceptions are most important in the political process.” Sweeney also enumerated the major ’’hard points” the Navy and Marine Corps must make to Congress: affordability issues, technical adequacy, and adaptability to changing requirements.

This conference represented several “firsts” for the Naval Institute. It was the Institute’s first multiday seminar; the first one sponsored jointly with a cohost from academia; the first time an Institute seminar called for formal papers from participants, which the Center for the Study of Marine Policy will edit for eventual publication (transcripts of recorded ses­sions are available now from the Naval Institute); and the first time the Institute sought formal sponsorship from indus­try for a conference program.

Financial underwriting for the event was provided by eight corporate exhibitors: AAI Corporation, General Dynamics Convair Division, General Electric Industrial and Power Sys­tems Division, GTE Government Systems Corporation,

Hughes Aircraft Company, Lockheed Aeronautical Systems Company, McDonnell Douglas Corporation, and Westing- house Defense and Electronics Systems Group. Seven corpo­rate contributors also supported the event: Boeing Company, Honeywell Marine Systems Group, ITT/Gilfillan, Litton In­dustries, Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Company, Northrop Corporation, and TRW Federal Systems Group.

The Naval Institute is considering plans now to stage an­other major conference like this one next year on some of the many issues raised by the participants and attendees in San Diego.       Scott C. Truver