Heads Up, Navy

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RADM J. C. Wylie, USN (Ret.)

The 1980s were notable in that there was little of the interserv­ice disagreement and infighting that marked the first two decades after World War II and Korea. All is sweetness and light and happy jointness; few realize that this sweetness and light basi­cally is the result of expanding—or at least adequate—budgets. There has been little about which to disagree.

Now, General Colin Powell has publicly offered a radical plan for reorganization of the armed forces after the Gulf War. He outlined this plan in a speech to the Royal United Services Insti­tution in London on 5 December 1990 and in appearances before the House Armed Services Committee in February 1991. Gen­eral G. L. Butler, Commander-in-Chief, Strategic Air Com­mand, in a speech to the National Press Club, has supported such a reorganization plan.

The Powell plan proposes four armed services commands:

• A Strategic Force (clearly the present Strategic Air Command)
• An Atlantic Force
• A Pacific Force (essentially the present Pacific Command)
• A Contingency Force (presumably the present Central Com­mand to back up any sizable fighting commitment overseas, such as the Gulf War)

These four commands are supported by four so-called support­ing forces:

• A Transportation Force
• A Space Force
• A Research and Development Force
• A Reconstitution Force

This sounds fine. But in his descriptions, General Powell identified the Pacific Force as “principally maritime” but care­fully refrained from using the same adjective to describe the pro­posed Atlantic Force.

During the next decade budgets will be sharply cut. The ser­vices will have to fight hard in the budget allocation process for what they believe they need. The budget dollar is what trans­mutes ideas into the reality of troops and aircraft and ships and all the tools that go with them. All the services, in their argu­ments over lean budgets, need operating forces at which to point with pride to help justify their claims.

Now, let us look at the Powell and Butler proposals in a new light.

Butler’s support of the Powell plan is easiest to dispose of. Separately from the Press Club speech, the Air Force has pro­posed to take operating command of the missile submarines now under Navy command and coordinated as far as missiles are con­cerned by a joint targeting apparatus in Omaha. There is no evi­dence that this long-existing joint targeting apparatus has failed to measure up to its task fully.

No one questions the need for a nuclear deterrent force as long as the Soviets continue to hide missiles and warheads. But the clear trend today is a shift in emphasis from land-based to sea- based deterrent missiles. In this shift of emphasis, the Air Force sees a marked diminution of its principal peacetime operating forces. How to respond to this? Simple. Take operating control of the missile submarines. Take command of forces for which the Air Force has no capability, responsibility, or accountability for support, maintenance, training, coordination with other forces operating on or under the sea, professional career planning, mo­rale, or anything, except a yearning to have operating command of something. The Air Force wants only to have under its com­mand that force which, in not too many years, will be the princi­pal force active in nuclear deterrence. So the proposal to take command of the missile submarines is purely a power grab.

The Powell plan is a little more complex. For more than 40 years, the U.S. Army has maintained a presence in Germany with its principal—if not its only—force that is actually on line and operating (the Army force in Korea is smaller, more passive, and diminishing). The Army has built its budget arguments, quite sensibly, around the needs of the U.S. European Com­mand. And now the NATO command—the Allied Command, Europe—along with the U.S. European Command, sees its days as numbered. General Powell, in his appearance before the House Armed Services Committee, referred to a permanent

The Navy had better watch its six or the other services will rob it blind. General Powell and General Schwarz­kopf conferred in Saudi Arabia in February, the same month General Powell made a proposal to reorganize the military and have the Atlantic Fleet absorbed by the European "Command.

“heavy corps” of U.S. troops in Europe as though they would be there forever. (Does he really think this “heavy corps” would survive in a new Germany and a new Europe for more than five years?) He then offered, in his proposal for the new Atlantic Force, that this corps in Europe merge with the present Atlantic Fleet because: “We need an Atlantic Force to help achieve sta­bility and deal with contingencies on and across that broad ocean, in Europe and the Middle East.”

This is a task that, except in continental Europe itself, the Navy and Marine Corps have been carrying out quite satisfacto­rily ever since World War II.

In effect, General Powell is proposing to have a dying Euro­pean Command absorb the entire Atlantic Fleet—or else to have the Atlantic Fleet absorb a dying European Command—to give the Atlantic Command an army flavor and thus some jointness rather than a clearly maritime flavor. Neither makes sense, no matter how you look at it. It would be much more logical to put the dying European Command under the Central Command, based in Tampa, where it could be managed in the same manner as the expanded forces of all services during the Gulf War, if such a need should arise again.

Under General Powell’s plan, the Army could command— permanently, or at least part of the time in rotation—the entire Atlantic Fleet. This could provide evidence in budget arguments that the Army is busy commanding something that operates in peacetime.

There is not a word in the Powell plan about the continuing and longstanding Atlantic Fleet maritime operating tasks in times of war and peace, around all of Africa; all of South America; and around the Caribbean, Atlantic, Indian, Arctic, and Antarctic oceans. There is not a word about the basic naval responsibilities for such things as the protection of trade (the Soviet Union is still building very good submarines and, incidentally, it has no monopoly on submarines), or low-intensity conflicts such as the recent rescue of civilians from Liberia, or the national policy of semi-covert support of the British in the Falklands, or the inter­ception of the Achille Lauro pirates one night while they were flying to a haven in Tunisia. Surely, the Atlantic is no less mari­time than the Pacific. But General Powell does not admit that, because he aims to create a command arrangement where the Army can muscle in on command of the Atlantic Fleet.

Just keep in mind that, except for the obvious need to train for and be ready for war, the principal peacetime tasks of the mari­time forces are to operate in support of the State Department’s foreign-policy objectives. The land-based forces are rarely, if ever, subject to this requirement in peacetime. Can you imagine a casual friendly visit of a company of the Army’s Special Forces troops, or of a squadron of the Air Force’s fighter planes, to a small nation in Africa, Asia, or South America? The naval forces do this all the time.

These proposals, to have a dying European Command absorb the Atlantic Fleet and to have a markedly diminishing land-based missile and strategic bomber force take over the sea-based mis­sile submarines, are power grabs pure and simple.

And one question needs to be publicly answered: Has this proposal for a massive and radical reorganization of the armed forces been presented to, considered by, and approved by the corporate body of the Joint Chiefs; or is it a private venture by General Powell, exploiting the stature of his office to load the dice before its consideration by his colleagues, the chiefs of the four services?

Heads up, Navy. Keep in mind that the lean years—and the budget problems following World War II and Korea—are at hand again. The Atlantic Fleet and the sea-based missile forces are tempting targets for the power hungry. All the naval services want, and all they have ever asked for, are their own rightfully earned maritime commands. But if the Navy lets down its guard, the other services will rob it blind.

Admiral Wylie was the first serving naval officer since Mahan and Luce to become known for his writings on strategy and theory. His Military Strategy, first published in 1967, entered the Naval Institute’s “Classics of Sea Power” series in 1989. Admiral Wylie served in World War II. commanded three combatants, and served on the staffs of the Supreme Allied Commander, Atlantic, the Joint Strategic Sur­vey Council of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Commander in Chief, U.S. Atlantic Fleet, and the Commander in Chief, U.S. Naval Forces, Europe.