Forward naval presence is the historic and enduring purpose of the Department of the Navy in the service of our maritime nation. Indeed, it is the logic behind our constitutional mandate that Congress maintain a navy. The overseas deployment of warships and embarked Marines literally dates from the infancy of the Republic. In the early 19th century, the maritime excursions against the Barbary pirates who preyed on U.S. merchantmen eventually were made a regular practice and organized into a Mediterranean Squadron. In the Pacific, early naval expeditions asserted our maritime interests in the waters off the contested coast of California and in the rich whaling grounds of the North Pacific. The mid-19th century deployments to the Far East of Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry strengthened America’s diplomatic hand in the Pacific and were pivotal in opening Japan to world trade. The long-term result was the Asiatic Squadron.
This rich history notwithstanding, critics of a large and expensive fleet of carriers, amphibious ships, and surface combatants have long discounted the importance of presence and the Cold War commitments the fleet was said to serve. Prominent detractors of sea-based tactical aviation thundered that no one had ever invented a more expensive way of deploying tactical air power. Beginning with Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara and continuing through the end of the 1970s, repeated efforts were made to downsize the fleet and cut carrier procurement—but without publicly retrenching on commitments.
In the months leading up to the publication of the Bottom-Up Review, the RAND Corporation completed some modeling of the forces required for major regional contingencies in the Middle East and Far East. Requirements for two nearly simultaneous contingencies did not—in the opinion of former RAND analysts—justify a fleet much larger than the former House Armed Services Committee Chairman’s “Option C,” a fleet built around 11 active and deployable carriers.
It was not until the new defense team looked closely at requirements for overseas presence that the sizing criteria for major regional contingencies were recognized as
inadequate if the Navy was to sustain a level of deployment activity approximating the tempo maintained since Desert Storm. While the Bottom-Up Review’s force of 12 carriers, 2.5 Marine expeditionary brigade lift, and a somewhat fungible range of submarines and surface combatants remained the immediate force goals, the Navy and Marine Corps were challenged to demonstrate that these goals were justified by the demands of overseas presence. To that end, the Secretary of the Navy asked the Chief of Naval Operations and the Commandant of the Marine Corps to make an assessment of the forces required for the post-Cold War mission of forward naval presence.
Why Forward Presence
On any given day, almost 20% of the U.S. Navy is deployed overseas, engaged in peacetime military operations. Additional ships and aircraft squadrons are preparing for deployment. All told, approximately 40% of the fleet is deployed or under way. preparing for deployment—every day. Keeping ships forward today requires supporting force structure at a time of significantly reduced defense spending. The returns will be measured in:
- Deterrence of aggression
- Enhancement of regional stability
- Improvement of interoperability with key allies
- Readiness to provide a timely initial crisis response
A consensus exists on the importance and propriety of these missions, but there are no accepted measures of effectiveness to gauge our success in meeting them. The challenge, therefore, is to develop a bridge that links the broadest national security interests and regional political objectives with the force structure required to service those interests and objectives.
The new U.S. National Security Strategy of engagement, prevention, and partnership has an overarching goal of enlarging democracy and free markets by fostering stability and global security. Similarly, the National Military Strategy puts a high premium on deployed forces. Forward-deployed and forward-based naval forces are engaged in precisely those areas of the world where our most-vital interests are concentrated—the Mediterranean and Middle East, Southwest Asia and the Persian Gulf, and the western Pacific.
In cooperation with our friends and allies, forces are deployed near potential flashpoints to prevent the emergence of dangers to shared interests. Partnership is developed and enhanced when we promote interoperability at the operational and tactical levels with the naval, air, and ground forces of the most likely coalition partners.
Exercises to practice this are the stock-in-trade of Navy and Marine units. In the most serious situations, our combat-ready forces help to deter aggression and, if deterrence fails, they provide the means for timely initial crisis response, should that become necessary. But naval presence must be more than a collection of ships on or over the horizon; deployed forces must embody credible combat capabilities if we are to be perceived as ready and determined to secure our interests and to secure them unilaterally, if we must.
A driving consideration in the case for forward-deployed naval forces is the demand from those responsible for promoting U.S. foreign policy, including U.S. diplomatic representatives and State Department officials. This must be coupled with the requirements from those responsible for ensuring military preparedness and the protection of U.S. and allied interests—the combatant commanders.
Will Any Ship Do?
In 1973, former Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger wrote that “political justifications for military deployments, however relevant, rarely provide the basis for specific numbers and types of forces in a theater.” Continuing, he argued that “a corporal’s guard [might] be as effective as a division if our main purpose [were] merely to demonstrate a U.S. interest and presence in the area.” Secretary Schlesinger was correct, in a sense: The force structure required for the presence role cannot be derived directly from the grand political objectives served by deployed naval forces. But, forces for presence must be shaped for combat, to provide credible assurance and to demonstrate serious resolve. The challenge is to translate strategic interests and regional political objectives into derivative military objectives for which we can define force structure. These objectives, in turn, must be sufficiently specific to develop listings of military tasks for which naval forces are organized, equipped, and trained.
The links between U.S. regional political interests and the force structure required for the forward presence mission are military objectives and supporting tasks. When interests and objectives are reduced to military tasks, the capabilities required to attain them can be specified and the force packages that embody those specific capabilities can be developed. The result is naval presence forces shaped for combat in the service of political objectives and national security interests.
Force Structure Implications
Recently, sending naval formations forward for regular and extended deployments did not lead to arguments about force structure, because the aggregate force needed to meet the Soviet threat in the three principal maritime theaters of operations was more than adequate to meet our presence requirements. In short, the wartime force provided a large deployment base in peacetime. As we downsize the Navy, however, presence requirements no longer are a lesser-included case. In discussing the results of the Bottom-Up Review, former Secretary of Defense Les Aspin noted that “sizing our forces for two nearly simultaneous MRCs [major regional contingencies] provides a fairly large and robust force structure that can easily support un other, smaller regional operations. However, our overseas presence needs can impose requirements for naval forces. especially aircraft carriers, that exceed those needed to win two [major regional contingencies.”
The Navy-Marine Corps assessment of requirements to meet the demand for forward presence was a two-step He process. A series of workshops to catalog relevant strategic and political interests by region was organized. Complementary military objectives and a list of military tasks then were derived and used to define capabilities and to develop force packages appropriate for each geographic region. The latter effort, undertaken with representatives m of the Fleet commanders-in-chief and the unified commanders’ staff, also was reviewed by representatives of other interested agencies, including the State Department and the Office of the Secretary of Defense.
Determining the appropriate force structure goes beyond determining the types of capabilities required within a theater. There is also the constancy—or rhythm—of presence measured by the extent of coverage and the frequency of deployments:
- Continuous Presence: Assigned forces within theater 100% of the time.
- Continuous Coverage: Assigned forces within theater 100% of the time or on explicit tethers.
- Periodic Presence: Assigned forces in theater less than 100% of the time, but on a planned and regularly recurring basis.
- Episodic Presence: Assigned forces deployed within or between theaters on an irregular or ad hoc basis.
In determining the rhythm of presence, the salience of the supported political interests as well as the immediacy of the danger to those interests must be considered. Clearly,this is a subjective area, and the political judgment of area “experts” who are well-versed in regional issues is needed to develop approximate answers to questions about coverage.
In Figure 1, both objectives derive from very important or salient interests, but the dangers to those interests are postulated as low in the northern Bank and appreciably higher in the turbulent Mediterranean. The result is a demand for only periodic presence of a carrier battle group and amphibious ready group in the Norwegian Sea, but continuous (or nearly continuous) presence of these forces in the Mediterranean.
To illustrate how the interests-to-military-tasks methodology works: We postulate that one of the key political interests within the European theater is to maintain and foster U.S. leadership in NATO. In the opinion of the responsible commanders, the military objective associated with this political interest is a “credible U.S. naval combat force in situ.” The credibility of the force is further defined by the capabilities needed to attain specific military tasks in support of this objective: (1) air defense/superiority, (2) intelligence/surveillance/command, control, and communications, (3) strike/surface fire, (4) sea-based theater ballistic missile defense, (5) amphibious warfare, (6) undersea warfare, and (7) sustainment.
These tasks require a force comprised of a carrier battle group and an amphibious ready group with an embarked special-operations-capable Marine expeditionary unit and supporting forces. Figure 2 shows the logic train that leads from postulation of an interest to derivation of a supporting military objective, military tasks, and, ultimately, the requisite capabilities and force packages.
As another example, among the most vital interest within the Central Command theater is the unimpeded flow of oil at fair market price. One important military objective that derives from this political interest is the protection of shipping. To service this single objective, a force must be capable of the following military tasks: (1) air defense/superiority, (2) littoral undersea warfare, (3) strike/surface fire, (4) intelligence/surveillance/command, control, and communications, (5) escort operations, (6) maritime interdiction operations, (7) mine countermeasures, and (8) gas/oil platform operations.
The force required for this objective includes five surface combatants (three Aegis), two mine-countermeasures ships, and supporting surveillance and logistics assets. While this force is adequate for this single objective, it is not adequate for the most demanding missions requiring capabilities for forcible entry.
Joint and Aggregate Regional Force Packages
In addition to developing naval force packages, this methodology can derive alternative joint force packages—using forces from the other services that can fulfill the required military tasks. Perfect matches are unlikely and some capability trade-offs will be necessary; nevertheless, by looking at discrete military tasks and then identifying the combat-ready units from the other services that are capable of accomplishing those tasks, we should be able to develop joint alternatives for at least some of the military objectives in each theater. For example, we can postulate that a key political interest within the European area of responsibility is the containment of religious and ethnic instability and conflict. One military objective that derives from this political interest is to support maritime interdiction and/or no-fly zones. The actual capabilities required in the force are defined by the specific military tasks that support this objective: (1) air defense/superiority, (2) intelligence/surveillance/command, control, and communications, (3) maritime inspection, (4) strike/surface fire, and (5) mine countermeasures.
With this list of tasks we can derive a naval force package and an alternative joint force package that meet the first three military tasks. The naval package includes a carrier, supporting surface combatants, and maritime patrol aircraft surveillance. The joint force package substitutes U.S. Air Force tactical and supporting aircraft—for air defense and superiority—and Army helicopters and special-operations forces to board and inspect suspect vessels attempting to circumvent the embargo. An important qualification and a limiting factor is also the governing issue:
For there to be an effective complement or substitute for sea-based tactical air and ships to enforce the embargo, we need physical access to bases within the tactical reach of our military objectives as well as prior understandings about the conditions governing the employment of forces operating from foreign bases.
When these conditions are met—such as in the use of Incirlik, Turkey, to support operations in the northern no-fly zone in Iraq (Provide Comfort) or the use of Italian bases to support Deny Flight operations in Bosnia-Herzegovina—the complementarity of sea-based and land-based forces is nearly perfect.
Alternative combat-capable joint force packages clearly are an option that must be pursued to help bridge the gaps in naval presence that will result from the shrinking deployment base. However, when deploying land-based or ground units forward, host countries may attach conditions to the employment of these forces that could effectively limit their value. There is an obvious political advantage in not having to negotiate the conditions under which you use military force every time the objectives change. Therefore, when considering the full range of regional military objectives across a complex geographic area of responsibility—such as the Mediterranean—the capabilities embodied in the naval forces that service them must be seen as unique. They are mobile and flexible, ready and sustainable over time, and—most important—they are relatively independent of fixed foreign bases and conditions governing their use.
Once force packages for the specific military objectives in each region are defined, the next step is to determine which of those objectives are most demanding, in terms of force requirements. Those are termed “defining” military objectives. The force packages needed for this set of objectives are then aggregated by region to develop the forces necessary to meet the commanders-in-chief’s (CinCs’) demands for presence. The methodology assumes that forces sized to meet the defining objectives also serve the lesser-included objectives for each region.
To derive the force levels needed to sustain the demand in all the critical theaters, the individual CinC’s needs are summed up and a model with accepted assumptions regarding length of deployment, transit speeds, turn-around ratios, maintenance requirements, etc., is used to derive force levels. Not surprisingly, the force levels needed to support the demands of all the CinCs is larger than the programmed force today.
Gaps in Presence and Political Risk
The process used to derive force structure can be reversed to measure the impact on interests if the deployment base is inadequate to meet the demand for forward-deployed forces. We can begin to better define the risk—in objectives which cannot be attained on short notice (e.g., timely initial crisis response) and, ultimately, in national interests that remain uncovered for varying periods of time.
Using carriers as an example, if the 12-carrier force level were to be further reduced to ten, the immediate result would be an 84-day gap in presence (as opposed to the 24-day gap required by a 12-carrier force) in both the Central Command and European Command theaters. Alternatively, we could absorb the impact in just one theater and accept either a 154-day gap in Central Command or a 186-day gap in the European Command. This absence of the carrier and her air wing would mean that certain military tasks—such as air superiority, surveillance, or strike—could not be met for long periods, thereby seriously affecting specific military objectives and the associated political interests (see Figure 3).
In the case of surface combatants, if force levels were reduced from 120 (the aggregate demand) to 105, the immediate impact would be a commensurate reduction in the number of combatants forward deployed to one or more of the theaters of operations, If the entire reduction were absorbed in the Middle East Force, we would see a 50% decrease in our surface combatant presence there. Alternatively, we could reduce the number of combatants in the Mediterranean by three ships and abandon our stations
in the Adriatic and curtail our participation in the Standing Naval Force Mediterranean. In any case, a reduction will be measured by important military objectives and political interests that will remain uncovered.
To avoid increasing the already heavy burden on our sailors and their families, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the unified commanders have agreed to share the risks implicit in short-term gaps in forward presence by using “tethers.” Tethers allow forces to operate outside the CinC area of responsibility but within an area defined by explicit response times. Accordingly, as the deployment base has declined, the demand for continuous presence of carriers and amphibious ready groups in the Mediterranean, the Indian Ocean, and the Western Pacific has been modified to provide a reasonable degree of coverage in these three areas.
Only by the use of tethers is the current force structure adequate to meet the combat commanders’ demand s for forces without an unacceptable impact on the quality of life of Navy and Marine Corps personnel. The sharing of our principal combat-ready naval formations across adjacent forward theaters enables us to cover as many interests as possible within the limits of our deployment base and with due regard for the quality of life of our personnel. But this practice entails risks, and we need to I understand what the possible consequences may be.
Conclusion
Presence forces are shaped for combat. Forward-deployed naval forces provide the critical link between peacetime operations and the initial requirements for a developing crisis or major regional contingency. Their forcible entry capabilities provide the initial response and enabling capability for subsequent joint operations on a large scale in the event of conflict.
Our defense commitments and global interests require a robust forward naval presence. Forward presence has been a trademark of the Navy and Marine Corps, and its importance is likely to grow in the uncertain future. If we can identify specific national interests and regional objectives that can be advanced or protected by naval power, we can then determine the levels of forces necessary to secure those interests. Defining the forces we need for presence need not be guesswork.
Naval forces—like all elements of a military arsenal—are built to fight and win wars. But their most important role by far is to be positioned to prevent them. Sized and configured to meet military objectives, naval forces serve the nation’s varied interests on a regular and continuous basis—in the littorals and on the open ocean, where U.S. economic security turns on free access to the world’s markets and resources.
In this regard, the past really is prologue. Naval forces deployed forward will remain the front line in our transoceanic strategy.
