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Buried beneath a year’s worth of headlines on Tailhook, cheating at the Naval Academy, and gays in the military is a gem of good news: a surprising turnaround in Navy’s credibility on Capitol Hill.
Last spring, while most of us wondered whose head would roll next in the latest scandal, the Navy submitted the first in a series of budgets to change the hue of naval operations from deep-water blue to littoral green. With a few notable exceptions, lawmakers embraced a new vision of American sea power called . .From the Sea." And with that vision came a revised budget that Congress had wanted to see for several years—one that merged the political reality of steep declines in defense spending with a logical refocusing of forces and equipment away from global war with the Soviets and toward a more effective response to regional threats emerging along the World’s coastlines.
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"The Navy took a breathtaking leap,” said a senior Pentagon appointee, “and proposed a major change in the way the fleet would fight.” The service then backed its rhetoric with an aggressive combination of base closings, personnel reductions, and decomissionings—ships, submarines, and aircraft squadrons. In effect, Navy leaders told Congress the haze of uncertainty they’d been working under since the end of the Cold War had burned off. The service knew where it was going and how to get there.
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"The Navy finally seemed to have its act together on how it fit into the broader scheme of things,” said a staff member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. “Just two years ago, it looked like they were still trying to do the same things they’d done (during the Cold War), just a little less.”
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Congressional Watch
U.S. naval nuclear-powered submarine inactivation, disposal, and recycling is one aspect of the Navy’s effort to accelerate the drawdown and streamline force structure—sacrificing quantity today for quality tomorrow.
In coming to grips with the reality of smaller budgets and the need to redefine missions, Navy and Marine Corps officials also understood how carefully the plan had to be choreographed. Suddenly, it was the Navy preaching to the Congress about restraints on spending, streamlining force structure, accelerating the drawdown, killing marginal weapon programs, closing unneeded bases, and encouraging “jointness” in training and operations. The service would sacrifice quantity today for quality tomorrow. It
would shift research money from open- ocean antisubmarine warfare to the littoral mine and air threats U.S. forces might face in the next regional conflict.
“Before the sea change in attitude marked by the 1994 budget,” said one congressional analyst, “the Navy had big problems. Looking at budgets long term, it would need three attack submarines a year to maintain 80 and a carrier every three or four years to keep 12-to-14; they had major needs for aircraft to replace a fairly old fleet of planes. If you added all that up, the procurement costs
were far larger than the Navy was ever going to get.”
In 1992, each naval warfare community—surface, submarine, and aviation— was protecting turf, grabbing at whatever dollars it could find. That hobbled the Navy’s ability to set priorities for a changed world: enter then-Vice Admiral William A. Owens, in the new post of Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Resources, Warfare Requirements, and Assessments. The position was part of a major Navy Department reorganization, to curb the squabbling and to consolidate
By Tom Philpott
budget decision making. Admiral Owens and his staff began to make tough choices to free funds to recapitalize the Navy’s inventory of ships, submarines, and planes. The Navy would get smaller— faster—so it could afford to buy the high- tech platforms future missions would require. Editors Note: See “The Quest for Consensus, ” pp. 68-72, this issue.
The plan called for deep cuts in the submarine force, the retirement of older surface ships sooner than previously announced, and the controversial acceptance of a temporary loss in attack aircraft ca-
pability until the Navy could afford to buy a replacement for the aging A-6. “The combination of these decisions put the long-term Navy budget much closer to what the Navy was likely to get,” said the Capitol Hill analyst.
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Congress rewarded Navy’s new initiative last year by passing a budget very close to what the service had requested. “We needed stand-off weapons; we needed laser guidance, and they provided that support,” said one senior Navy officer. “But the biggest thing Congress did was recognize there was a change in the
Navy. The arrogant swagger of the past was no longer there. It was a team: people willing to get on board for the good of the nation. This was a tough time, and we were making tough decisions.”
For the current fiscal year, the Navy and Marine Corps have enough cash to sustain training and operational tempo and to keep overall readiness high. Navy officials intend to keep those same rates through 1995: filling 90% of authorized billets and performing 90% of depot maintenance on surface ships as well as 95% on submarines. At any time, the average maintenance backlog on airframes will be 100 and on engines 250, “about what you’d have in the transportation pipeline,” said a Navy budget official.
Last year. Congress also approved the key to the Navy’s recapitalization program: $2.6 billion to build three more Ar- leigh Burke (DDG-51)-class destroyers.
year—a total of 61—and to remove the A-6 Intruder from flight decks by 1996 rather than extend its life with costly modifications.
Once the budget reached Capitol Hill, there were more showdowns over tactical aircraft, submarine development, and support for CVN-76. In each case, however, the Navy came out on top. Programs aimed specifically at improving the fleet’s ability to strike from the sea at threats ashore—including start-up money for a series of standoff attack weapons as well as a $400 million upgrade to command- control-and-communication systems on board carriers and amphibious assault ships—breezed through committees. Like many other Americans, lawmakers were stunned to learn that during the Persian Gulf War air tasking orders had to be downloaded onto floppy disks and flown daily to the carriers. The Navy would oth
While the Army and Air Force point toward the Navy and Marine Corps for fiscal year 1994 budget cuts, Senator Sam Nunn, Democratic Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, wants a protective barrier around the entire defense budget—to keep it safe from domestic programs.
A bigger surprise came when the appropriations committees set aside $1.2 billion toward construction of the next aircraft carrier, CVN-76. The money came not only a year earlier than needed but also even before the authorizing committees had approved the program, much to the consternation of Representative Ron Dellums, new chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.
The Navy, of course, did not get everything it wanted in fiscal year 1994. To begin with, the Clinton administration demanded an additional $11 billion cut from what President George Bush requested in his final budget. The Navy’s share of that cut—more than S3 billion— forced the department to cut an additional 21,000 sailors and 2,000 Marines on top of an already aggressive drawdown program. It also forced the Navy to retire more ships than it had planned this
erwise have been on its own in the air war for lack of a high-speed data-link capability to receive target information from air command headquarters. In addition to the data links, the Navy is installing new communication gear, sophisticated enough for command ships at sea to serve as joint task force command centers.
Here and there, the Navy did take hits, however. It received only part of the money needed to cover a 2.2% pay raise for 1994; the remainder had to be shifted from other accounts. At the same time, the Clinton administration learned a hard lesson about sending budget to Congress without something in there for the troops. The Navy’s procurement account was cut by $600 million, down to $16.4 billion, and Congress funded only $8.4 billion of the $9 billion sought for research and development. “But overall,” said a Navy budget official, “the cuts weren’t killers.”
Not every lawmaker agreed. “The Navy got creamed,” said Representative George Hochbrueckner (D-NY), whose constituency includes Grumman Corporation, the manufacturer of four of five fixed-wing aircraft on carriers, including the A-6. “My analysis shows the Navy took a $5.6 billion hit,” from what the Bush administration proposed and what Congress finally passed. “That was $500 million more than the Army and Air Force combined. It didn’t make sense . . . considering the Navy is going to be the out-front service as we draw down from overseas.”
The Navy says it is comfortable with its plan for replacing the A-6. It got research and development money to provide F-14 Tomcat fighters with limited air-to-ground capability. By 1997, the Navy will begin accepting an enhanced attack version of the F/A-18 Hornet, with greater range, a larger pay- load capacity, and a smaller radar signature.
That scenario doesn’t create a mere “gap” in the Navy’s attack capability, said Hochbrueckner. “It’s a chasm.” He vows that the tactical air battle is not over and said that he will try to have money inserted in the fiscal year 1995 budget to upgrade as many as 150 Grumman F-14Ds with the same night and all-weather attack capability as the Air Force F-15 Eagle. The other fight he’ll lead involves the Navy’s decision to cancel a $6 billion program to upgrade electronics on board the EA-6B jammer aircraft. Although the full program is probably unaffordable, he wants the Navy to use the $500 million already set aside to do “some minimal upgrades.”
Hockbrueckner is confident he’ll get the votes he needs, at least in the House. "The same coalition exists today that did five years ago, when we ended up beating Les Aspin (then-chairman of the House Armed Services Committee) to save the F-14, the V-22 Osprey, and Reserve and Guard. . . . Besides, the Navy wants to do it. They just need to be nudged a little.”
Talk of parochial politics and horsetrading sets Navy nerves on edge. “If Congress understands we’re making the sacrifices, if they see the risks we’re willing to take and they help us, we’ll make it. But they have to understand we are doing business differently,” said a Navy official.
Another official said sometimes it’s Congress that seems out of step with the times. “We’ve refocused from the Cold War,” he said, “but the questions we get asked haven’t refocused.” Long-time sup-
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Proceedings / May 1994
porters of the A-6, for example, still ask about the capability of replacement aircraft to put “tons over target.” In this era of smart, standoff munitions, he said, “That’s a Cold War question. . . . We changed the technology, but the questions haven’t changed.”
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The services unveil their budgets each year with the breathless intensity of acrobats trying to keep plates spinning atop an uncomfortable number of poles. Last year, an appreciative Congress applauded the balancing act at all the right moments—and few plates got broken. This year, the Navy can sense a different feel from the crowd. That uneasy feeling doesn’t come from the committees directly responsible for military budgets— armed services and defense appropriations. The danger lies in what amounts to congressional sucker punches. Three such punches were thrown in February alone:
► In passing a supplemental budget for fiscal ‘94, the appropriations committees found themselves short of cash to fund California earthquake relief and to reimburse the services for contingency operations in Bosnia and Somalia. They then pulled more than $500 million from money the services need to close military bases. About $300 million of the lost cash was earmarked to come from the Navy, which wants to close bases as aggressively as it can to free up money for its recapitalization program.
“We took a gamble,” said another senior official. “Now we could be in a world of hurt.”
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Even if these funds are restored, some Navy officials wonder if lawmakers from states and districts harmed by base closings might have discovered an effective way to knock the entire process off track.
“Our budget program is predicated on a lot of things happening on time. If they don’t, we eventually will face major problems,” said a Navy officer.
► President Bill Clinton, in his State of the Union speech, warned that he would not tolerate deeper defense cuts than he proposed in his 1995 budget submission. Senators Sam Nunn, Democratic chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and Pete Domenici, ranking Republican on the budget committee, urged colleagues to support placing a “wall” around the defense budget to protect any part of it from being shifted into domestic programs.
By early March, however, the Senate Budget Committee already was reporting a problem. A committee staff member said the impact of inflation on Clinton’s domestic programs required another cut of $8 billion to meet budget targets.
“You can assume defense is not going to pay for any of that,” said the staffer. "But if history is any guide, it will. Those
same (legislators) decided to take $2 billion to $3 billion out of defense budget authority last year. Assuming walls don’t go up around defense, I don’t see anyway the same kinds of pressures and forces won’t come into play this year.” ► Representative Patsy Mink (D-HI) introduced an amendment that would shift the $900 million cost of providing government impact aide from the Department of Education to the Department of Defense. The government provides the aid to local school districts around the country to help cover the cost of educating the children of service members, federal civilian employees, and persons living in federal housing projects.
Besides the attempts to divert defense dollars or cut defense spending, the Navy and Marine Corps will brace for criticism from both ends of the political spectrum. The 1995 budget calls for the purchase of six new ships, including three more Arleigh Burke-class destroyers. The total inventory of surface ships will fall from 413 to 373. By 1999, the inventory is expected to level out at 330, 16 fewer than had been projected in the Bottom Up Review. The number of Navy tenders, designed for wartime repair of ships at sea, will decline from 14 to 4. The attack submarine fleet will drop by four.
The Navy would be the only service buying tactical aircraft in 1995—if Congress approves its request to order 24 more F/A-18 Hornets. That is a dozen fewer than the Navy would have liked with a larger budget, officials said. They also want four E-2C Hawkeye early- warning aircraft. The number of active carrier air wings will fall to ten and Reserve air wings to one. Three P-3 Orion patrol squadrons will be decommissioned along with three A-6 squadrons. With so many ships leaving the fleet, the Navy decided it didn’t need to purchase a single helicopter in 1995. While the Marine Corps’ active strength has leveled off at 174,000, the Navy will lose another 30,000 sailors next year to reach 441,600.
Navy officials say its infrastructure is still far too large and costly. Service teams already are hard at work on another list to submit to a new base closing commission that will convene next January and will undoubtedly trigger another stream of complaints from lawmakers in affected areas. The new base closing list is expected to focus on cross-service consolidation of such entities as logistics centers, health care facilities, and maintenance depots.
Conservatives like Representative Randy “Duke” Cunningham (R-CA) are angered over the depth and pace of the drawdown under the Clinton plan. "Defense cuts of $127 billion (over five years) put not only U.S. security at risk.
but the world at risk,” said Cunningham. “The Clinton administration,” he said, “set out to cut a fixed amount from defense, then developed the Bottom-Up Review to justify it. This will all result in a less capable military and risk the lives of our men and women when they have to go into combat. ... If I sound bitter it’s because I am.”
Representative Ike Skelton, a senior Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, also believes the cuts have gone too deep. He suggested at the Navy’s 24 February posture hearing that service leaders were volunteering to cut more ships than even the Bottom Up Review required. Skelton wants to take a closer look at the services’ ability to respond to two major regional conflicts, as touted by the Bottom-Up Review. Other special hearings are likely on Tailhook, readiness, and recruiting.
Meanwhile, liberal lawmakers like Dellums will challenge big-ticket weapon programs linked to Cold War scenarios. These include construction of another aircraft carrier. CVN-76; another Seawolf (SSN-21) submarine; and research-and- development money for a new attack submarine. The Pentagon argues that the programs must be sustained to preserve a fragile, high-tech defense industrial base.
Members from both parties also are expected to ask Navy and Marine Corps officials whether their budgets haven't fared better than those of the Army and Air Force recently. If so, isn’t it time the sea services lose a few rounds? That’s the question some service officials fear the most. Others say it’s an easy one to answer.
"There’s concern about the Army and Air Force saying ‘You hit us last year. It’s time to hit the Navy this year,”’ said a Navy officer. “If we really believe we fared so well a year ago, it is because you can get more utility out of naval forces. I don’t need anybody’s permission to have my naval forces off the coast of Somalia. And they are safe. I’m not putting my people at risk. I get nothing out of a presence mission by the Air Force. What are they going to do, orbit a B-1 forever?”
Hochbruekner. a former Navy enlisted man, is one member of Congress who says he knows the answer. “I really see the Navy as being the out-front service. And to be out front properly they need some money and some strong leaders to emerge to say, ‘Okay, we’re sorry about Tailhook. It will never happen again. We learned our lesson. Now let’s get on with life. Here’s what we need.’”
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Mr. Philpott, a former editor and senior writer with Navy Times, works today as a freelance writer. He will write a forthcoming column on defense hardware for Proceedings.