Recently, I was chatting with several Navy surface warfare officers and doing most of the listening. As one of the few Army officers on the Naval War College (NWC) faculty, I am not intimately familiar with warships and naval weapons. Even so, I was struck by talk of decommissioning five Ticonderoga (CG-47)-class Aegis guided-missile cruisers starting this year, at the same time the Navy is cutting most of its Spruance (DD-963)-class destroyers.
Teaching at NWC has opened my eyes to the need to tie the systems we procure to the strategy we pursue. In simplest terms, the Navy must control the sea, protect U.S. commerce and sea lines of communication, and defeat navies that challenge U.S. goals. No doubt, Iraq demonstrates the Navy does other things well: for example, strikes against land targets, either in pursuit of sea control or as part of an air campaign. But the Navy appears to have become enamored with strike warfare at the expense of its basic sea-control functions.
After the Navy retires five Ticonderoga-class cruisers, it will be left with about 93 surfaee warships (cruisers, destroyers, and frigates) to exercise worldwide sea control—from showing the flag, to combating piracy, to protecting the world's sea lanes for U.S. and allied shipping. Notwithstanding my Army background, that is not enough.
Threats to the sea lanes are varied and can be dealt with effectively only by the surface Navy. Mines, land-based antiship missiles, and other antiaccess weapons complicate the picture. Because of growing asymmetric threats, the Navy has to secure more ocean areas and straits for commercial and military traffic-not fewer. And this requires more hulls, as opposed to the current program, which requires fewer in the near term and incrementally more in five to ten years as the Littoral Combat Ships enter the fleet.
The National Security Strategy states that the United States must be capable of taking unilateral action anywhere in the world. The reaction of many of our traditional allies to our invasion of Iraq underscored the need for the Navy to maintain wide-ranging capabilities for protecting U.S. and allied shipping. In the next five years or so, how can we be more secure with fewer surface warships?
Obviously, funding is a major problem. Hard fiscal choices are a fact of life, but they should be reasonable and-above allthey should fit the nation's strategy. Today's Navy was not acquired solely to conduct missile strikes deep inland. Aircraft carriers provide acres of sovereign territory near the enemy's coastline so U.S. forces can project power ashore and strike targets in support of air and amphibious operations.
Air and missile strikes are missions shared with the Air Force. As the Air Force increases its capabilities for global reach, the Navy will be able to scale back its focus on deep strike and feature the task that only the Navy brings to joint warfare: sea control.
Conversion of nuclear-powered ballistic-missile submarines (SSBNs) to Tomahawk missile launchers (SSGNs) is wrongheaded. The program strengthens the Navy's role in strike warfare at the expense of its core missions. It is questionable whether combatant commanders need a stealthy platform to deliver longrange Tomahawks.
Further, it is not fiscally responsible for the Navy to take billions of dollars from early retirement of surface ships to provide a capability that is duplicative of the Air Force. Similarly, the Air Force should assume the bulk of the nuclear deterrence mission while the Navy reduces its role in that arena and diverts the money saved to maintain a larger surface fleet.
I propose a strategy and force-planning construct that returns the Navy to its roots and core missions. The funds saved from reducing the Navy's role in strike warfare—nuclear and conventional—can be applied to controlling the sea-lanes from the United States to any place on the globe.
These actions will substantially increase the numbers of surface combatants capable of offensive action at sea. As we say in the Army, mass (quantity) has a quality all its own.
Army Lieutenant Colonel Patrick Donahoe, an armor officer, is assigned to the Naval War College as an instructor in security, strategy, and forces.