Since the end of World War II, the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps—occasionally joined by the Coast Guard—have operated as forward-deployed forces in fulfilling four missions: sea control, power projection, strategic sealift, and nuclear deterrence. Throughout the long decades of the Cold War and up to the present moment, that approach has served the nation well, allowing the Sea Services to fulfill their mission to “be organized, trained, and equipped primarily for prompt and sustained combat incident to operations at sea.”
Various strategic concepts have come and gone over those decades—from the Cold War’s classic Maritime Strategy to . . . From the Sea after the fall of the Berlin Wall to various concepts associated with the so-called forever wars more recently. But the essence of the Sea Services’ mission has remained unchanged, and at heart it has been predicated on operating forward. The reasons for this are sound and remain valid today.
Yet, as the nation again shifts gears in terms of its opponents, entering a renewed period of great power competition, some analysts argue it is time to scale back forward deployment in favor of enhanced training in local waters and a reshaped operational concept. Former Deputy Secretary of Defense Bob Work has been a leading voice in this regard, saying recently that “a slavish devotion to forward presence has nearly broken the U.S. Navy” and that operational readiness has been “sacrificed on the altar of forward presence.”
Forward presence, simply another term for deploying forward, is not an “altar” at which the Sea Services “slavishly” worship. It is the anvil on which their mettle is forged. Sailing into distant seas is what makes the Navy and Marine Corps team the fighting force it must be. While there clearly is an imbalance between the high level of commitments for the Navy and Marine Corps and the size of the fleet, the solution is not to pull back into home waters. There are other ways to address the stress on the force.
The Case for Forward Deployments
Deterrence: Foremost, forward deployments create deterrence, hopefully allowing the Navy and Marine Corps to fulfill their basic missions without combat. Allies and opponents alike know the power and reach of U.S. carriers, surface strike combatants, submarines, and amphibious assault forces. They have seen them in use over the past decades and are well versed in the power projection and sea control elements of naval forces. Likewise, those forward forces represent the ability to conduct nuclear strike operations and maintain strategic sealift to allies.
Like a lighthouse on a rocky coast, Navy and Marine Corps forward-deployed forces will never know with certainty what crises their presence has averted because an opponent realized they were within striking distance—in real time—of its own forces. You would not tear down a lighthouse because no ships recently had gone aground. Pulling back from forward deployments would be the functional equivalent of toppling a lighthouse.
Combat Ethos: For both sailors and Marines, forward deployments are an essential element in creating combat ethos. As any sea captain will tell you, the moment all lines are taken in and the ship heads fair down the channel for a prolonged and distant deployment is profound and satisfying. Sad as the crew and embarked Marines are at leaving family and friends for many months, this is a catalytic moment—when attention is focused completely on mission accomplishment—that cannot be duplicated by pulling in and out of homeport. More prosaically, deployment provides a huge additional number of hours that can be devoted to training, maintenance, and operational concerns. This windfall of time, coupled with the psychology of deployment, provides significant combat capability.
Allies: Allies are watching and weighing U.S. forward deployments. This is far beyond “showing the flag.” In today’s world—with 24/7 reporting, including images of departure, sea crossings, passages through critical choke points, and arrivals at foreign ports—forward deployments are magnified and become viral influencers when strategic communications are managed properly.
In addition, forward deployments permit the Navy and Marine Corps to operate extensively in distant waters with allies. Sailing in company with the sailors and Marines of allied maritime nations helps bond the global maritime coalition that is among the nation’s greatest assets. And when exercises are complete, and U.S. service members debark to socialize and engage with their counterparts, the impact can be powerful—from Tokyo to Darwin to Crete to Bahrain to a hundred other critical points and ports around the world. That cannot happen operating in the Virginia Capes a hundred miles off the East Coast or in the waters off southern California.
Opponents: Opponents are watching, as well, and they will take advantage if U.S. forces pull back. Nature abhors a vacuum, and if U.S. Navy vessels and embarked Marines fade to local waters, others will increase their presence. China and Russia, who are drawing closer together, already are conducting joint maritime operations from the northern Pacific to the west coast of Africa and even in the Caribbean Sea.
It is no coincidence that China is building nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and 21st-century “coaling stations” along the coasts of Africa and south Asia to support global operations. It is seeking to expand its ability to conduct the kind of forward deployments that have been the hallmark of the U.S. Navy. It would be ironic if the United States were to stop deploying forward just as China developed the capability to do so.
Operational: It is a bit cliché to say U.S. Presidents always ask, “Where are the carriers?” when a real-time crisis emerges, but clichés often reflect reality. A powerful carrier strike group, operating alongside an expeditionary strike group, cannot suddenly transport itself across the vast Pacific Ocean. Conducting “over the horizon” operations from San Diego or Norfolk will not work in many scenarios.
Indeed, timing is everything. As one senior flag officer related to me:
When ISIS was on the outskirts of Baghdad in 2014, and the immediate use of airpower was required to stem their advance, the State Department requested permission to sortie land-based USAF assets off concrete runways in the Middle East. It took 54 days to get that permission. It took 100 days to get Turkey’s permission to use Incirlik—which the United States built! The USS George H. W. Bush was repositioned from the North Arabian Sea and was flying strikes within 48 hours.
For all these reasons, the Navy and Marine Corps should continue to deploy forward—or risk surrendering a key element of U.S. national security. But there are ways to adjust the current construct that would have a salutary effect.
Relieve the Pressure
There are several options that would relieve pressure on forward deployments:
Cap forward deployments at six months. Much of the stress on the fleet has come from 8–12 month deployments. Study after study shows—and most sailors and Marines will tell you—that anything longer than six months is too painful on the home front. Obviously, in the case of active combat operations, deployments might have to stretch under orders from the National Command Authorities, but as a general rule, the Sea Services should hold to no more than six months at a stretch away from home.
Forbid second deployments without at least a year (and preferably 18 months) operating in home waters. The opportunity for sailors and Marines to reacquaint with loved ones, engage in American society, and take well-earned leave and liberty would help reduce stress and improve performance. Again, exceptions would have to be made for certain units with direct combat missions in time of war, but they should require approval of the Secretary of Defense. The ideal would be to be out of home waters no more than 6 out of every 24 months.
These policies would require either reduced demand from the combatant commanders or an increase in the number of ships, sailors, and Marines—or, more likely, both. Combatant commander “demand signal” must be attenuated by the Joint Staff, coordinated with the Navy and Marine Corps (who must have the ability to say “no mas”), and recognize the end of the mindless “can do” era. And Congress must step up to increase the supply side of the equation.
Ensure adequate funding for maintenance and training during the year between deployments. Nothing is more frustrating to sailors and Marines than broken equipment and untrained shipmates. To have a fully combat-ready maritime force prepared to sail forward will require a sensible balance between procurement of new systems and platforms and the funds to maintain what already is in service.
Fix the Supply Imbalance
It is important to note that the imbalance in the Navy and Marine Corps “supply” to the combatant commanders is not something the services created. The Global Force Management system has simply allowed the demand for carriers to greatly exceed the available supply for two decades. As one of the architects of the Navy’s current deployment process said to me, “We have to get better at rationing scarcity.” He is right: This is a shared responsibility among the National Command Authorities (the President and Secretary of Defense), the services, and the Joint Staff as honest brokers.
About 20 years ago, the Navy made some progress with the Fleet Response Plan, which set up reasonably coherent timing for deployments, creating a “just in time” process. But after 9/11, the combatant commanders began to write checks the Navy and Marine Corps simply did not have assets to cash, arguing “we are at war.” The Joint Staff and National Security Council staff simply passed the requests along, driving the Sea Services into a permanent surge mentality.
But the answer is not to end forward deployments and come back to home waters to train. The Navy has the ability to set in place a more reasonable system while increasing the number of assets to get the fleet back in sync.
One possibility is simply to station more assets forward. The current push, for example, to increase Forward Deployed Naval Forces (FDNF) in Australia is a step in the right direction, with Marines headed to Darwin and discussions of adding ships forward as well. Given the inevitability of North Korea popping up on the horizon again, the services might want to think about naval assets homeported on the Korean Peninsula. The same idea should be considered for the eastern Mediterranean, either in Crete or Haifa or both, adding to the four Arleigh Burke–class destroyers in Rota.
All of this must be done with a weather eye in two directions.
The first is the impact on the joint force. As the nation heads toward what likely will be a lengthy period of great power competition, it must be mindful of what synergies can be achieved by combining the combat effects of the services in different ways than it has been doing. The Army is moving out on concepts for its contributions in the Pacific, which are less obvious than what will be done by the Navy–Marine Corps team and the Air Force.
It is tempting to say, “Well, we are out of the desert, so let’s shift funding to the maritime, air, and space forces.” But all the branches have important roles to play, and the service that the nation most needs may be yet to emerge—a cyber force. Thinking through how resources are balanced among them will be challenging, but keeping an active and operational presence forward will be essential.
The second consideration is what U.S. opponents will be doing. Watching both Chinese and Russian moves around the periphery of their nations—from Ukraine to the South China Sea—will help determine where scarcer forward deployments will best be focused. It might be necessary to put more capability forward into sub-Saharan Africa, on both coasts of the continent, than seems likely at the moment. Iran may push aggressively following the likely failure to renegotiate a nuclear arms pact, which will shift patterns again, perhaps in conjunction with China as it steps further into the embrace of “one belt, one road.”
In a nutshell, the Navy and Marine Corps have been asked to do more with less for two decades without tangible relief. Some of the tragic collisions at sea and other indicators of weakened readiness have been the result. But the answer is not to give up all the advantages of deploying forward and putter around home waters.
Instead, the Sea Services need the additional time and funding to maintain the advantages of operating forward. The Navy likely will not send the same number of ships forward, nor with the determined frequency that all the combatant commanders would like. But deploy they will, at a pace and funding level that makes sense.
In the end, the nation needs to maintain the lighthouse of deterrence shining well away from its shores, where it can have the most effect. And it is on the anvil of those forward deployments that it will forge the most combat-ready force. Together, the anvil of deployment and the lighthouse of deterrence must remain the touchstones of the Navy and Marine Corps team in this turbulent 21st century.
