Key to the latest edition of the U.S. Navy’s Navigation Plan is a quest for 80 percent surge force readiness ahead of 2027, the year former Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Phil Davidson suggests China’s People’s Liberation Army will be ready for combat operations against Taiwan. The Navy in the early 2000s pursued 60 percent surge readiness. Reaching the benchmark meant the service could respond rapidly for operations such as the October 2001 strikes on Afghanistan, and later, operations in Iraq. That level of readiness translated to as many as six carrier strike groups available for active operations over short periods, but it was pursued with mixed results over that decade.
The Navy will not likely reach its new goal this decade without first relaxing its definition of “readiness”—from perfect to good enough—nor without draconian cuts to the aging vessels in its fleet. Cuts in force size, however, will limit the Navy’s ability to respond to combatant commander needs for deployed forces during operations such as those in the Red Sea region.
Caught between these competing demands, the Navy faces a daunting challenge to reach 80 percent readiness.
Origins of the Problem
Before 1993, U.S. Navy deployments were based almost exclusively on warfare requirements against possible Soviet threats. It was common to have 60 to 80 vessels deployed out of a total fleet of more than 550 ships during the late years of the Cold War. On average, one of every three ships in the fleet was underway on any given day, but less than one-fourth were forward-deployed. The concept of the six-month deployment in an overall 18-month cycle—including six months in maintenance and repair, and six months in pre-deployment training—was codified by naval regulations in 1986 mostly to improve sailor retention.
Across the 1990s, 80-100 ships were consistently deployed, but the size of the fleet shrank from 550-plus ships in 1991 to less than 320 by the end of the decade. The Navy shed many Cold War-era ships, including conventional aircraft carriers, steam-powered cruisers, destroyers and frigates, and older amphibious ships and submarines. The post-Cold War fleet thus comprised newer ships and was able to sustain a greater deployment rate relative to its shrinking size. But the seeds were planted for future challenges. Those newer ships were burdened with a relatively high operational tempo, decreasing their readiness over time. A number of shore-based fleet maintenance activities were consolidated, making the sustainment of even a smaller fleet more difficult. In February 2000, Vice Admiral Conrad Lautenbacher testified to Congress that, “It is no secret that our current resources of 316 ships are fully deployed and in many cases stretched thin to meet the growing national security demands.”
Breaking the Mold in 2001
Following the initial response to 9/11, National Command Authority wanted naval forces ready to surge forward to support counterterrorism efforts and operations in the Iraq War. The Navy created the Fleet Response Plan (FRP) in 2003 to support a rapid surge into action of more than 60 percent of the fleet, including five or six carrier groups, within days of the outbreak of a conflict—and two additional carrier groups in short order. The 18-month deployment cycle was changed to a 24- and then a 27-month cycle, with the goal of maintaining more of the fleet at peak readiness for longer periods. The counterterror campaign and continued shrinking force structure increased surface ship operational tempo by 20 percent from 2000 to 2010. Fleet operating costs rose dramatically over the course of the 2000s. The Navy was criticized for not testing the FRP, or even giving it a firm definition for Congress to better understand its effects. A Government Accountability Office report noted that nearly two years into the new readiness program, the Navy had “not fully tested and evaluated the Fleet Response Plan or developed lessons learned to identify the effectiveness of its implementation and success over time.” The Navy also decided in 2003 to drop its basic surface warfare officers school course for a self-paced, computer-based training program, to save money.
Later in the decade, the impact of the combination of increased operational tempo and shrinking forces became apparent in poor Board of Inspection and Survey reports from a growing number of ships. By the end of the decade, reports like the Center for Naval Analyses’ Tipping Point Study and the Balisle Report highlighted the problems stemming from these changes, as well as from reductions in shore-based maintenance and crew size on ships. Crew reductions were reversed, and a new Optimized Fleet Response Plan (OFRP) was implemented in 2014. The OFRP centered on a 36-month cycle with a focus on carrier and expeditionary strike groups and longer periods of maintenance.
Carrier operational tempo was lower in the 2010s. The Navy reversed course on surface warfare officer training, restoring the Basic Division Officer Course schoolhouse ashore in 2012. But fleet size did not increase to the desired 355 ships. It hovered between 270 and 300 ships, the steady range since 2003. The average age of some ship classes cast doubt on their continued viability, as Ticonderoga-class cruisers reached an average age of 30 years, and the first flight of Arleigh Burke-class destroyers crested the 20-year mark.
Collisions in 2017 involving the USS John S. McCain and the USS Fitzgerald shook confidence in the surface navy’s training and readiness, but the service has managed to restore that confidence and press ahead with keeping one-third of the fleet deployed despite the accelerating pace of Ticonderoga retirements. Keeping maintenance on schedule has remained a challenge, and in 2020, the OFRP was updated with a focus on balancing demand for carrier strike groups against their need for regular maintenance to ensure their readiness.
The final product of optimizing the OFRP was Commander Naval Surface Force’s January 2023 initiative to have 75 of its surface vessels always mission-ready and available to deploy. This two-year effort was planned to “ensure a little less than half the Navy’s 165 surface ships — destroyers, cruisers, littoral combat ships, counter-mine ships and various amphibious ships — are maintained and manned for deployment.” Readiness in this cohort of ships was low, at perhaps 50 ships, and reportedly might have peaked at about 66 ships in mid-2023. The challenge was excessive time spent in maintenance availabilities.
Moving to 80 Percent Surge Readiness?
If the Navy has been hard-pressed to reach 50-percent readiness in a discrete cohort of ships, how will the service reach 80-percent readiness fleetwide? There are possible solutions, but they will involve trade-offs in the availability of vessels to meet short-notice operational tasking such as ongoing operations in the Red Sea. Retiring older ships that are more costly to maintain at the end of their lives is one course of action. The fiscal year 2025 30-year shipbuilding plan’s decommissioning list reflects this course. That said, the USS Wasp, an amphibious warship nearing four decades of age, is scheduled to retire in 2029—yet the Navy has contracted to spend $87 million-$104 million for maintenance and modernization scheduled to finish in early 2026. If 2027 is indeed the year the U.S. Navy will do battle with its Chinese counterpart, then why decommission any ships before then? Rest assured, the combatant commander demand signal will still be present.
Unfortunately, the latest INSURV board report states that surface-force readiness was again down in 2023, continuing what is now a three-year trend. The indicators of the last two decades have not been positive, and it will be a hard uphill road to reach 80 percent readiness in the surface fleet. The Chief of Naval Operations should be lauded for setting the bar high. It will take strong will and determination to get there, and the Navy must stay the course.
