The new Fleet Response Plan will mean more units ready and able to answer when the Commander-in-Chief calls.
For more than half a century, the defense of our nation keyed on the use of well-trained sea, air, and land forces, guided by war plans to engage the enemy in his own backyard. Forward presence—a strategy rooted in the success of forces that had proved their mettle in a global two-ocean war and in the Cold War that followed—was the cornerstone of our ability to deter crisis and to respond quickly should deterrence fail. This posture was supported by a predictable model of maintenance, training, and certification culminating in deployment dates very nearly etched in stone.
Terrorism has broken that mold. Within hours of the attacks of 11 September 2001, our Navy tensed for action in every theater, at every level of command. Three carriers and 20 cruisers and destroyers, all at differing stages in their predeployment workups, put to sea along the U.S. coastline to guard our seaward approaches. The Enterprise (CVN-65), just relieved of duties in Fifth Fleet and en route to Norfolk, returned to station 17 hours after the attacks, ready to launch strikes. The Carl Vinson (CVN-70) Battle Group, having just rounded the tip of India, soon joined her, and the Kitty Hawk (CV-63) departed Japan reconfigured as an afloat staging base for special operations forces. Logistics, maintenance, and other support staff ashore cycled up to boost and sustain our capability to maintain forces at sea for an unknown period.
Regardless of their status of readiness—in the midst of training evolutions at sea, conducting maintenance in port, or forward deployed on patrol—our ships, squadrons, and staffs moved quickly to defend the United States against further attacks and to prepare for the offensive against terror. In the two years since, we have continued a pace of sustained readiness, ultimately surging forward seven carrier strike groups and the largest amphibious task force assembled in decades for Operation Iraqi Freedom.
The defeat of Iraq, however, does not mean a return to the relatively predictable routine of deliberate planning against a well-understood enemy. The familiar, pre-2001 rotational force was optimized to meet forward presence requirements driven by the Global Naval Force Presence Policy. A modest number of units at peak readiness were deployed forward, while the majority of U.S.-based units, at an earlier point in their training cycles, were not available for use. This planning strategy will not suffice in the uncertain environment in which we will be required to operate for the foreseeable future. Instead, our nation requires a more rapidly responsive naval force, able to sustain a heightened level of readiness and "swiftly defeat" an enemy. To that end, in March 2003, Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Vern Clark tasked Commander, Fleet Forces Command (CFFC), to develop a Fleet Response Concept (FRC), a change in our readiness posture that would institutionalize an enhanced surge capability for the Navy.
Supported by the Fleets, as well as the systems and type commands, CFFC examined several alternatives to develop a new model able to meet these more appropriate requirements. Some models proved to be inadequately responsive; others prohibitively expensive. In the final analysis, a tailored, prioritized maintenance, manning, and training processes, in conjunction with an extended interdeployment cycle, best met the requirements of the FRC. The result is a plan that sustains and enhances our ability to surge naval forces required for crisis response, while still meeting current global force presence requirements. On 19 May, Admiral Clark approved the CFFC FRC proposal and directed its implementation as a Fleet Response Plan (FRP). Beginning with a fleet-wide scheduling conference held in early June, detailed planning is ongoing to support full implementation of the plan by 1 December 2003.
What Is the FRP?
The Fleet Response Plan incorporates new and revised maintenance, manning, and training processes. Maintenance schedules and procedures are structured to attain surge capability as early as possible in the cycle and then maintain it until needed forward for homeland defense. Likewise, training milestones focus on attaining core competencies earlier in the cycle to support surge requirements. Manning processes will be adjusted to ensure ships, aircraft, and squadrons have the people they need to respond to surge demands, before, after, or during deployment. The FRP will produce a well-maintained, well-manned, and well-trained force that routinely deploys at peak readiness, is able to surge at a high level of readiness, and is capable of an emergency surge with an adequate level of readiness that minimizes risk.
The FRP will demand changes in how we prepare and operate the fleet, and in how we think about our jobs. The new readiness orientation requires a cultural change in our planning and scheduling: we must begin to think "R+ plus" rather than "D-minus." In other words, all of us—from seaman and airman to ship captain and strike group commander—must realize we are not just working up for deployment (D-minus thinking), but that the nation needs us to be part of a readiness force, an emergency surge or surge force (R+plus thinking). Each sailor must appreciate and accept that we may be called on to return to sea for combat operations if and when our nation needs us. As a result, we must align our manning, maintenance, and training processes accordingly.
Meeting New Thresholds of Readiness and Surge
Attaining necessary FRP levels of responsiveness calls for more precise definitions and metrics that better capture the progressive readiness of ships and squadrons as they proceed through the interdeployment cycle. In the rotational force of the past, the fleet offered two broad categories to combatant commanders: the carrier battle group either was deployed or was the designated surge battle group. No language or metrics existed with which to better describe the readiness of additional strike group assets, such as those that recently had completed the basic phase of training. To provide this increased fidelity, a third category of surge readiness is required—"emergency surge."
Emergency surge combat units are those the Commander-in-Chief can employ in cases of urgent need. Though these units are able to meet the challenge, they may do so at some increased level of operational risk corresponding to the level of training accomplished prior to the call to surge. The following training events and readiness levels are used to quantify and qualify the progressive levels of readiness to be achieved by a carrier strike group or expeditionary strike group under the FRP:
- Emergency Surge-Basic Phase Complete/Safe to Sail: Tailored Ship Training Availability and Final Evaluation Period completed; Advanced Readiness Phase completed for air wings
- Surge Ready-Intermediate Phase Complete/Competent: All units C2 (ordnance excluded); Blue Water Certification; COMPTUEx/Final Battle Problem completed; Fallon completed; Basic Warfare Commander (WC)/Composite Warfare Commander (CWC) Integration training
- Routine Deployable-Advanced Phase Training Complete/Proficient: Joint Task Force Exercise completed; refresher training as required; Advanced WC/CWC Integration training
As a prerequisite to all phases of the deployment cycle, manning at sea must remain strong. In the rotational force of the past, a command's manning priority was increased during the 18 months before deployment. On commencement of deployment that priority was decreased, contributing to a steady decline in numbers of personnel assigned to a unit throughout the deployment and especially on return to home port. This "bath tub" in readiness, wherein manpower—and its associated experience and training—was allowed to drop, will not support today's surge-capable force. Ships and squadrons must be more "level manned" to produce a more surge-ready force throughout the extended cycle, incorporating a personnel assignment process that eliminates the atrophy in readiness and operational performance associated with the departure of skilled personnel following deployment.
Maintenance periods will focus on ships meeting earlier readiness thresholds. Training now will be focused on achieving progressive readiness goals that support the new categories of surge earlier in the cycle. While each strike group will continue to train to a tailored schedule, ships and squadrons will, in general, be expected to achieve emergency surge capability within three to four months of carrier maintenance completion. Strike groups and their constituent parts will be expected to achieve the surge-ready threshold within about six months of carrier maintenance completion. Continuing this progressive increase in readiness, strike groups would then reach the routine deployable threshold on completion of their Joint Task Force Exercise (JTFEx). When required, a strike group will refresh its training through in-port and at-sea exercises, simulators, and other operational evolutions to sustain a high level of warfighting proficiency.
Phases of the FRP Extended Cycle
As before, ships will continue to progress through the phases of the interdeployment cycle: maintenance, training, and deployment. However, with the requirement to remain surge ready, perhaps for a substantial period of time, a new phase has been added to the cycle—sustainment. Sustainment is the period during which a combat unit is at an elevated level of readiness to be available to surge or deploy routinely. Sustainment is closely linked to the operational experience and level of progressive readiness achieved during the other three phases of the FRP. While the sustainment phase typically will come at the end of the workup/training cycle, it also may come after deployment, should there be a need to maintain returning deployers in a surge status.
- Maintenance Phase: To maximize the number of combat units available for surge requires close scrutiny and management of the industrial base infrastructure. In the past, scheduling and selection of a unit's maintenance plan were driven by traditional maintenance metrics and timed to prepare for the next deployment date. Now, this phase must support surge readiness goals earlier in the cycle. As a result, new and innovative practices must be developed to gain efficiencies and maximize readiness. The FRP recognizes the critical role of maintenance organizations as they adjust their practices to create the most efficient and timely maintenance phase for our ships and aircraft. For its part, our nation's ship-repair industry, public and private, must be able to sustain its own responsiveness and readiness with a viable return on investment in facilities and a trained, relatively stable workforce. The teaming of Navy and industry to maximize efficiencies of both customer and provider will be a key enabler for FRP.
- Training Phase: In the FRP, training schedules and milestones are focused to produce the expanded surge force earlier in the cycle. In many ways, unit-level training will remain much the same as before, especially for units that deploy at the "routine deployable" milestone. In other cases, especially for those forces directed to emergency surge, training may be focused on specific and known missions to ensure an acceptable level of readiness for operations anticipated while forward deployed. Training readiness will be measured and reported in a more meaningful way, including new categories of surge readiness. These new measures must relate directly to each unit's suitability to deploy (at peak readiness), to surge (at elevated readiness), and to populate an emergency surge force (at an acceptable level of readiness). When appropriate, additional training opportunities can be incorporated into the cycle to sustain readiness during an extended period in which a unit is subject to surge.
- Sustainment Phase: Meeting the surge goals also requires an extended cycle. Lengthening the period between maintenance and deployments gains several months of capacity for operational tasking, translating into a gain in surge capability and surge time. The challenge to the fleet is to sustain readiness during this longer cycle and, with close attention to ships and aircraft, to maintain equipment at the required operational levels. Once a unit or a group attains the readiness levels to facilitate surge operations and deployment, key proficiencies to carry out expected missions must be maintained. It is anticipated that both submarine and surface forces can sustain readiness at the heightened levels envisioned, but the carrier-carrier air wing team, as well as the carrier and expeditionary strike group staffs, will require some specific additional training and proficiency evolutions to maintain their combat training edge. The extent of sustainment phase training will vary depending on the duration of the phase, as well as anticipated tasking. The extended surge window that results will give our leaders more options for responding to world crises or participating in select high-priority engagement opportunities or other priority combatant commander events.
- Deployment Phase: To support our ability to deploy greater numbers of forces when the defense of our nation warrants a surge response, we must modify current business practices. The way ships are manned (e.g., replacement of unplanned losses), how and when strike groups are formed, and the timing with which ship and aircraft systems configurations are upgraded will have to be adjusted to support a larger ready force. In particular, if a strike group is required to surge, its composition may have to be tailored. To support this it will be necessary to stabilize equipment configurations earlier in the cycle.
We are a force that knows how to deploy in support of the nation's requirements. Our normal peacetime deployment policies of six months portal-to-portal, a minimum two-to-one turnaround ratio, and at least 50% of our time in home port have been important to our overall readiness, retention, and quality of life, and we intend to continue those practices in peacetime. But in the event even one sailor, unit, or group could make a difference in the war on terror or the security of our nation by spending additional time on deployment, we will do that-and we will do it right. We are confident we will be a force that knows how to deploy and surge in the years to come.
Admiral Natter is Commander, Fleet Forces Command, and Commander, U.S. Atlantic Fleet.