The debate over the need for and pace of transformation in he armed forces ended on 11 September with the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. With stunning and tragic clarity, the terrorists brought to light the national security realities associated with the diminished protection afforded by our natural geographic borders, the security challenges resulting from failed states, and the looming dangers associated with the diffusion of power and military capabilities to nonstate organizations.
For the Surface Navy, transformation is not new. Our community has been transforming continuously since the mid-1970s. Faced with a force that was overworked and undermaintained throughout the Vietnam War, Surface Navy's leaders launched an aggressive, forward-thinking renaissance that has culminated with the forward-deployed, combat-ready surface force performing so superbly around the globe today.
The Aegis weapon system, the Tomahawk cruise missile, and the LAMPS III helicopter were fundamental parts of this transformation. Aegis is aboard 60% of our cruiser-destroyer force. Tomahawk has taken our surface ships from principally defensive escorts to the vanguard of our Navy's strike force. And the LAMPS III, with its real-time data link and offensive punch, has expanded the "crow's nest" view of the Surface Navy to hundreds of miles around our ships.
On the amphibious front, the big-deck LHA and LHDs, with the 50-knot LCACs, greatly expanded the reach and speed of amphibious warfare. On the propulsion and maintenance fronts, we shifted from labor-intensive, dangerous steam plants to far more automated and safer gas turbines, upgrading maintenance practices across the force.
We also transformed our strategy, making the leap from bluewater operations to littoral combat. Today's surface forces are tactically and operationally capable of conducting sustained combat operations in both venues. This has involved shifting from preparation to face a single monolithic threat—the Soviet Union—to countering the multifaceted dangers of multiple opponents in the littoral.
Still, in spite of having reinvented itself technologically and strategically, the surface forces must accelerate our transformation to continue to provide the United States with the combat capability to maintain our national security in a world changed by 11 September.
Our plan and vision for the Surface Force of 2025 are in place. At their center is the DD(X)/CG(X) family of multimission ships. These ships will include innovations such as electric-drive propulsion, integrated power systems that will bring power where most needed for combat, automated damage control, composite armors, precision long-range gunfire, optimal manning, tumble-home hulls, reduced signature, advanced radar, and enhanced human systems integration.
Even as we undertake the DD(X)/CG(X) effort, we are exploring ideas for smaller, faster ships. The littoral combatant ship (LCS) will capitalize on commercial hull form technology to develop ships that are fast, capable of fighting and winning in the cluttered littoral, and focused on missions related to battle space access. To do this, we will build new capabilities into smaller ships in the sub-frigate-size category. We are looking at other navies' concepts, including the high-speed vessel (HSV) and corvette-sized combatants. Our efforts also extend to unmanned systems designed to operate from the decks and hulls of surface combatants.
This balanced, flexible family of ships and unmanned systems will be netted together and will feature the cooperative engagement capability (CEC) and theater ballistic missile defense (TBMD). In many ways, our force will consist of "information attack ships," outfitted with the communications and information technology to exploit or destroy enemy networks.
When it makes sense, we will back-fit these new capabilities and technology into existing ships. This is true transformation.
As we accelerate our transformation, we must be mindful that our strategic, operational, and tactical perspectives also must change. Strategically, we will take a more "network versus network" approach to combat. Instead of deploying predictably, we will use our mobility and flexibility to descend quickly on a given region, undertake fast and decisive operations, and move on to the next target set. We also will vary combinations of ships, changing from lockstep deployments with our surface force surrounding aircraft carriers to asymmetric force packages that allow us to exploit our combat capabilities.
As smaller, mission-focused ships come on line, we must develop new ways to operate them as part of an integrated networked force. Ships might plug into joint force networks that remain continually in theater, separated by long duration sensors on, above, and below the sea. We might rotate crews to keep hulls in place for more on-station time.
We will integrate fully our tactics with those of our fellow services. Our combat systems and communication nets will be interoperable with joint forces. Network-centric warfare, with co-commitment improvements in real-time targeting following on the naval force network initiative, will be a real basis for our combat structure. Surface ships will deploy and service off-board sensors and robotics to find mobile and concealed threats. Finally, our tactical approach may involve far greater interaction with nongovernmental and international organizations, undertaking humanitarian operations, intelligence collection, quasi-- police activity, and protection of deep seabed mining fields and offshore oil beds.
If our vision for the Surface Force of 2025 is to become reality, we also must transform the way we acquire our ships and retain our sailors. In the world of acquisition, parallel development of multimission and focused-mission ships will allow us to insert rapidly evolving technology. Planned spiral development and periodic upgrades with the sharing of technology among programs will be key. The acquisition cycle time has to be shortened.
National demographics that make recruiting increasingly difficult and a technologically advanced force that requires a senior and experienced cadre of sailors drive us to focus on personnel retention. The efforts of Task Force Excel and the Center for Career Decisions—both headed by Surface warriors—have pioneered many transformational approaches: transportable retirement systems, alternative career options, precisely targeted bonuses, broadened upward mobility for our enlisted force, life and career flexibility programs, and lifetime educational packages. These and other new innovations are crucial.
The war on terrorism has provided a clear view to the new missions and operations that lay ahead for the Surface Navy. We will work closely with the Coast Guard to establish a sort of North American Maritime Defense Command to defend the coasts of the United States in support of homeland defense. We must be ready to monitor, board, and inspect any vessel approaching the shores of the United States, much as NORAD protects the skies above the North American continent. From an offensive perspective, the Surface Navy will be become a major feature of the "network against network" attack mechanism, as our distributed forces are used to find, fix, and destroy enemy nodes from the sea.
Surface forces also will be a fundamental part of an emerging "global maritime coalition." We represent a force for good and a stable team that many other nations will wish to join. Our partners look at our surface ships and see mirrored many of their own capabilities and operational approaches. Our ability to work with allies and friends around the world will help develop this coalition that today is engaged in the war on terrorism.
In the years ahead, speed will be increasingly important. Speed of data collecting (sensing), of converting data to knowledge, of disseminating information (network leveraging), of decision making (command and control), of platforms, and of weapons will be drivers for our community. Speed will be the critical value metric for judging the Surface Navy's transformation.
Our transformation into the Surface Force of 2025 is well under way. It will challenge each of us, and we are ready for it, as we have been throughout our history.
Vice Admiral Timothy W. LaFleur is Commander, Naval Surface Forces, and Commander, Naval Surface Force, Pacific.