“You’re Gonna Need a Bigger Boat”: Principles for Getting the U.S Navy Right
Readers old enough to remember the phenomenon that was the movie “Jaws” in the mid-1970’s will understand the reference in the title of this piece. It is uttered by Amity Police Chief Martin Brody after he first lays eyes on the 30-foot shark that had been menacing his coastal town. Brody says these words after an instantaneous analysis of the threat (the shark) and the capabilities of the small fishing boat and crew upon which he was sailing. Based on press reports in the last week, it seems that something like this is beginning to occur among senior Navy leaders as they reconcile the reality of re-emerging great power competition with the size and composition of today’s U.S. Navy. Metaphorically, they are “gonna need a bigger boat.”
After 10 years of writing about the mismatch between the threat and the size of the Navy, I am encouraged by Navy leadership’s awakening to this reality, albeit belated. By way of entirely unsolicited advice (you get what you pay for), I offer the following “First Principles” to guide the effort to describe the right fleet for the future.
The important thing, is that the important thing remains the important thing. Deterrence of great power conflict is the single most important strategic goal that the Navy should be pursuing. All other interests should be subordinated to this aim. The fleet must be sized and shaped in a manner that permits both combat-credible and presence forces to be globally postured in sufficient numbers to provide deterrence and assurance where our interests are most threatened. An important component of this posture is the ability to maintain it continuously and indefinitely, with overwhelming combat power available to surge forward when needed. Conventional deterrence is a function of the localized balance of power. War-winning naval forces are a function of both forward-deployed power and reserve capacity able to be surged forward in response to crises. Both must be accounted for in the architecture.
This is a Department of the Navy issue, not just a Navy issue. The forces organized, trained, and equipped within the Department of the Navy — the Navy and Marine Corps — provide combatant commanders with a considerable portion of the capability and capacity needed on a day to day basis to provide deterrence and assurance in their theaters. This powerful combination of the world’s most lethal middleweight land force with the world’s most powerful and mobile air force (aircraft carriers, amphibious assault ships, and air wings), and the world’s most commanding surface and sub-surface force, must achieve a higher level of operational and organizational synchronization and integration within those forces for it to deliver upon its promise. Resource trades among the various components of American seapower should be on the table as a fleet architecture emerges to meet the challenges of deterring great power conflict. There is no “Navy” or “Marine Corps” or “aviation” or “submarine” money. There is seapower money, and it should be allocated in a manner that ignores tribal boundaries and, instead, creates a more integrated maritime sea control and power projection force.
Geo-strategy matters. By way of exerting upward pressure on national strategy and policy, Navy and Marine Corps leaders should work to strengthen partnerships with geographically strategic nations such as Brazil, Chile, Argentina, South Africa, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and India even as existing partnerships with Spain, Turkey, Australia, the Philippines, and Japan are nurtured. Great power conflict will be global, and deterring it demands that we demonstrate in peacetime the operational flexibility to deploy and employ forces that contribute to and impose sea control when and where it is needed, to include land-based maritime patrol and surveillance forces, manned and unmanned.
Be where U.S. interests are most threatened. American seapower largely withdrew from Europe at the end of the Cold War, a rational reaction to the fall of the Soviet Union. It is time for U.S. naval forces to return. Increased Russian aggression in Europe and its garrisoning of air and naval forces in Syria would alone justify a return of credible naval combat power to the Mediterranean, even in the absence of threats elsewhere. However, China’s increasing desire to reduce U.S. influence in the Pacific as well as our enduring interest in stability in the Middle East require additional U.S. naval power forward, where it can quickly swing from theater to theater to respond to tensions and crises. Mediterranean-based naval forces are far better postured for such swing deployments than those based in the U.S. Additionally, naval forces must again become comfortable with operating in the North Atlantic and in Scandinavian home waters, skills that will only build with regular fleet operations in these areas — operations that current force structure does not permit.
Distribute and increase combat power. Navy leadership has enthusiastically embraced the concept of distributed lethality, in which individual platform lethality is increased through the addition of longer range and more capable weapons, even as the force is dispersed geographically in order to create a more difficult targeting environment for adversaries. There is much wisdom in this concept, but it should not become an excuse for force structure cannibalization without a sound architectural basis. What I mean is that there are some navalists who would argue that we should cut the carrier force by a few ships and apply those resources to more numerous (and distributed) platforms — a variation on the “don’t put all your eggs in one basket” theory. I disagree with this approach for two main reasons, the first of which is that in a potential great power war, the carrier force will be a considerable contribution to victory, something my Hudson Institute colleagues and I wrote about last year. Secondly, this approach takes current resources allocated to naval power as a given, something that strikes me as short-sighted as we confront the reality of increasing great power tension.
Logistics, logistics, logistics. Because Navy leadership seems to agree that the Navy needs to grow and be more widely distributed geographically, it is rational to consider the logistics necessary to support such a fleet. Today’s logistics force is pitifully small to support even the peacetime operations of our too small Navy. Should that fleet be called into war, we would quickly realize that our reach exceeds our grasp and that the culprit is insufficient prepositioning, forward-based ship repair and re-arming capacity, and oilers and other logistics ships designed to supply the fleet. Navy leaders must account for both the actual requirement and combat attrition, the latter of which has been (in my experience) consistently hand-waved in previous force structure assessments.
State what you need, not what you think we can afford. While I am not advocating a resource unconstrained approach, I am advocating that Department of the Navy leadership devise a compelling strategic narrative of how naval forces can best serve to deter great power war, articulate where those forces must be arrayed and the desired level of surge capacity to support them, and then balance that force with the warfighting-only requirements generated by the formal, numbered war plans. Go where the analysis takes you and state that number as the requirement. The executive branch and Congress can then determine the extent to which they wish to fulfill that requirement, but do not negotiate with yourselves.
At the recent Future of War Conference, CNO Admiral John Richardson said the following: “I want to be the best at not fighting Russia and China.” This should not be considered a statement of reticence, but resolve. My impression is that Richardson is a serious man with a clear-eyed view of the threat for which he must prepare the Navy. An appropriate force structure requirement is the necessary first step in that process.
Bryan McGrath is the Managing Director of The FerryBridge Group LLC and the Assistant Director of Hudson Institute’s Center for American Seapower.
bigger ships equal bigger sitting ducks to adversaries with technology developed specifically to sink them.
Russia and China will no longer tolerate an american boot stamping on their face forever.
The bigger question is how will the American public react to the live broadcast on CNN of a U.S carrier up-ended and ablaze in the South China sea with its compliment of 5000 Souls drowning and burning alive after being blown apart by a phalanx of Chinese supersonic anti ship missiles?
You act like that’s a new concern though.
The Soviets/Russians have deployed anti-ship missiles and cruise missiles for decades. They deployed maritime bombers for that very purpose. They have a long range strike capability to launch air launched cruise missiles, nuclear tipped if necessary in order to sink our aircraft carriers. This capability has been around for decades
From both a strategic and a force structure prospective this nation has to adopt to the realities of the 21st Century and adjust accordingly – to do otherwise sets us or perhaps continues us on a course to strategic and economic disaster.
First, the U.S. must admit that the age of intervention is over. The nations of the world, especially those in Asia (the Far East and in Southwest Asia commonly called the Middle East) are no longer willing to have their cultural, political, and economic affairs be dominated by intervening and occupying military forces from Western Nations. Through their use of protracted warfare, their refusing to fight and withdrawing when necessary, their willingness to take a long view and accept and endure casualties and other costs they have discovered the formula for defeating better armed and trained occupying forces –- even if it takes more than a decade to achieve their ends. A lesson the U.S. seems not to have realized
Second, we have to realize and accept that there are other nuclear armed powerful nations other than just the U.S., to grasp the reality that each of these (Russia, China, …) will set up (primarily) geographically neighboring “spheres of influence” that we will have to respect. We will assuredly loose a conflict of any nature with (e.g.) the Chinese in the South China Sea – an area with which I am rather familiar, there having once spent much of my life.
Third we have to recognize that we are not and can not afford to be the “policeman” of the world. The cost to this country of our repeatedly failed interventions / attempts at that endeavor are bankrupting this nation. Interventions should occur only when a local crisis has the (real) potential to harm our nation’s economic welfare – and that requires a decision not be made by those individuals standing to loose economic gain. We must remember that absent the rare natural resource for which there is no viable substitute source, every other sourced material and product can be obtained elsewhere if not at home.
Fourth, should this nation deem a geographic location to be necessary to our or the West’s economic well being, than we should chose our allies carefully in the area with whom we can have a mutually beneficial relationship to enable our securing those geographic assets.
Fifth, we must forgo and permanently discard this idea of RTF (Requirement to Protect) based interventions. They are simply put a fools’ errand which never lead to a satisfactory economic and political outcome for this nation. The Return on Investment (ROI) is not there, or simply put there is almost a zero possibility of a positive ROI for an RTP Intervention.
Sixth, from a national defense prospective, we must invest in and develop ever improved anti-missile technology at various levels invest in developing the drone capabilities for air, sea, and underwater operations that will enable us to dominate militarily in the 21st Century.
The Navy needs to restructure its forces accordingly. Their primary missions will be developing and being capable of successfully engaging in Anti-Submarine Warfare operations with a sufficient force level as needed to manage at least two crises at one time. That requires an added investment in ASW Helicopter carrying Surface Ships and an increased investment in VP Squadrons substantially in excess of our current force level. It also requires an accompanying Auxiliary ship force far in excess of that currently available – crewed by U.S. Navy personnel.
The Navy must similarly provide increased capabilities to deliver long range Cruise Missile type bombardments from Surface Ships and Submarine – with a delivery capability far in excess of what we now possess. The Fleets anti-missile and anti-ship capabilities need to be increased and improved – and any treaty limitations foolishly agreed to in the past need to be arbitrarily discarded. Our Submarine force needs to be strengthened both as concern Attack Subs and Missile carrying subs.
Finally, the Navy needs to increase the number of ships available and on deployment of an Amphibious Nature – after it is determined how many, and the size of the, Marine Expeditionary Forces they wish to keep afloat and where they are to be located. In addition, the Navy and Marines will have to determine the size of any reinforcing levels they will potentially need and provide the ships needed for that effort. And, the Navy must accept that while the Aircraft Carrier has its roles to play such as in support of an Amphibious effort, it no longer is the backbone of the fleet. Like all ship types, its day has come and is going. The Navy should reduce the number of Carriers and their Air Wings, and convert those Wings and Squadrons to one’s flying the an increased number of P-8’s primarily equipped for ASW operations.
It is time for the Navy to recognize World War II came and went and to prepare itself for this 21st Century. Of course, the above is not an all inclusive list by any stretch of the imagination.
Bryan,
I always enjoy reading your perspective on the issue. Getting to the point: I think you are following the crowd on this. This whole conversation must start with, “What’s the force employment strategy?” The operating concepts, size of the fleet, ships composition, etc. would be dictated by the answer to that question. Instead, our conversations are consumed with manning strategies and shipbuilding strategies and resource strategies and technology development strategies…
You offer some great thoughts here but if they don’t nest with the “force employment strategy” then what is the point?
With the “leadership” handed to us by the left wing extremists and their so-called “president” for the last 8 years, it’s a wonder China hasn’t taken on Taiwan again as they tried in the late ’50’s. Back then, the Essex class carriers surrounded Taiwan and the Chinese went home. Don’t think that would happen now.
I think the entire Navy should be shit canned as obsolete, and instead the state spend the money to take care of and feed its citizens. Every year 550 billion dollars is flushed down the toilet, year after year, on the military, who never save a single dime of it…ever… and politicians are tell us they have to cut 33% off of the Food Stamp budget of 70 million, because they “just can’t afford it anymore”. I call bullshit. Why don’t you, for starters, reduce the military budget from 550 to 500 million, and take the extra 50 million and increase the Food Stamp budget instead… something that actually does something useful… like feed people who are marginal. Instead of building expensive crap that just gets sunk in 20 years to become coral reefs, poluting up the ocean, or parked out in a desert in some aircraft graveyard to rot.
Ok, this demands a response. Do you lock your house? Car? Locker? Why? Because you don’t want to lose all your precious stuff. Works the same way with nations. No defense…no stuff. Ask Ukraine how that works. Whether you like it or not, there are those in the world who want nothing more than to remove our nation and it’s influence from the face of this planet. As someone who did not grow up in this country, I can assure you, seeing the carriers sail into town provides plenty of nourishment…for the soul.
In regards to USMC, the Corps has already begun a massive rethinking of it’s roles and organization under the new Sea Dragon concept. I will disagree that Marines should fall under Seapower purely based on history. History, that is, of the Navy trying to remove Marine air assets from the Marine Air Ground Task Force concept so central to the Corps and it’s success. Additionally, Navy admirals seem unable or unwilling, to understand basic Corps needs. A prime example of this is the steady elimination of Naval Gunfire (NGF) capabilities, and the takeover of the FA-18. Despite clear historical evidence of the necessity of NGF in the execution of amphibious and near shore operations, the admirals have ignored this and allowed NGF to disappear. When the lightweight, fuel efficient FA-18 program ran into funding issues on the Corps side, the Navy took over and just look at the size of the thing now, not to mention it’s thirstiness for fuel.
Instead of more supercarriers, I would suggest adding multiple “jeep-carriers” with both Navy and Marine air on board, and some Marine combat or Marine Special Operations units as well. Fast, ultra manoeverable, hard to find and hit, these carriers would require less logistical support and defense. Though it seems callous to say, the loss of one of these carriers would also be less catastrophic to the overall Seapower mission. Of course, it is also easier to replace smaller carriers quickly if at all. We absorbed massive “jeep-carrier” losses in WWII.