New Maritime Strategy

[ea6bflyr]

The Navy posted an update to their Maritime Strategy.

What caught my eye was this:

The strategy calls for increasing the Navy's forward presence to 120 ships by 2020, up from about 97 ships today. This includes forward-basing four ballistic-missile-defense destroyers in Spain and stationing another attack submarine in Guam by the end of 2015.

The Navy is scheduled to increase presence in Middle East from 30 ships today to 40 by 2020.

Will this increased presence equate to more deployments or more time at sea? No idea, but one could ascertain that there will be more forward deployed ships around the globe.

On a positive note, if you are a destroyer warrior, you might be able earn more sea pay and COLA!

Thoughts?

 

[robav8r]

Just finished reading this as well. The long pole in the tent, as always, is the required funding to make said strategy a reality. We shall see . . . .

 

[Flash]

A big looming shadow over everything is the Ohio-class replacement. It is the number one procurement priority for the CNO and threatens to eat the rest of the shipbuilding budget whole. I know the the Navy is trying to get that paid out of big DoD funds instead of Navy funds, along with the USAF trying to get some of their nuke modernization paid out of DoD funds as well, but who knows if they can get it done.

The whole nuke weapons infrastructure is a bill we have put off paying for 25 years and it is going to come due sooner than anyone wants.

 

[Recovering LSO]

Can anyone define "all domain access"?

 

[SynixMan]

Still waiting for the forward deployed helo squadron in Rota to support those DDGs. One can hope!

 

[Hopeful Hoya]

Considering SSBNs are the most survivable leg of the nuclear triad (and really represents a national asset and not just a Navy one), I don't get the rationale behind footing the Navy with the entire bill when it is simultaneously trying to build an entirely new class of CVNs and trying to contain China's naval growth in the littoral regions of the Pacific.

...unless you want to send Ohio-class subs out against extremely advanced diesel subs and essentially leave our entire deterrence up to vulnerable land-based silos and 50+ year old B52s and B1s and a smattering of B2s, that is.

I guess just another example of a lack of strategic-thinking in Congress that has become an unfortunate norm over the past 10 years.

 

[Flash]

Considering SSBNs are the most survivable leg of the nuclear triad (and really represents a national asset and not just a Navy one), I don't get the rationale behind footing the Navy with the entire bill when it is simultaneously trying to build an entirely new class of CVNs and trying to contain China's naval growth in the littoral regions of the Pacific.

...unless you want to send Ohio-class subs out against extremely advanced diesel subs and essentially leave our entire deterrence up to vulnerable land-based silos and 50+ year old B52s and B1s and a smattering of B2s, that is.

I guess just another example of a lack of strategic-thinking in Congress that has become an unfortunate norm over the past 10 years.

The Navy is not alone in 'subsidizing' national capabilities within its service budget, the only service that gets away with not doing that is the Marines. While I think there is some validity in creating a new budget pot o' money like they have for intel for the nuke stuff but Congress will have to buy off on it since they are the ones that hold the purse strings.

As for being the most 'survivable' that is debatable. While anyone with a computer nowadays can find where our ICBM's are every single one of the over 400 hundred we still have in the ground would have to be targeted individually to take them all out, they were built in hardened silos that are far enough away from each other that one enemy nuke could only take out one silo. That means whoever targets them would have to launch over 400 nukes at us in order to take out the ICBM force, and they would have to be pretty accurate too. You would only need 6 or so torpedoes to take out our deployed SSBN force, of course the challenge is to find them but it is a sobering numbers game none the less.

 

[BigRed389]

The Navy is not alone in 'subsidizing' national capabilities within its service budget, the only service that gets away with not doing that is the Marines. While I think there is some validity in creating a new budget pot o' money like they have for intel for the nuke stuff but Congress will have to buy off on it since they are the ones that hold the purse strings.

As for being the most 'survivable' that is debatable. While anyone with a computer nowadays can find where our ICBM's are every single one of the over 400 hundred we still have in the ground would have to be targeted individually to take them all out, they were built in hardened silos that are far enough away from each other that one enemy nuke could only take out one silo. That means whoever targets them would have to launch over 400 nukes at us in order to take out the ICBM force, and they would have to be pretty accurate too. You would only need 6 or so torpedoes to take out our deployed SSBN force, of course the challenge is to find them but it is a sobering numbers game none the less.

Those numbers sound convincing out of context, but in one, the enemy can solve the problem of a surviving nuclear retaliatory force relatively simplistically by just throwing more firepower at it.

In the other, due to Trident II's range, that isn't a realistic option, barring some new sensor technology that finally makes the ocean transparent.

 

[Hopeful Hoya]

...link...

Very interesting read. I would agree that ICBMs give a strategic advantage in numbers, but I still think SSBNs have the advantage in terms of survivability and element of surprise.

 

[Spekkio]

Considering SSBNs are the most survivable leg of the nuclear triad...

I would argue it's easier to develop the capability to track and destroy SSBNs than the capability to develop a boatload of bunker-busting ballistic missiles that must hit their targets accurately and simultaneously to prevent launch. We're kind of lucky that Ivan went broke during the cold war and can't develop a significant number of modern SSNs, otherwise that would be a very real concern right now.

What this illustrates is why the triad is important and no one capability really dominates another. It would be extremely difficult and expensive for a country to develop the capability to counter all three.

...I don't get the rationale behind footing the Navy with the entire bill when it is simultaneously trying to build an entirely new class of CVNs and trying to contain China's naval growth in the littoral regions of the Pacific.

In theory, if a service is asked to do more then it should get a higher portion of overall defense spending. In theory.

 

[Spekkio]

Will this increased presence equate to more deployments or more time at sea? No idea, but one could ascertain that there will be more forward deployed ships around the globe.

According to the VCNO, the plan to forward deploy more ships has been in the works for quite some time. It was in response to sequestration and finding a way to cut O&M costs. Forward deploying more ships cuts on all the fuel, supplies, etc. needed to get the ships across the ocean before they go on mission.

 

[squorch2]

There's no way to achieve more presence without more ships. Expanding FDNF is the last ditch effort to sustain deployment rates.

 

[Uncle Fester]

It's just math...they're not adding ships or reducing obligations, and stretching cruises is breaking planes and boats and driving people out. The only way to make the math work is to reduce transit times. That means forward deployment. Of course, that's expensive, especially for the initial capital investment, but what's the alternative?

 

[Pags]

Will be interesting to see how more overseas time without major overhaul periods will impact ship maintenance. The other thing that was a pain being overseas was access to classes/facilities such as DC and Firefighter trainers. If you're in a fleet concentration area that's a quick trip on no-cost orders. If you're not near a fleet concentration areas, the TAD funding required to get everyone trained is not insignificant.

 

[squorch2]

Hot takes:

• It's not a strategy. It's an aspirational budgetary document. (witness specific platforms being mentioned in almost every section)
• It does not talk about interagency cooperation or other whole-of-government efforts.
• It talks about how we will win battles, but not so much about how we will win wars.
• Having a classified annex to the strategy defeats the purpose of having a strategy.