Naval Conundrum

Musings

The United States Navy has a problem which is a three headed hydra. It exists to protect our country from others overseas, and to protect our citizens and companies when they are involved overseas and are wrongfully treated in violation of treaties or in some other manner. The problem arises because it is very hard to cover the oceans of the entire world without a large number of ships, sailors and funds to operate them. The directions for the Navy and how to handle these duties comes from the president, as commander in chief, but also from the congress that appropriates its budget each year and then from the senior officers at the pentagon which give it the direct military orders for the fleets to function.

This doesn't seem too confusing except that the president, the congress, and the bureaucracy at the pentagon each have a way of promulgating the actions and funds for each year in a manner that don't meet what the other heads of the hydra are directing, and are insufficient for the actions the Navy is asked to undertake. This is in spite of all the planning and exercises the Navy does to try and anticipate how to handle major international problems spread across the oceans and to keep its ships on a rotated schedule, These three sources of directives constantly run afoul of each other.

This silliness in Washington DC, of everyone directing the Navy in a different direction, has gone on for decades. It would seem that if the Navy is going to serve the functions for which it exists the president and the congress are going to have to agree upon a budget that they will actually fund and the pentagon is going to have to establish a deployment schedule that can actually meet the needs of all the various ships and sailors that man them.

Contemplations

The Navy is not hesitant to sail in harm's way. As different squadrons returned to the United States from their latest deployments the senior officers tell us that they are prepared to conduct operations for as long as needed. That is their intention. They do not want to be sitting in port while the action passes them by. This has been true throughout our history; in the Revolutionary War we had numerous privateers that captured hundreds of British ships, John Paul Jones defeated the British frigate Serapis within sight of the British coastline in his famous battle, the navy's initial amphibious assault captured a British ammunition base in the Bahamas; soon thereafter the Navy engaged in a so-called Quasi War with France defeating a number of the French frigates from the French revolutionary navy; the Navy then moved on to fight the Barbary Pirates in the Mediterranean Sea over 3000 miles from the United States and eventually prevailed after the end of the War of 1812; in the War of 1812 the Navy won a number of engagements with the British,

it then had it's first massive amphibious assault in the Mexican American War with the capture of Veracruz by sea; next the Navy's Anaconda strategy and blockade strangled the confederate states both on the Atlantic seaboard and along the Mississippi River to deny the rebellion of the supplies that it's so badly needed; the Navy then engaged in the Spanish American War, and the United States Navy bottled up and sank the Spanish Navy in Cuba and Admiral Dewey fleet sank the Spanish Navy in the Philippines and captured Manila; in World War I when the United States entered in 1917 it sent its battleship fleet over to join the British at their base at Scapa Flow. The British sailors were beside themselves with excitement and cheering as the United States ships sailed into Scapa flow as it insured the power of the British fleet already there and the naval supremacy in that war; in World War II the Navy anticipated that it would be fighting Japan but it made the wrong preparations and started off with serious loss but then regathered itself to fight innumerable battles with the Japanese that wore down the Japanese fleet and left it mostly sunken hulks and the German submarine service with the highest casualty rate in the War; after World War II the Navy has engaged in the Korean War, Vietnam War, both Persian Gulf Wars and answered the call for numerous other engagements.

United States Navy has always been willing to sail in harm's way. It is now the only Navy that tries to address issues on a worldwide basis. The problem is it is a big world and it is very hard to have enough ships to cover all of the different missions that might arise around the world. Indeed it must be remembered that the ships cannot always be deployed, They have to rotate back to the states both to give their sailors some leave and time at home and to do the refurbishing that needs to be done after these massive machines sail and fight for 7, 9 or 11 months in a row. Thus, a large percentage of the ships are often " in the yards" and not available to respond to new issues at sea.

The Navy currently has approximately 360 to 370 ships. It has produced a plan to rotate those on a revolving basis so that it will have the ships it needs in the different locations around the world. However, very often the ships that are expected to be available are not because they went into the yards and it took much longer to do the refurbishing than was expected. In addition, the ship construction budget that is anticipated by the Pentagon is often adjusted by Congress either to add or delete certain ships that were not in the original schedule of the Pentagon so that, for example, a submarine that might be awaiting refurbishing might actually be waiting in port for 3 to 5 years between deployments. It is very hard to anticipate a regular rotation of ships when this issue exits. Obviously there needs to be some restructuring of the budget process so that it is set at a known number. It also means that congressmen should quit meddling to try and be sure the contracts for the various ship refurbishments and the equipment that go on them are not given to companies in their district or state contrary to the Pentagon plans to award those on a regular and logical basis. There are going to have to be occasions where congressmen cannot stuff money into their favorite companies' pockets.

The most difficult part of this sequence is the aircraft carriers. There are currently 11 of the aircraft carriers functioning, it could rise to 12 depending upon how the schedules operate, but the number is insufficient based upon the deployments that are currently considered necessary. For example, we are concerned about China and so we keep an aircraft carrier in Japan we also try to have some

aircraft carriers in the East Asian area and the Indian Ocean as those areas seem to be somewhat volatile and we then have the problem of where do we need carriers in the Middle East to respond to issues. This is particularly a problem right now while Israel is in another of its interminable wars with the Palestinians. Finally we have the Ukrainian war with Russia where we like to be prepared to respond to issues that may arise, and we have the other uncertain situations in the Middle East with regard to Syria and Iraq. If you take one-half of the 11 carriers and put them in the yards for their refurbishing and refresher training you quickly can see that there are not enough carriers to go around. Right now that problem is solved by just having the carriers stay longer on station, so instead of a 7 month deployment, they sometimes wind up with 9 or 11 months on deployment. These long deployments wear down the ship and the crew and that will mean more maintenance when the ship gets back to the yards and a reduced morale of the crew who told their family they were leaving for 7 months and wound up being gone most of a year.

This last aspect of morale is particularly important because the sailors are the people that keep the ships operating. The more you affect their morale the more likely they are to complete their enlistment in the Navy and resign. That means you must go recruit new sailors, train them and bring them on board. It is much preferable to have the seasoned, well functioning sailors stay on board. Further, the Navy currently has a shortage in its recruitment of about 9000 men a year. This is true of all of the armed services except for the marines. With a shortfall of 9000 men the Navy cannot afford to allow morale issues to start causing more of their enlisted ranks and junior officers to resign and go into civilian life. They must operate on a schedule that those members of the Navy find acceptable.

All of this means that the Navy must either be given significantly larger budgets each year to build more ships, increase maintenance schedules and pay higher salaries and bonuses or reduce the number of deployments and assignments to trouble spots that arise in the world. Further, many of these ships are interactive and anticipate operating with each other. An aircraft carrier will usually anticipate operating with a squadron that includes a couple destroyers, perhaps a cruiser, one or two amphibious ships and perhaps a supply ship and one or two submarines. Thus you'd have not just one large ship with thousands of men on it, you have a squadron with many thousands of men on it and they are all deploying and functioning in unison. This also means that at the end of the deployment all these ships return to their home ports San Diego, Norfolk, etcetera and have to go into some level of refurbishing. They are then unavailable for most deployments except for the greatest of emergencies. Once they get into the yards they are essentially torn apart to fix things and replace equipment and when finished must go through refresher training to be ready to operate at sea. All of these same issues currently enfeeble the Coast Guard.

This haphazard schedule of deployments and refurbishing is not good for the Navy. It needs to be redone in a realistic manner that the Navy can come close to following. There are always uncertainties that have to be addressed but the current system is simply unsustainable.

Thoughts

Because congressmen, senators and the president are all politicians and ultimately make a large percentage, if not most, of their decisions based on some kind of political point of view this problem should be taken and delivered to some type of committee that has authority to create a multi -year budget, delete the types of deployments that we are no longer going to jump and run to, and increase the number of shipyards that are able to function on a regular basis to meet the Navy's schedule, and structure the ship rotations on a basis that will keep the sailors and junior officers happy and progressing in the Navy instead of in the civilian world. There have been plenty of committees in the past that made plans for rotation such as the Navy's Optimized Fleet Response Plan in 2014. It did not last. The committee cannot just be there to make a nice document that will go on the shelf and be ignored by the next politician or Pentagon bureaucrats that don't like it. It must be force fed to the politicians and the Pentagon bureaucracy and if different deployments and issues suggest that there is a missing aspect of the plan it must be amended to correct it. The things that we cannot do must be dropped. Perhaps we will have to quit sending forces to the Middle East to try and calm that area. Some of these ships are also used for large exercises to further train seamen and officers. Maybe those exercises have to be reduced or eliminated and/or be run while the ships are operating on their deployed schedule. Some naval officers, with limited input from the politicians, have to come up with this plan, and it has to be accepted and put into place on a multi-year basis. Right now we are just scrambling.

Obadiah Plainman

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