Information Dissemination

House FY14 Mark

noreply@blogger.com (Galrahn) — Wed, 22 May 2013 04:00:00 +0000

From here.

Congressman J. Randy Forbes (VA-04), Chairman of the Seapower and Projection Forces Subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee, released today the legislative language of the Seapower Subcommittee’s mark of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). Chairman Forbes and Ranking Member Mike McIntyre (NC) led the Seapower Subcommittee in producing a mark (PDF) which designates essential funding and sets priorities for the U.S. Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force.

Everyone in the news is probably going to talk about the CVN part of the mark. I'll be focusing on a few other highlights that caught my attention.

Page 8: Multiyear procurement authority for E-2D aircraft program. This is a pretty big deal, and a good deal for everyone. The big five programs in Naval Aviation today that give the United States the big jump on the rest of the world are, in order, the EA-18G, the E-2D, P-8, MH/SH-60, and UCLASS. I believe the US Navy can screw up everything else in naval aviation, but if they get these five programs right, naval aviation will own the future.

Page 12: Annual Comptroller General Report on the Amphibious Combat Vehicle Acquisition Program. I had the opportunity a few years ago to really get to know the EFV up close and personal. No question, it is the most amazing piece of ground equipment ever built for the Marine Corps. It was also completely unaffordable. With that history in mind, having the GAO watch the new program like a hawk with an annual report is likely a very healthy thing for the program and for the Marine Corps. Marines don't like publicity, but respond well to it. The GAO will serve as a useful public spotlight for this program.

Page 15: Unmanned Combat Air System Demonstration Testing Requirement. Basically Congress is making a law that forces the Navy to conduct an inflight refueling of the X-47B from a tanker aircraft. With all due respect to Congress and the Senate, but if you seriously have to write this into law, isn't it time to be a bit more diligent with your responsibilities when it comes time to approving Flag Officer promotions? Seems to me there are other, more effective ways, to send a clear message to the naval aviation community. Naval aviation leadership must be running a shit show when Congress has to use direct language to tell that community how to test their most promising technology.

Page 16: Limitation on Milestone A Activities for Unmanned Carrier-Launched Surveillance and Strike System Program. Quoted in full:

The Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics may not award a Milestone A technology development contract with respect to the Unmanned Carrier-launched Surveillance and Strike system program until a period of 30 days has elapsed following the date on which the Under Secretary certifies to the congressional defense committees that the software and system engineering designs for the control system and connectivity and aircraft carrier segments of such program can achieve, with low level of integration risk, successful compatibility and interoperability with the air vehicle segment selected for contract award with respect to such program.

This is such a big topic. I really need to write about this topic.

Items of Special Interest

These are some of the general issue requests included in the Mark. Some are very interesting.

Air and Missile Defense Radar deployment on naval vessels

The Navy has reported that the Air and Missile Defense Radar (AMDR) suite is being developed to fulfill Integrated Air and Missile Defense requirements for multiple ship classes. This suite consists of an S-band radar (AMDR-S), an X-band radar and a Radar Suite Controller. AMDR would provide multi-mission capabilities, simultaneously supporting long-range, exoatmospheric detection, tracking and discrimination of ballistic missiles, as well as Area and Self Defense against air and surface threats. For the ballistic missile defense capability, increased radar sensitivity and bandwidth over current radar systems are needed to detect, track, and support engagements of advanced ballistic missile threats at the required ranges, concurrent with Area and Self Defense against Air and Surface threats. For the Area Air Defense and Self Defense capability, increased sensitivity and clutter capability is needed to detect, react to, and engage stressing Very Low Observable/Very Low Flyer threats in the presence of heavy land, sea, and rain
clutter.

According to the Government Accountability Office report “Assessments of Selected Weapons Programs" (GAO-13-294SP) from March 2013, “the Navy plans to install a 14-foot variant of AMDR on Flight III DDG 51s starting in 2019. According to draft AMDR documents, a 14-foot radar is needed to meet threshold requirements, but an over 20-foot radar is required to fully meet the Navy's desired integrated air and missile defense needs.”

The committee supports the continued development of the AMDR capability, but is concerned about the physical limitations associated with the future deployment of this capability on the Arleigh Burke-class Destroyer Flight III. Therefore, the committee directs the Secretary of the Navy to submit a report to the congressional defense committees by March 1, 2014, that addresses the following:

The capability requirements associated with the AMDR;

Required space, cooling and electrical distribution upgrades necessary to support AMDR on the Arleigh Burke-class Destroyer Flight III;

An assessment as to whether the limitations associated with the Arleigh Burke-class Destroyer Flight III will negatively impact the deployment on AMDR;

An assessment of the deployment of AMDR on other naval platforms including the San Antonio-class Amphibious Transport Dock; and

An assessment of the expansion capacity of the Arleigh Burke-class Destroyer Flight III to support further spiral development associated with future weapons.

What a great idea. Congress is basically saying they see that there appears to be some disagreement on how to proceed with AMDR, and is basically telling the Navy to make their case for the platform they want to field AMDR. Very smart - pass the popcorn. The thing is, and it is apparent someone in Congress must know this already, the Navy has actually been doing these assessments regularly, and those assessments are critical of DDG-51 Flight III as the way ahead. Bottom line, Navy needs a roadmap for a new major surface combatant. Everyone knows this. SWO leadership is worried about this though, because a new design is expensive, and would likely end up reducing the total ship numbers at the high end of surface warfare.

Littoral Combat Ship radar capabilities

The committee is concerned that the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) radars are not being optimally used to provide maximum protection. The USS Independence variant’s radar can rapidly and accurately detect and track small, fast moving targets at all altitudes; small surface targets in severe clutter; and rockets, artillery, and mortars launched from shore-based threats. The radar also can perform air and surface surveillance, target identification for weapon systems, and high-resolution splash spotting. The radar has successfully demonstrated simultaneous detection and tracking of air, surface (swarming small boats) and mortar targets in the world’s most challenging littoral environments. To ensure that the LCS program fully leverages the various capabilities of its modern radar technologies to protect this new class of ship, the committee encourages the Department of the Navy to fully utilize the capabilities provided by the current LCS radar suite and ensure that the embarked crew is fully trained on the radar's capabilities. Furthermore, the committee directs the Secretary of the Navy to provide a report to the congressional defense committees by March 3, 2014, on the steps the Navy has taken to enhance LCS sailors’ training on the radars full range of capabilities.

The radar in question here is made by SaaB North America. This looks and smells like a lobbyist has told Congressman Dan Maffei to add this nonsense into the mark.

Saab North America has a problem. They supposedly have this really great radar - just ask Congressman Maffei, but it really doesn't matter. The problem isn't the radar, the problem is the radar is tied to the combat system on the Austal variant of the LCS, and that combat system has a fatal flaw typical of software development in government. The UI is terrible.

The idea this is some training problem for the Navy is a hilarious load of lobbyist spin. The surface warfare community has a user interface into the combat system that is standard across the entire AEGIS line of warships. The Freedom class version has a combat system that uses a very similar interface to that of AEGIS, so when a sailor comfortable with the AEGIS system goes to work on a Freedom class ship, they pick up the combat system without any problems. But when a sailor goes to work on the combat system of an Independence class LCS, the combat system user interface is completely different. The DDG-1000 has a similar problem (but it's actually much worse!). Instead of making the combat system user interface look and feel like every other combat system in the fleet at the User Interface level, the LCS-2 combat system insists their user interface is better.

If I was the EADS lobbyist, I would meet with Dan Maffei's and deliver the fastest desktop, fastest laptop, and fastest smart phone on the market, but instead of mainstream operating systems - and the good Congressman is probably very comfortable with Windows XP or Windows 7, all those super awesome machines should all be loaded with Ubuntu OS. I would bet Congressman Maffei would decide to go back to his old computers before the meeting was over, because UI matters to users. Just like combat system UI matters to sailors.

AEGIS is government owned. These folks who complain about Lockheed Martin's monopoly in the Navy on the combat system are given chance after chance to compete, but they fail every time because no matter how good the technology is under the covers - and sometimes it is really fantastic - they lose to Lockheed Martin because they refuse to imitate the user experience of AEGIS that every sailor in the Navy is comfortable with. As an IT guy who develops enterprise systems for government, I laugh when observing a classic mistake contractors do far too often, and all I can say is these companies get exactly what they deserve when they get nothing. It isn't the Saab North American radar. That radar might be legitimately great, but it doesn't matter at all. The real problem is the software folks who insist their way of doing user interfaces for the US Navy is better than the way everyone in the US Navy does it. That's just stupid!

OK, so that is likely NOT what the Navy's report will say, but it is the real background on what this item in the Mark is all about. If you want confirmation, all you have to do is talk to the SWOs who have worked on combat systems on AEGIS ships and have seen both LCS combat systems. While there is supposedly a competition between the two combat systems, the Navy would be crazy to pick the combat system on the Austal version of LCS, because the UI has nothing in common with the UI of the combat systems used throughout the rest of the fleet. The capabilities are relatively the same, but the UI is not.

As a New Yorker, I was very amused when I saw this in the mark, because to be honest very smart politicians like Dan Maffei are exactly the kind of politicians we like, but in this case his constituent is trapped in a software nightmare scenario because the SaaB radar is integrated with the wrong combat system. Training issue? You bet, but it isn't the Navy who needs the training, it's the IT contractors responsible for UI of any combat system that wants to compete with Lockheed Martin who need training.

Long-range plan for the construction of naval vessels

Pursuant to section 231 of title 10, United States Code, the Secretary of Defense provided the annual long-range plan for the construction of naval vessels on May 10, 2013, as informed by the Future Years Defense Program (FYDP) for fiscal years 2014-18. The Secretary also indicated that a force structure of “about 300 ships” would be necessary to support ongoing naval operations. The Secretary further highlights the “resourcing challenges outside the FYDP largely due to investment requirements associated with the SSBN(X) program”. The Secretary acknowledges that these ship construction pressures will precipitate higher fiscal requirements in the mid-term planning period (fiscal years 2024-33) requiring an annual investment of $19.8 billion per year in fiscal year 2013 constant dollars.

The committee believes that there will be significant pressures on the ship construction accounts that will result from the Ohio-class replacement ballistic missile submarine program, while concurrently supporting the balance of ship construction requirements. The committee also believes that a significant increase to the ship construction accounts is unsustainable in times of budget challenges. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that the average ship construction investment over the last 30 years, in current dollars, is $16.0 billion. Therefore, to better understand the significance associated with even sustaining the current ship construction investment throughout the long-range plan, the committee directs the Secretary of the Navy to provide a report to the congressional defense committee by March 1, 2014, that provides an update to the long plan for the construction of naval vessels based on $16.0 billion across the entirety of the long-range plan and to assess the corresponding reductions in the shipbuilding plan. The Secretary of the Navy should also provide an assessment of this investment in terms of the health associated with the industrial base.

This is another very smart idea. Basically, the House is taking Eric Labs $16 billion shipbuilding budget average and telling the Navy to deliver a theoretical shipbuilding plan using that number and include everything the Navy thinks they need.

Bob Work's probably sitting in his new CNAS office wondering why the House never gave him this opportunity! In all seriousness, every think tank with an interest in US naval power in Washington, DC should put together a report based on this request. Why not? If you read Ronald O'Rourke's shipbuilding reports for CRS, you would know he loves including those kind of reports for data point comparisons. On that note, maybe Bryan and I should write our own report too. Anyone seriously interesting in sponsoring that can send me an email.

Integration of high-energy laser weapons on surface combatants

The committee supports the Navy’s ongoing efforts to develop and field a high-energy laser weapon for surface ships, but is aware of significant challenges presented by integration of such a weapon into a surface combatant because of power and space limitations. Therefore, the committee directs the Secretary of Navy to provide a report to the congressional defense committees by March 1, 2014, on the Navy’s plan for addressing the challenges of power generation, storage, and delivery associated with the integration of high-energy lasers, electro-magnetic rail guns, high-power radars, electronic warfare systems, and other such energy-intensive technologies.

Vice Admiral Hunt once suggested to me he believes LCS is an interesting candidate for fielding a laser or rail gun because of the power that can be generated by the turbines while the ship was underway on diesel engines. Now, LCS isn't exactly designed for that, and I don't know how either variant would redirect that power to a weapon system, but I wouldn't be surprised if both Austal and Lockheed Martin haven't thought about it. Seems to me that both companies would find a way to have their ship represented in this report, if indeed leveraging that turbine power for weapons systems is in fact feasible from a small design change perspective.

A Fleet Design in Decline

noreply@blogger.com (Galrahn) — Tue, 21 May 2013 13:00:00 +0000

Following the release of the Maritime Strategy for 21st Century Seapower, the Navy almost immediately tied budgets to strategy when John Morgan, as part of telling the story of 21st Century Seapower, claimed every budget is a strategy. Six years later under CNO Roughead and now CNO Greenert, it should be fairly obvious to everyone that strategic thinking in regards to Naval force structure is almost exclusively a military political strategy for dollar and industry share. Strategic guidance and thinking manifest as plans towards what a community can buy to build upon what a community already has.

I'm sure there is a sophisticated process behind how the Navy designs the future US Navy, but I'm also convinced that sophisticated process wouldn't survive a single debate with many competitors outside of OPNAV. If one stays with the same plan long enough expecting a different result, even a layman will eventually be able to point out the problems. In the case of the Navy's current fleet design under the plan released with this years budget, the math and real numbers suggest to this layman that the fleet as designed has peaked and is now in decline, indeed the Navy's own numbers highlight this very well.

I don't care about 30 year projections when it comes to shipbuilding. Short, Medium, and Long term trends and activities to me are measured in 5 years, 10 years, or 15 years respectively. Anything projected beyond 10 years is probably unreliable, and anything projected beyond 15 years except for ship retirements is surely fiction. For those playing at home, Military Times has all the PDFs you need to see the Navy's new plans. As I look at the new plan I am primarily focused on the next ten years and the last ten years, since the fleet numbered 297 ships in 2003 and is expected to number 297 ships in 2023 based on the Navy's own plan. I will also look at retirements beyond 10 years where applicable. As of May 20, 2013 the US Navy has 284 ships.

This link is the USN Plan for FY2014 (PDF), and this link has all the slides nice and neat (PDF). A lot of what I am about to discuss can be found there, with the rest of the details explain in future blog posts over the next few days.

The US Navy's Big Plan FY2014

The Navy makes clear the following planning assumptions.

Battle force inventory of the "2012 Navy FSA" will remain the objective of this plan.*
In the near term, the Annual budget for Navy shipbuilding will be sustained at the levels of the FY14 President's Budget (PB14) through the Future Year Defense Plan (FYDP). In the mid-term, annual budget will remain at appropriate (higher) levels,; and in the far term, be sustained at appropriate levels (slightly higher than current historical average).
All battle force ships serve to the end of their planned or extended service lives. **
The DoN will continue to acquire and build ships in the most affordable manner.

* FSA means Force Structure Assessment.
** Except for those that don't

I cannot explain the third point, except to say it is insulting. How can all battle force ships serve to the end of their planned or extended service lives when the Navy, down on page 21 of the same report, retires 7 CGs and 2 LSDs before their service lives are up? Glad you asked. Basically the Navy is moving these ships to a reserve status so the Navy can say those ships aren't technically retired early.

The unspoken planning assumption is that the President's budget completely ignores sequestration. We'll see how that turns out.

By 2023 the fleet will look different than today

The fleet increases the number of CVNs. The Navy had 12 CV/CVNs in 2003, has 10 CVNs today, and will have 12 CVNs in 2023. The Navy is sending a clear signal with this budget that the Navy will field 11 aircraft carriers (which is the legal requirement) until at least 2040 under current plans. I personally found it just a little ironic that the 11 aircraft carrier law is just about the only law that the Navy actually seems to care about in the entire shipbuilding plan.

The fleet increases the number of large surface combatants from 85 today to 87 in 2023, but by replacing CG53s with DDG51s, the overall number of VLS cells drops by over 500 by 2023. Even as the numbers of large surface combatants remain relatively constant throughout the 2020s, the number of total VLS cells will decline by 880 throughout the entire fleet by 2028. It is also worth noting all the DDG-51 Flight Is and Flight IIs that make up the bulk of the current ballistic missile defense fleet of the US Navy will apparently be retired from 2028-2034. To sustain this, the Navy expects to build either 2 or 3 DDGs at the cost of a DDG-51 Flight IIA ship from FY15 until forever.

The fleet decreases the number of attack submarines from 55 today to 48 in 2023. The total will actually fall to 42 by 2029 and never recovers to above 50 throughout the rest of the plan, and the plan never reaches the requirement of 52. The VLS payload module for Virginia class SSNs is not included in the budget, and will cost about $400 million per submarine. The SSGNs will retire without replacement in 2027 resulting in a total loss of VLS capacity of over 600 from the submarine force.

The fleet of 31 amphibious ships today will decline over the next few years but recover to 31 by 2023. There are only three amphibious ships built over the next decade until 2023, 2 LH(X) and the LSD(X), meaning two first in class ships. Noteworthy the 31 ship amphibious force could legitimately be 33 ships if the 2 LSDs weren't placed in reserve in FY15. Also noteworthy that with the upcoming retirement of USS Denver (LPD 9) and USS Peleliu (LHA 5) the Navy has two legitimate chances to convert amphibious ships into more AFSBs of different types. If you add Ponce (AFSB1) that gives the Navy 36 amphibious ships plus the MLP squadron, which in my book is a legitimate 2 MEB force. But too much wishful thinking, because in the end it's only 31 amphibious ships according to the plan on paper.

The combat logistics force of 31 ships in 2013 will reduce to 29 ships from now until forever, and under current plans the combat logistics force will be the smallest it has been in about a century. I have never heard a compelling reason articulated why the Navy would shift to the Pacific Ocean, and in doing so would reduce the size of the combat logistics force. I am sure there is a complicated reason for this well beyond the understanding of this layman observer.

All of the frigates and dedicated mine ships either already have been or will be retired by 2023, and the featured new additions to the fleet since 2003 and until 2023 will be 38 Littoral Combat Ships.

And for the record unless all public data on the F-35C, including that of GAO and CBO, is wildly incorrect, there is no math on the planet that suggests the Navy can field 10 carrier air wings in 2023 that are identical with 10 F-35Cs squadrons and 30 F-18E/F squadrons unless naval aviation gets a considerable increase in funding. I haven't seen this discussed anywhere, but the numbers for a little basic math and historical comparison is there to do some estimating. The Navy is going to fall billions short, unless flight hours are going to be down considerably on existing Super Hornets (which may be the plan?).

The current US Navy plan narrative goes something like this.

Naval Aviation
The Navy will pay to maintain the 11 big deck carrier requirement. UCLASS will be ISR only through at least 2025, and as such has joined the E-2D and EA-18G in N2/N6. N98, with their current "all in" approach to the F-35C and "your out" approach to UCLASS, has effectively sucked all the money out of every other community in the Navy. The CVN carrier air wing is on the verge of remarkable cost efficiency with five different models of aircraft using only five different engines; specifically the F-35C, the F-18E/F and EF-18G, the E-2D, UCLASS, and the MH-60R and MH-60S helicopters. At the same time, the entire platform and system model has become so expensive that today the Navy can only fully maintain 7 carrier air wings, with 2 carrier air wings suffering from training restrictions - 9 total today. How the Navy ever expects to afford 10 identical carrier air wings for 11 aircraft carriers in the future is a feat of financial magic yet to be revealed, and will almost certainly require a significant increases in funding. It is hard to see a scenario where the CVN of the future will ever be as efficient as it has been over the last decade, because that simply isn't ever going to happen with F-35C. As a result, the CVN force will almost certainly decline in capability over the next ten years relative to today.

Submarines
The attack submarine force will decline to far below requirement just as the ballistic missile submarines are being built. The SSGNs will be retired without replacement resulting in a loss of over 600 VLS cells from our submarine force over the next ten years. The payload module for the Virginia class submarine is apparently not in the budget plan, meaning to sustain current VLS capacity in the submarine force the Navy will require a significant increase in funding per attack submarine to fill the gap. As a result, the SSN force will almost certainly decline in capability over the next ten years relative to today.

Large Surface Combatants
The retirement of the CGs and by replacing those large surface combatants with DDGs will result in a net loss of almost 900 VLS cells throughout the surface fleet over the next 10 years. All new construction DDGs are priced at the remarkably efficient price of the Flight IIA, despite the need to add the new AMDR radar and despite Sean Stackley all but conceding in testimony that all new DDGs in the Flight III configuration will lack the power necessary to field the advanced weapons like lasers and rail guns currently in development for the surface force without major modifications, indeed often coming at a trade off for even more VLS cells or hanger space. As a result, the major surface combatant will almost certainly decline in capability over the next 10 years relative to today.

Amphibious Ships
The fleet of 31 amphibious ships today will decline over the next few years but recover to 31 by 2023. By every standard the amphibious force of 2023 will be more advanced and more capable than the amphibious force of today, but just because the Navy gets the ship portion of the amphibious force right doesn't mean the Marine Corps will get the ship-to-shore connector part right. I am a believer that the F-35B and MV-22 is a legitimate 21st century capability, but this need for speed requirement in AAV replacements has me wondering if the Marine Corps is too stuck on old ideas to come up with a 21st century way of war from the sea. I've never heard of such a thing as littoral warfare without Marines, and yet instead of building 21st century capabilities on land and sea, the Marine Corps seems stuck on the idea of a 2 MEB Okinawa style invasion. The littoral property that is going to require a 21st century Marine Corps isn't the beach, it's the oil platform and the 300,000 ton VLCC that if sunk, instantly creates the 2nd largest environmental disaster in recorded human history in some neutral powers fishing spot. In 2023 the US will have a 21st century amphibious force, but it is still unclear if it will be fielded with a Marine Corps stuck in a 20th century mindset.

Mine Warfare and Small Vessels
Over the last ten years the Navy has retired 12 MCHs and over the next ten years the Navy will retire the rest of the original 14 MCMs. It could be suggested these 26 dedicated mine ships are being replaced by 24 Littoral Combat Ships with 24 MIW mission modules.When the latest SAR comes out (hopefully Thursday) we'll look at the lifecycle costs of this in detail, but until then I'd just point out that based on FY12 numbers it would appear the LCS + MIW module as a mine warfare replacement for these two vessels is going to cost the Navy almost $1 billion a year.

Now obviously the LCS + MIW module is not the same as coastal minehunters or minesweepers. LCS can sweep a larger minefield, can self-deploy to the minefield threat, is much better armed and defensible than mine ships, doesn't require sailors to be in a minefield, and in theory the ship can be used for something other than mine detection and clearance.

In 2023 the Navy will have 38 LCS, each with 2 crews and it is likely several of these ships will be forward deployed to Middle East and Pacific region areas. It is still very unclear how effective the LCS will be in any role, or what exactly the ship will bring to the fight. The LCS does not add combat power to the fleet, and the degree to which LCS is a legitimate networked sensor capability is still very unclear.

Theory Meets Reality
I see all the promise of increased capability in the FY14 Navy plan as evidence that the Navy plan is a theory of advancement that fails to cloak the reality of decline. In theory, mission modules are great. In reality, mission modules are still very far from a real capability today. In theory, UCLASS is the future of naval aviation strike and the savior of the CVN. In reality, UCLASS is in N2/N6 and isn't even seen by the N98 crowd as a naval aviation strike platform yet. In theory, Large Diameter UUVs will pick up the slack of the reduced SSN force and impending loss of SSGN strike capacity. In reality, LDUUV is a PPT slide. In theory, five engines for five platforms and EMALS and greater efficiency and stealthy F-35s all makes for a great CVN capability. In reality, if you buy 10 CVNs, the answer to how much the CVN capability costs is simple - the cost is ultimately less of everything else in every other Navy community from now until forever, and that is a neverending decline with no evidence anywhere the CVN is capable of picking up the slack of what is being lost. In theory the surface combatant force is getting better radars and better missiles and can shoot down ballistic missiles. In reality, fewer VLS means less offensive strike by the SWOs who are being relegated to defending HVUs, and in my read of naval warfare, playing defense at sea in the missile era is a long term loser.

In theory, everything in the Navy is great. In reality, the current fleet design has apparently peaked, and from here going forward everything under the current fleet design is more expensive. The Navy is trading advanced ISR capabilities for strike capabilities, and in fact every community is significantly increasing ISR while legitimately decreasing strike. It's the trend of the current fleet design, and only through PPT promises does that trend look any different at some distant future point.

Finishing the Kill Chain
The only areas the Navy Plan is actually advancing seapower is with total CVNs, overall amphibious force capability, and the Littoral Combat Ship. Unless the combined capability of the CVN in 2023 and the LCS in 2023 is superior to any combination of networked systems fielded today, this Navy Plan is a course towards irrelevance for the US Navy.

The proof is in the numbers. The proof is in the math. Ultimately, the proof is the plan provided by none other than the US Navy. This plan needs lots of money just to be executed as is, even more money to make the adjustments necessary to fix the obvious flaws, and in my opinion it needs lots of work and critical thought to fix some areas that are consuming limited resources with limited, marginal, or altogether unclear advantages.

The current fleet design is one of naval decline because it favors doing the same thing the same way and expecting better results after a decade period where efficiency in fielded capability peaked, and is now slowly declining with the addition of new evolved solutions. To make matters more complicated, all competitors to the US Navy are building capabilities that specifically attack the weak links of the current fleet design - weak links like the CVN which is numerically limited but consumes an overwhelming percentage of total fleet capabilities and investment, and weak links like a numerically challenged logistics force.

Less offensive capabilities on and under the sea has made the Navy even more reliant on the limited number of aircraft carriers, and can anyone in the Navy explain why the F-35C is the only platform in the 3 major communities that is adding a new strike capability to the fleet? The proposed Flight III sure doesn't advance the surface community towards the future, the payload module for Virginia is unfunded, the LCS surely isn't adding notable combat power, and the UCLASS is ISR only?

Sorry, but my read of Wayne Hughes is that we need to strike effectively first, and while I agree winning the information/communication battle in any environment is a critical enabler, it also means Navy must be capable of putting warheads on foreheads at the point of contact. That second part is not evident in the current fleet design based on what I see in the Navy's latest plan.

CNO and CSAF on Air-Sea Battle

noreply@blogger.com (The Conservative Wahoo) — Mon, 20 May 2013 13:17:00 +0000

The uniformed heads of the Navy and Air Force recently placed a piece in Foreign Policy entitled "Breaking the Kill Chain--How to Keep America in the Game When Our Enemies are Trying to Shut Us Out." I recommend reading it to gain additional understanding about what the two services mean (and don't mean) when they talk ASB. I don't know what General Welsh's long term plan is, but I do think we navalists are particularly fortunate that Admiral Greenert seems to like to put his thoughts on paper. I don't know CNO except by reputation and the company he keeps (Submariner). But I would not have predicted he would be so publicly engaged--it is a good decision and he is doing it well.

A few things about the piece:

1. It continues to boggle my mind that ASB has created the anti-bodies that it has, though I should not be surprised. We are become an expeditionary military, meaning that the preponderance of our war fighting force is and will be CONUS-based. When we need to protect far-flung interests, that power must be employed far from home, against capabilities that seek to deny us entry and freedom of maneuver (A2AD). If you don't get there, and if you can't maneuver there, if you can't project power from there, you can't win there. It really is that simple.

2. The fact that Greenert and Welsh acknowledge that A2AD threats are not new is notable. We cannot forget that during the time of our Superpower status, A2AD was the order of the day. The Soviets fielded a powerful array of capability that sought to deny us the ability to project power. We did not then cower from preparing to meet that challenge, nor should we now. It should be remembered that the Maritime Strategy of the 1980's took as an entering assumption that war with the Soviets would remain conventional, and that conventional strikes on the Soviet homeland (especially in the NW Pacific) would be pursued. Those who take to their sedan chairs with fear of nuclear conflict with rising powers, if we pursue options that include conventional strikes, do not remember their history.

3. Although I admire the thinking behind the highly networked force advocated in the article--and believe it should be pursued--I continue to believe every single exercise of note should contain significant operations in a comms denied/satellite denied environment, and long periods of emission control (EMCON) operations. Additionally, we should continue to work to field robust networks that are comm path agnostic, in order to quickly reconfigure from one pipe to another.

4. The best thing about ASB (to me) is that it seems to signal a Navy on the offense. I'd like to see this continue, and I'd like to see budgets that reinforce this. Keep the narrative focused on offense.

5. China. There, I've said it. I was in a session recently with one of the Deans of Modern Seapower who tried to make the case that the US was being insensitive (my word) to Chinese sensitivities in the way we talk about ASB. Two thoughts here: first, the Chinese are wont to take offense where none exists, so metering our policies and approaches against their institutional paranoia seems unwise to me. Secondly, we shouldn't forget that ASB is at least in part a counter to a military strategy pursued by the Chinese designed to keep us from defending Taiwan or interfering with any other matter the Chinese deem their business. We need to keep pointing this out.

Update: This just in....

Bryan McGrath

A Good Week for Navy

noreply@blogger.com (The Conservative Wahoo) — Thu, 16 May 2013 13:15:00 +0000

This week's launch of a UCAS demonstrator (X-47B) was a good week for the Navy--a really good week. To the extent that anyone pays attention to what the Navy does these days, this achievement has captured imaginations and has helped to reinforce the notion (fact) that the Navy is indeed moving forward with important technologies even in a time of scarcity. Whether this continues or not is an open question, but for the moment, we all have something to nod approvingly about.

Here's something you don't read often from me--I am going to give the Secretary of the Navy credit for something.

He has made investing in unmanned technologies a priority of his term from day 1. He has set aggressive--yet achievable--goals for integration of unmanned capability into the Carrier Air Wing. He has--through this prioritization--been able to fence off a number of important unmanned initiatives from cuts that some in the Navy would have gladly administered in order to keep their pet programs more fully funded. And while I remain convinced that he has squandered much of his term in the pursuit of side-shows that don't meaningfully contribute to American Seapower, his emphasis on unmanned systems in all domains will be something upon which he can stake a legacy someday.

Bryan McGrath

Land Power in the Asia Pacific

noreply@blogger.com (The Conservative Wahoo) — Tue, 14 May 2013 23:59:00 +0000

Spend a few moments with this piece from Armed Forces Journal entitled "Back to Reality: Why Land Power Trumps in the National Re-balance Toward Asia." Although I am not persuaded that the author makes the case for land power "trump"ing anything, there is a considerable amount of impressive thought here about the role of (U.S.) land power in Asia, and some really insightful thinking about AirSea Battle, conventional deterrence and escalation.

Anyone who thinks conflict with China in the Asia-Pacific will leave out ground forces is mistaken. If such a conflict comes, China will almost certainly seek to extend its defensive perimeter against U.S. power projection forces, and this will almost certainly involve the PLA seizing land from nations with which we have treaty obligations or with which we are increasingly friendly. Land power--and a lot of it--will be needed. But it won't get there unless the Navy and Air Force can create operational seams in the A2AD environment, and it won't survive long without the ability to neutralize PLA advantages in the missile bombardment campaign.

Major Chamberlain also is insightful about the role of land based air and missile defense forces in shaping the operational environment. I was particularly gratified to read his advocacy of increased air and missile defense force structure within the Army TOA. Hopefully this thinking will catch on.

Bryan McGrath

LGM Podcast: Canadian Security and Defence Policy

noreply@blogger.com (Robert Farley) — Sun, 12 May 2013 12:50:00 +0000

A couple days ago I sat down for an LGM Podcast with Dr. Paul Mitchell of the Canadian Forces College to talk Canadian military and procurement policy. We went on a bit about general issues of Canadian strategy, followed that up with a long discussion of Canada's relationship to the F-35 project, moved on to a discussion of the future of naval aviation, and concluded with a few words about Canadian perspectives on the "Pacific Pivot." All images courtesy of Wikipedia. Here's a link to the .mp3 version of this podcast.

Let's All Emote Together!

noreply@blogger.com (Robert Farley) — Thu, 09 May 2013 13:07:00 +0000

For this week's Diplomat column I delve into (gasp!) actual political science:

But what if even the leaders of states don’t know how they’ll react to certain events? A recent International Organization article by Jonathan Mercer investigated the role of emotion in decision-making. Although the theory is somewhat complicated, the argument boils down to the idea that we use our own emotional reactions to events as evidence of our interests and preferences. A classic experiment along these lines involves a coin flip, with heads deciding one course of action and tails the other. By flipping a coin, you determine whether you’re happy or sad about the outcome; accordingly, you know which path you really prefer.

Mercer argues that the leadership of the United States sent costly signals of disinterest in the fate of South Korea, withdrawing all forces and de-emphasizing the possibility of intervention in case of a North Korean attack in 1950. When the attack came, however, U.S. leaders had an unexpected emotional reaction of alarm, which led to concern about how the rest of the world would interpret inaction. As Mercer points out, U.S. policymakers used their own sense of shock and alarm as evidence that the world would see the United States as weak. Consequently, the United States intervened in contravention of its own expectations.

Disclosure: Mercer was my dissertation advisor at UW. It's interesting work, and I recommend reading the full article. The focus on emotional response has some fairly interesting implications for decision-making, especially in disputes prone to brinkmanship. The framework also suggests that messaging and prediction are more complicated than we often allow for; as Mercer argues, "Strategy depends on imagining not only how another feels, but how another will feel as a result of one’s policy."

Thoughts on Benghazi

noreply@blogger.com (Galrahn) — Wed, 08 May 2013 15:00:00 +0000

The Benghazi hearings are today, and I'll be paying attention. I'm not sure yet if today will turn out to be anything other than a political circus. Time will tell.

Today we are going to learn who is serious and who is a clown. There will be opportunities for both Democrats and Republicans to pick a side. A Democrat today will prove themself a clown if they become overly defensive to the point they push the idea that the Federal government cannot be held accountable for anything. It will be a defensive political reaction on behalf of leaders who are responsible, but may not be holding their agencies accountable. Republicans will identify themselves as clowns if they are simply seeking political blame, because there is nothing productive to find if that is the objective.

Leaders will be the elected politicians who try to figure out what went wrong, and what needs to be fixed.

I have a few theories, but the one specific thing I will be looking for is not new, rather it is a problem that has always existed but has, in my opinion, become worse under Obama. Dan Drezner highlighted this very well just before the election last November.

the most troubling element of Barack Obama's first-term foreign policy legacy -- his management of the foreign policy process. As my Foreign Policy colleague Rosa Brooks has written about in agonizing detail, the dysfunction that was talked about in Obama's first year in office hasn't disappeared along with Osama bin Laden.

Indeed, the aftermath of Benghazi puts this on full display. To be blunt, for all the GOP efforts to make the lack of pre-attack planning an indictment of the White House, consulate security in Benghazi is not the kind of decision that rises to the White House level. The aftermath of the attack is another story, however. In the past 24 hours alone, report after report after report after report shows Obama's foreign policy agencies defending their own turf, leaking to reporters in ways that heighten bureaucratic dysfunction, and revealing the White House's national security team to be vindictive and petty.

That's the key in my opinion, inter-agency cooperation is at an all time low, and it is never really very high. It is not just CIA, State, and the DOD - indeed we have to add DoJ and DHS to the mix, because we saw manifestations where the lack of good inter-agency cooperation allowed one of the terrorists involved in the Boston marathon bombing to slip through the cracks.

And that is another reason why unserious politics will be very unwelcome today. Benghazi was the first attack, but with Boston we now have a trend of successful terrorist attacks. Are we learning the right lessons? Are decision makers asking the right questions? Assigning blame to Hillary Clinton or someone else isn't going to help resolve why we have similar breakdowns in both Benghazi and Boston, and if no one in Congress is seeking to address the roots of those issues today, the next successful terrorist attack that kills Americans leaves blood on the hands of Congressmen as far as I am concerned.

I don't want to hear about some State Department dweeb who thinks four SOF guys who were on the other side of Libya when all-hell broke loose, with no situational awareness at all in Benghazi, could have swooped in and saved the day with M-4s. That's not even credible and represents the tactical expertise of a paper pusher in State, even if cable news reports it as if it is some important revelation. The issue isn't what four SOF dudes were doing, it was why NOTHING, NO WHERE, was being staged for contingency. The DoD leaders watched and sat on their hands - HOUR after HOUR after HOUR, knowing Americans were probably being killed. Two of our top Army Generals, one of which is the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It's hard to believe, but that's what happened. Secretary Panetta was taking advice from the top General in the United States military, who was in the same room. It was supposed to be the best advice one could possibly get on a military action like that. Clearly it was not.

I very much would like to know why the COCOM requirement for a ARG in the Mediterranean Sea was being unmet during most of the Arab Spring, including late last year. There is a reason the Marines want 38 amphibious ships, and yet Congress is only willing to fund 33. Only a forward deployed and ready Amphibious Ship with a blue/green team could have produced the necessary intelligence and situational awareness, and fielded at the scene of action a combat ready force to rapidly respond to the attacks on our facilities in Benghazi. That is fact. That is a mission Marines are trained to do, and why we keep ships forward deployed. There was an unmet COCOM requirement for amphibious ships there. DC politicians have to date completely avoided that part of the issue.

So we have CIA security at a State Department facility without any DoD situational awareness whatsoever. Within two months we have the Department of Justice intentionally leaking evidence from an investigation that takes down General Petraeus, the top CIA man. We have Russia telling the CIA that Tamerlan Tsarnaev is a suspected extremist, information that comes not long after Tamerlan Tsarnaev is being examined by the FBI and DHS knows he leaves the country. FBI's investigation at Benghazi is so thorough the very first group of journalists to actually go to the battle location finds all kinds of sensitive information at the scene. Seriously? The agencies aren't talking, and are clearly not working very hard for each other. The agencies are all doing their own thing, and events continue to unfold where Americans are being killed in terrorist attacks - foreign and domestic. We elect leaders to insure taxpayer money is not being wasted. Right now at least 5 federal agencies appear to be completely out of control.

Now lets ask the hardest question of all - is it time to start asking whether this the inter-agency cooperation issue has become much worse as a result of the Bradley Manning effect. We knew there was going to be fallout in information sharing between agencies because of what Bradley Manning did - a member of the Department of Defense stealing accessible data from the Department of State and exposing that sensitive data to the public. Anyone with any experience in the real world knew that was going to come back and hurt the data sharing process, and create friction in inter-agency information sharing capacity. B2B experts know how easy it is to share data - hell most Americans wouldn't believe the kind of data sharing about Americans that takes place in states that do background checks for firearms purchases, but the Bradley Manning effect has created all kinds of hurdles to sharing intelligence information in the federal agencies; an effect one might suggest is integrating into the culture of inter-agency business.

My starting assumption, based on information that I have read to date, is that both Benghazi and Boston represent acts of terrorism that manifested because of communication and cooperation breakdowns between federal agencies, and the reasons for those breakdowns are many - but were influenced in no small part due to the cultural changes in federal agencies insiders and keen observers noticed taking place after Bradley Manning released those diplomatic cables. American people are dieing. Two attacks is a trend. Who is part of the solution, and who is part of the problem?

Benghazi is a tough issue, maybe too difficult and complicated for serious people to score any political points. So today, if it becomes about scoring political points, expect another successful attack. If it becomes a serious issue where political points are scored on accident rather than intentionally, it means suddenly some elected officials decided to be leaders for a change, and do their job.

The result of all of this should, most likely, be a lot of work for the President.

PLAN amphibious development

noreply@blogger.com (Feng) — Tue, 07 May 2013 03:47:00 +0000

For PLAN followers, the past couple of months have brought some really interesting developments for PLAN amphibious warfare. The first Zubr was handed over from Ukraine to China on April 20th and the construction of the second one is well under way. The original contract called for 2 to be built in Ukraine and the other 2 to be built in China. It remains to be seen whether or not PLAN will see the need to procure more than that.

Last year, we were introduced to a LHD design that Chinas was offering for export. A couple of months ago, we’ve seen this LHD design displayed for export to Turkey and also at Abu Dhabi. This mysterious design is said to be 211 m long, 32.6 m in beam and 26.8 m high for a displacement of 20,000 to 22,000 ton. It’s a little wider than Type 071 and has a flat top, so it can hold 8 helicopters with the hangar space for 4. This is an increase over Type 071, but I would imagine the first Chinese LHD (let’s call it Type 081) to be much larger than this (30,000 to 40,000 in displacement) and able to hold carry more helicopters and armored vehicles. I personally think PLAN has studied USMC long enough that it would also want the LHD to be able to support STOVL fighter jet. Such a ship would be much more complex than Type 071, but is well within the technical capabilities of Chinese shipyards.

More than anything else, the most interesting development for me to watch recently is the recent exercise involving 999, the second Type 071 ship, launching attack and overtaking a defended island in the South China Sea. While I’m sure this development scared a couple of people in the Phillipines and Vietnam, it was interesting seeing all of the news report videos talking about what they tried to do in that exercise. It was also interesting to see that Type 071 can carry more hardware than I previous thought. Its hangar is said to be able to carry 4 helicopters of Z-8 class (the main helicopter used with Type 071 right now). Its well deck can hold a maximum of 4 Type 726 LCAC. Although in reality, we’ve never seen more than 1 Type 726 and several fast attack boats in the well deck due to the fact that only 2 Type 726s have thus far been commissioned. Each of the Type 726 is said to be able to carry 2 IFVs and one tank. It can also apparently transport 80 soldiers. It can travel at 50 knots and can reach 55 to 60 knots. So, it’s an impressive hardware if China can build enough of it. In front of the well deck, there is also a door to a large compartment of 2 floors holding armored vehicles and other heavy machineries. We’ve also seen numerous photos of well deck holding 1 Type 726 along with 15 or more amphibious IFVs. Depending on the number of Type 726 and boats it carries, a Type 071 could hold different numbers of IFVs and tanks based on the mission. According to news report, Type 071 has allowed PLA to launch assault 40 nm from the beach.

In this recent exercise, we can really see PLAN practicing different kind of maneuvers and learning how to really use Type 071. Z-8s were used in flanking maneuvers to attack the rear along with Type 726 sometimes later. This is used to soften the opposition while amphibious IFVs and fast attack boats are storming the beach. The first Type 071 was commissioned at the end of 2007 and this was the first time we’ve heard about this type of exercise. Maybe this would have happened sooner if Type 726 was available earlier, but I think this also shows how long it takes PLAN to learn to start using a new ship like this. They still have a shortage of Z-8s and Type 726s when we consider how many Type 071 they already have. So they will have to ramp up the production of those assets if they want to continue training and developing more advance doctrines and tactics in storming a guarded coastline. They will also need more of those if they want to build a much larger LHD. Attention has been shifted away from PLAN’s amphibious build up over the past year due to the development of CV-16, but it remains an important part of PLAN modernization.

Seapower History Bleg

noreply@blogger.com (Robert Farley) — Tue, 07 May 2013 00:44:00 +0000

Does anyone know of any good work on competition/conflict between the Army and the Navy in either the Civil War or the Spanish-American War? Most of the extant work on inter-service conflict treats it as a 20th century phenomenon, generated by the expansion of warfare into the third dimension, but it seems likely to me there were instances of conflict in prior wars. Would appreciate any suggestions in comments.

Syria: Go Little, Go Big, or Stay on the Sidelines?

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Rawley) — Mon, 06 May 2013 03:30:00 +0000

Calls for U.S. intrusion in the Syrian civil war seem to grow louder each day, especially from people in positions of authority within the polity. This talk of no fly zones, providing lethal aid to rebels, etc. must be realized for what it is - a call for a U.S.-sponsored regime change. Policy outcomes must be measured against the complex ramifications of choosing sides, taking a limited approach, or continuing to let events play themselves out. Despite its noble origins in the Arab Spring fervor of 2011, fundamentally the war in Syria is now a proxy conflict between two of America's adversaries: al Qaeda's foreign jihadists on one side and Iran's surrogates on the other. Why would the U.S. want to get stuck in the middle of that steaming mess?

But Chris, Israel just entered the Syrian war with airstrikes in Damascus. Haven't they made a decision to support the rebels against Assad and shouldn't the U.S. do likewise? No, Israel just targeted a weapons facilitation node of one of its primary antagonists, Lebanese Hezbollah. Despite the "Allahu Akabars" from Sunni rebels, the world shouldn't believe that Israel's strikes represent a vote for one side or another in the fight, but should understand that they were conducted in a way that supports defense of Israeli territory by defanging LH's increasingly modern Iranian-provided arsenal.

Should America help these gentlemen? If so, how? (AP Photo)

Unfortunately, history tells us that time and again decisions to go to war are often based on emotion, political expediency, or perception, rather than rational reasons founded on national interests such as the calculus demonstrated by Israel. That being the case, if the U.S. inserts itself into this war, will half-measures such as up-arming the rebels be enough to finish the job and defeat Assad? Recall that the U.S. intervention in Libya two years ago began with a no-fly zone notionally enacted to protect the population and ended with a targeted UAV strike on Gaddafi's convoy that enabled a Libyan kid in a NY Yankees cap to shoot the colonel-for-life in the face. The lesson is that incremental approaches in war usually fail and mission creep in these sorts of interventions are more common than not.

Will a more comprehensive unconventional warfare plan be required to depose the Syrian regime? Or does it even matter if any sort of kinetic action we undertake works if it meets the three "feel good" criteria above? Regardless of the reasons for an entry into the Syrian conflict, if this ill-advised road is taken, what's the best way to execute a regime change campaign these days? Here is my treatment of the subject in more detail, including the application of precision air and seapower to overthrow an onerous government.

The opinions and views expressed in this post are those of the author alone and are presented in his personal capacity. They do not necessarily represent the views of U.S. Department of Defense, the US Navy, or any other agency.

"Protip: Boats Can't Fly"

noreply@blogger.com (Robert Farley) — Sun, 05 May 2013 12:31:00 +0000

Haven't tried the game, but the trailer is awesome:
Haven

Shaping My Discussion Points

noreply@blogger.com (Galrahn) — Wed, 01 May 2013 05:00:00 +0000

With the budget released and the first of the Congressional hearings out of the way, several topics have emerged as those most critical to the Navy in 2013. These are the topics that I have been spending my nights reading and researching. Expect most articles from me until at least June to discuss these topics.

1) When and if the Navy should make a concerted move away from current fleet design.

There are many competing schools: stay the course; stay the course, but improve ability to fight from range; submerge a greater portion of the fleet; demassify, creating larger numbers of smaller ships; prepare for the age of robotics, etc etc.

We all know Navy is in a state of great technological and fiscal flux. So, does Navy pull the trigger now? Choose a way forward and take early steps; pursue technologies that extend current design for a while? Does sequestration answer the question, or simply ask the question? Many ways to think about the issue.

2) Along those lines, should the Navy be asking Congress for alternative funding streams to pay for the SSBN(X)?

3) With directed energy, cyber, and electronic warfare emerging as high demand and desired capabilities for forward deployed naval forces today, is the R&D funding for these technologies sufficient to keep the Navy ahead of the curve of competitors?

4) Will a true debate over the nature of air-sea battle emerge in public, beyond much of the drivel one reads today?

5) What is the future of the amphibious fleet? Should it be optimized for amphib assault? Should it be optimized for global patrolling and crisis response? Should the Navy/Marine Corps team stay with stark delineation of grey and black hulls, or is it time to move to a more affordable mix?

6) Is naval aviation in tune or out of sync? UCAS-D, UCLASS--is it really heading toward a new dawn in aviation, or will bureaucratic and institutional inertia keep Navy from really making a concerted shift to carrier-based unmanned aviation? Is the issue the platforms deploying aircraft or the carrier air wing design, or both?

7) The LCS discussion is vibrant. Navy has spent around $12 billion so far on LCS. The JSF discussion is not vibrant. Navy has spent $50 billion on that program so far. Is Navy getting what is being paid for?

Book Review: China's Search for Security

noreply@blogger.com (Robert Farley) — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 18:04:00 +0000

I reviewed Andrew Nathan and Andrew Scobell's China's Search for Security for H-Net:

Nevertheless, Nathan and Scobell argue that, despite its growing power, China’s international position remains almost uniquely precarious. China borders more countries that any nation on earth, and continues to have border disputes with several of the most powerful. Other strong states, such as the United States and Japan, threaten China’s littoral. Internally, political discontent threatens Beijing’s control of outlying areas, including Tibet and Xinjiang. Concerns about political discontent and the maintenance of economic growth continue to draw the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) focus inward.

On a related point see here, although I suspect that there are some translation issues regarding the terms "invasion" and "occupation."

On the FY 14 Shipbuilding Plan

noreply@blogger.com (The Conservative Wahoo) — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 12:06:00 +0000

AEI's Mackenzie Eaglen and I have an Op-Ed at RealClearDefense this morning. Here's a key point: "The latest interim plan will cause aggregate combat power to decline along with numbers, leaving the fleet less capable of dealing with open ocean submarine threats, enemy surface fleets, and the majority of threat aircraft and missiles. Additionally, the Navy continues to under-resource its amphibious ships, meeting neither the Marine Corps’ combat requirement of 38 ships nor the worldwide combatant commanders’ requirement for a similar number."

We can talk all we want about re-balancing and relying more heavily on American Seapower, but in the end, what we buy is a reflection of what we value.

The plan relies on over-optimistic budget assumptions (which is not surprising, but is rather the norm in the kabuki played out between the Navy and Congress when it comes to the shipbuilding account) and ignores the impact of sequestration. It does not appear to reflect any real shift in emphasis to Seapower derived of the strategic guidance issued by the President last year. It retires ships long before the end of their service lives not because they aren't useful, but because we cannot afford to both operate them and build the future force given the current resource allocation.

We cannot afford the Navy we have nor the Navy we need. We must either strategically re-prioritize to obtain the resources necessary to buy and operate that Navy (progress toward which I see little evidence of), or we need to change the Navy we have to one we can afford. Jerry Hendrix wants to de-emphasize carriers. I want to shed the SSBN nuclear deterrence mission. Wayne Hughes wants to alter the fleet design. Simply shrinking the same fleet we have now to one 2/3 of its size over the next 15 years (the actual glide-slope we are on) is not the answer, unless what you desire is the ability to do what we do now a little less well, in fewer places with diminished simultaneity.

Bryan McGrath

Africa Maritime Updates

noreply@blogger.com (Chris Rawley) — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 23:40:00 +0000

With so much in the news this month, it's been easy to overlook the interesting events occurring in and around the water of today's most dynamic continent.

Somali Piracy remains practically non-existent this year, thanks to the continued presence of armed security detachments on commercial vessels. While commercial shipping in the Gulf of Aden is relatively safe, hundreds of smaller private sailing vessels and motor yachts remain unable to transit the area because they simply can’t afford armed security.

Two years ago this month, U.S. and NATO forces were pounding away at Libya's armed forces and pretty much totaled Gadhafi's Navy. Earlier this month, Royal Navy frigate HMS Kent made an unprecedented good will visit to the port of Tripoli. Other countries such as France and Malta have been helping Libya to rebuild its naval forces, which are critical for patrolling the country's 2,000 kilometer coast line, interdicting smugglers and migrants trying to reach Europe, and securing the export of more than 1.3 million barrels per day of petroleum.

The MEND is at it again.

On the west side of the continent, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) group killed 10 police in a boat and renewed attacks on maritime oil infrastructure. More troubling though, are reports that MEND, historically a group with secular aims, may be entering the sectarian conflict started by Boko Haram terrorists in the North. Threatening attacks on Muslims in the Niger Delta, the group's spokesman recently issued a statement: "On behalf of the hapless Christian population in Nigeria, The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta will from Friday, May 31, 2013, embark on a crusade to save Christianity in Nigeria from annihilation." Nigerian security forces are already overwhelmed fighting terrorist in the North (with very heavy handed tactics it must be noted) and a renewed insurgency in the South could threat stability in this important economic anchor for West Africa.

Also in the Gulf of Guinea, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration recently conducted a rather audacious under-cover operation at sea to detain Guinea-Bissau's former Chief of Naval Operations and drug kingpin Bubo Na Tchuto. The impact of narcotics proceeds on the ledgers of terror groups in Africa has been overstated by DEA (at least in my opinion), but this operation was worthwhile if only to remove one of the most corrupt officials in West Africa.

In Northern Mali, French Forces have begun a gradual withdrawal from fighting al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. AQIM and its associated militant groups made use of the Niger River during the French intervention. France is hoping for a U.N. force to replace African-led International Support Mission to Mali (AFISMA) troops and that force will certainly need some sort of riverine capability to keep the waterways leading up to Timbuktu and Gao clear of extremist activity.

Malian military patrols the Niger River.

The last update isn’t really maritime-related, but does involve the USN participating on a unique foreign internal defense mission in the Sahara. Last month, four U.S. naval officers deployed with special operations forces (SOF) from all over the globe to West Africa to train African special operators for counter-terrorism missions in the region. SEAL LCDR Kaj Larsen explains more here about FLINTLOCK 13.

Instability around the continent and the recent attacks on U.S. embassies last September have driven the military to examine various options for both future crisis response and steady state capacity-building operations. The Army is regionally aligning some forces, with a dedicated Brigade Combat Team to support training missions and be prepared to intervene on the continent should the need arise. Africa has been described as an "economy of force" operation for DOD and generally the introduction of any element other than culturally-attuned, small footprint forces (read SOF) raises the eyebrows of State Department diplomats. I find it hard to believe that the Army could get a brigade-sized element - or even pieces of it - nimble enough to deploy rapidly, with a minimal number of "boots on the ground" and adequate logistics train to satisfy these requirements. Along similar lines, the Marine Corps has instituted a company-sized crisis response element for this mission which leverages the speed and long-range mobility of the MV-22. Expeditionary crisis-response is in the Marine Corps DNA, but without adequate amphibious shipping, the Corps' unique capabilities can't be exploited. That said, it will be interesting to see which force the COCOM and Ambassador calls on next time there is a crisis in Africa.

Learning from the Doolittle Raiders

noreply@blogger.com (Galrahn) — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 04:00:00 +0000

The following contribution is written by Congressman J. Randy Forbes from Virginia's fourth district, Congressman Forbes is chairman of the House Armed Services Seapower and Projection Forces Subcommittee and founder and co-chairman of the Congressional China Caucus.

71 years ago today, 16 U.S. Army Air Force B-25 Mitchell bombers took off from the aircraft carrier USS Hornet on the way to bomb Tokyo. Coming only months after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the Doolittle Raid (named for the mission’s commander, Lt. Col. Jimmy Doolittle) constituted the first American offensive operation of World War II and helped shatter the illusion of our adversary’s invincibility.

Despite occurring over seven decades ago, the Doolittle Raid offers lessons intensely relevant for our time. The personal heroism of the Doolittle Raiders, seven of whom died during the raid or in captivity, is a timeless tribute to the bravery and sacrifice of our men and women in uniform. The operation’s brazenness - placing bulky bombers on an aircraft carrier in the Pacific Ocean in order to reach and hit the very heart of the Japanese Empire - reminds us that effective military operations require leaders of vision and daring to achieve our national security objectives. And the Raid’s effective use of Army Air Force personnel and aircraft, launched from a Navy carrier and defended by Navy surface vessels and submarines, illustrates how the demands of modern warfare refuse to neatly delineate between services- cooperation between our Navy, Marines and Air Force is an enduring necessity.

Most importantly, the Doolittle Raid reminds us that the ability to project military power from the sea in times of crisis is the essential mission and defining feature of the U.S. Navy. As in 1942, the aircraft carrier remains the most effective instrument of projecting American power onto hostile shores, deterring potential adversaries and, if necessary, delivering overwhelming force to defeat the enemy. No other platform possesses the striking power of the carrier. This power is packaged into a system that has both global reach and almost unimpeded growth potential. The carrier can sail through the world’s oceans, free from the political complexities associated with overseas bases. At the same time, this floating airfield can also be “modernized” with new naval aircraft that can bring a mix of capabilities demanded to operate in future security environments.

Today’s Navy carriers have advanced beyond anything the sailors onboard the Hornet could have imagined; a modern Ford-class carrier is roughly 80,000 tons larger than the Yorktown-class ship which launched the Doolittle Raiders and can house over 75 advanced aircraft. Despite the technological advances of the last seven decades, the aircraft carrier’s status as the fulcrum of the Navy’s Fleet remains unchallenged.

As the Navy prepares for the challenges of the coming decade, the question will not be whether our carriers remain vital; rather, the key determination will be the appropriate mix of aircraft comprising the Carrier Air Wing (CVW). It is this flexibility that is the true utility of a carrier. In an anti-access/area-denial environment (A2/AD), where nations from Iran to China are investing in missile technology designed to restrict our carrier operations, it is imperative that the Navy’s CVWs contain aircraft with the right mix of of range, persistence, stealth, payload, and electronic attack to successfully execute its missions. The Navy’s investments in shorter range aircraft have left it dependent on the carrier’s ability to get relatively close to hostile shores. As the Doolittle Raid proved, there is great strategic and military advantage in maintaining a long-range strike capability. As I have written here before, the UCLASS, if done right, is poised to offer the CVW an option for long-range ISR and strike that will help anchor the carrier’s power projection mission for decades to come.

The world we face in 2013 is very different from the one the Doolittle Raiders knew as their B-25s hurtled down the Hornet’s flight deck in April 1942. But while the technologies and competitors may have changed, the utility of the aircraft carrier to American defense policy remains constant. We honor the legacy of the Doolittle Raiders today while being mindful that the success they achieved in projecting American power far from home against a determined and resilient enemy is an achievement we must jealously protect in our own time. It is incumbent upon all of us to never stop working, and to never stop asking the difficult questions, to ensure that those who follow in the footsteps of the Doolittle Raiders have the tools they need to deter, prevent and, if absolutely necessary, win America’s wars.

Navy’s Continued Commitment to Europe

noreply@blogger.com (Galrahn) — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 04:00:00 +0000

The following contribution comes from Rear Admiral Michael Smith. Rear Admiral Michael E. Smith is Director, Strategy and Policy Division, Office of the Chief of Naval Operations

Last Tuesday, at the Sea-Air-Space Expo, I had the opportunity to sit on a well-attended panel with USMC Major General (sel) Rocco and USCG Rear Admiral Lee to discuss a range of issues for the three Sea Services relating to the Asia Pacific rebalance. In the exchange with audience members following our remarks, we fielded a number of very pointed questions that were really variations on the same concern: will the rebalance negatively impact our commitments to Europe?

From my perspective, the answer to these questions is a resounding no - as long as we approach the future with a new way of thinking. NATO is without question the most powerful military alliance in the world and will continue to be a centerpiece of security in an unpredictable world, and the Navy's relationship with the maritime forces of our European allies and partners remains a cornerstone of cooperative activities across the globe as we confront numerous, collective challenges together. In fact, the Navy continues to pursue greater integrated and cooperative activities with our European counterparts. Examples of continued and enhanced U.S. commitments to Europe include the forward deployment of four of our most advanced Aegis ships to Rota, Spain, where they will support a broad range of missions in addition to their focus on NATO ballistic missile defense, and our ongoing feasibility study of deploying new Littoral Combat Ships and Joint High Speed Vessels to the region. Further, Navy’s contribution to Ballistic Missile Defense of Europe includes not only the maritime BMD piece but also Aegis ashore with the first site planned for Romania in 2015.

Especially in light of fiscal challenges felt across the NATO alliance, we should approach this era of fiscal austerity with significantly greater focus on the potential we all can gain from a more advanced approach to cooperation and engagement between allies and partners - this issue was the focus of an article I recently wrote for Proceedings, Strategic Cooperation: Everybody Wins.

In short, if we take an approach that more fully leverages allied and partner contributions then not only will we maintain our commitments in Europe; we will more efficiently manage resources globally. Now is the time to grasp this opportunity and approach allied and partner contributions in a new light. While the Asia Pacific rebalance is a current area of focus, our commitments to Europe and the Mediterranean are not wavering and can in fact be strengthened if we are willing to challenge our previous planning assumptions and embrace the full capabilities our partners can bring.

Strength in Numbers: The Remarkable Potential of (really) Small Combatants

noreply@blogger.com (Galrahn) — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 05:00:00 +0000

The following contribution is from LT Jimmy Drennan. LT Jimmy Drennan is a Surface Warfare Officer. He is the prospective Weapons Officer aboard USS Gettysburg and a Distinguished Graduate of the Naval Postgraduate School's Systems Engineering Analysis program.

You are a tactical commander tasked with a mission to seek out and destroy one of the enemy’s premier capital ships in his home waters. You have two potential striking forces at your disposal: a world class surface combatant of your own with a 99% probability of mission success (Ps = 0.99) or a squadron of eight independently operating, missile carrying small combatants – each with a chance of successfully completing the mission no better than a coin flip (Ps = 0.5). Do you go with the almost sure thing and choose to send in your large combatant? As it turns out, the squadron of small combatants has an even higher overall Ps. But let’s assume now that you’ve advanced to operational commander. You might have more concerns than just overall Ps. What are the defensive and logistical requirements for each option? How much fleet investment am I risking with each option? What will it cost to replace the asset(s) if it is lost? What capability does the striking force have after successful enemy action (i.e. resilience)? An analysis of these factors, intentionally designed to disadvantage the small combatants, actually comes out overwhelmingly in their favor over the large combatant. The results verify what naval strategists and tacticians have long known: for certain offensive missions, an independently operating group of even marginally capable platforms can outperform a single large combatant at lower cost and less risk to the mission.

The War at Sea Flotilla: A Test Case

In the Autumn 2012 edition of the Naval War College Review, Captains (U.S. Navy, Retired) Jeff Kline and Wayne Hughes introduce “A War at Sea Strategy” in which they describe a flotilla of small, missile-carrying surface combatants designed to challenge Chinese aggression in East Asian waters. The flotilla ships would utilize largely independent tactics, relying little on networked command and control, to produce a powerful cumulative combat capability.

“What would the flotilla look like? In rough terms, we envision individual small combatants of about six hundred tons carrying six or eight surface-to-surface missiles and depending on soft kill and point defense for survival, aided by offboard manned or unmanned aerial vehicles for surveillance and tactical scouting. To paint a picture of possible structures, we contemplate as the smallest element a mutually supporting pair, a squadron to comprise eight vessels, and the entire force to be eight squadrons, of which half would be in East Asian waters. The units costing less than $100 million each, the entire force would require a very small part of the shipbuilding budget (Hughes and Kline, 2012).”

This flotilla concept provides an ideal test case to compare against a world class surface combatant but first we must establish a few key assumptions on which this analysis is based.

Statistical Independence. The math behind this analysis hinges on the idea that the outcome of one small combatant’s engagement has no effect on the others in the squadron. While true statistical independence is nearly impossible to achieve in real world naval operations, the War at Sea Flotilla concept models it closely with independently operating units, the potential for various ship classes, and the inclusion of allied navies which may use different tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs). This concept of operations is a major departure from today’s heavily networked forces which generate combat power through the integrated actions of several units. In those forces, the actions of one unit can have profound impact on the effectiveness of another.

Defensive and Logistical Requirements. For the purposes of this analysis, we will assume that the defensive and logistical requirements are roughly equivalent for both the small combatant squadron and the large combatant. Both would require defensive support in warfare areas not directly related to the current mission. Even a multi-mission, blue water combatant would employ inorganic support, such as maritime patrol aircraft or early warning assets, to watch its back while it conducted a focused offensive mission. As for logistics, any surface asset would need an oiler nearby to conduct sustained operations in enemy waters. A nuclear powered aircraft carrier would still require periodic support to replenish its stores of jet fuel. The logistics tail would be shorter for a large combatant than a flotilla, since it carries much of its own maintenance and supply support, but that can be a detriment in a mission involving an exchange of missile salvos. While the structure of defensive and logistical support may differ greatly between the flotilla and the large combatant, one can assume the drain on resources would be about the same for both options.

Unit Cost. Captains Hughes and Kline estimate the unit cost of the flotilla small combatants at $80 million (Hughes and Kline, 2012). Therefore, a squadron of eight combatants would cost $640 million. The unit cost of the large combatant is assumed to be $1 billion, which is an underestimate for relevant US Navy platforms. The cost estimates in this analysis are intentionally set up to work against the flotilla concept in order to emphasize its potential for savings.

Enemy Capabilities. To further disadvantage the flotilla concept, let’s assume the small combatants are significantly overmatched by the enemy combatant. In a first strike, the enemy combatant is capable of simultaneously targeting six of the eight squadron combatants. Against the large combatant, it is capable of conducting a devastating mission kill in which the ship may not be sunk but the cost to repair it to fully mission capable would be comparable to the unit cost. As a starting argument, let’s assume in either case the enemy can achieve a mission kill with 10% probability (Pmk =0.10) since both striking forces have similar levels of defensive support. You might argue that Pmk should be lower for the large combatant because it possesses superior self defense capabilities; however, you could also argue that the mobile, distributed nature of the small combatant squadron compensates for each ship’s lack of self defense by complicating the enemy’s targeting process. It may be relatively easy for the enemy to target one or two of the small combatants, but it remains a challenge to simultaneously eliminate the entire squadron.

Selecting the Right Striking Force: Analysis Results

Using the generic introductory scenario, we can compare the small combatant squadron to the large combatant in terms of performance, cost, and risk.

Overall Effectiveness. We are given the overall effectiveness of the large combatant as Ps = 0.99 and the individual effectiveness of the small combatants as Ps,ship = 0.5. To determine the overall effectiveness of the squadron, it is easiest to first estimate the probability that none of the small combatants successfully accomplish their mission. The probability that any one small combatant will not accomplish the mission is,

Since the outcomes of each engagement are estimated as independent of one another, the probability that none of the eight small combatants accomplish the mission is,

The probability that at least one of the small combatants accomplish the mission is the converse of the previous result, or

In other words, the squadron has a 99.6% probability of success vice 99% for the large combatant. This may not seem like much of an improvement, but it is more remarkable when considering the unit cost of each option.

Cost Effectiveness. The unit costs are given as $1 billion for the large combatant and $80 million for the small combatant, so we know that the squadron of eight small combatants is the more affordable option at $640 million. In addition, we have established that the squadron can outperform the large combatant for this particular offensive mission in which the individual squadron ships are actually overmatched by the enemy. The squadron is not only more cost effective than the large combatant; it actually delivers better performance at lower cost. As a commander, would you rather invest $1 billion in striking force that fails 10 times in 1000 attempts, or save $360 million with a striking force that fails only 4 times in 1000 attempts? To put it another way, if you were to invest the same $1 billion in 12 small combatants, you could deliver a striking force that failed only 2 times in 10,000 attempts (Ps = 0.9998).

Resilience after Enemy Action. One way to consider risk is to look at the impact to the mission if the enemy is able to successfully consummate a first attack. We have assumed the enemy is equally capable of attacking the large combatant and the squadron of small combatants. If the enemy combatant achieves a simultaneous mission kill against six of the small combatants, then only two will remain to continue the mission. These two small combatants have a combined 75% probability of successfully completing the mission. On the other hand, if the enemy successfully conducts a mission kill against the large combatant, the probability of successfully completing the mission is 0% and you lose the other warfare area capabilities that the large combatant could bring to bear in other missions. The additional investment required to provide onboard logistics support is also lost.

Another way to look at this risk is to calculate the expected damage cost of each option in the long run. Assuming the enemy is able to conduct devastating mission kills (in which the repair costs are comparable to the unit cost) a conservative 10% of the time (Pmk = 0.1) for both the large and small combatants, then the expected damage cost for the large combatant is,

Likewise, the expected damage cost for the squadron of small combatants is,

In the long run, the enemy is expected to cause $52M less damage per mission in the case of the small combatants. Even if the enemy were more likely to successfully target six small combatants simultaneously, how much would you as a commander be willing to pay for 75% follow-on capability vice 0%?

Less Communications, Less Cost, More Combat Power: Analysis Insights

The results of this analysis seem to indicate that the squadron of small combatants is an obvious choice for naval missions involving direct action against the enemy fleet. Yet the scenario described is quite generic and says nothing about the actual TTPs and systems the squadron will utilize in prosecuting the enemy. How can such a generic scenario really prove anything about the effectiveness of small combatants? The key is that two fundamental principles underlie this analysis and can be applied in much broader terms.

First, independently operating, redundant, and at least marginally capable units will greatly increase any system’s overall effectiveness, primarily because unit faults and errors are not permitted to propagate through the system as they would in net centric warfare (e.g. flawed group tactics or a false link track). For surface combatants, an individual effectiveness of 50% is sufficient to affordably produce a formidable striking force. For less expensive systems, that number may be even less. Ultimately, this kind of system is so effective because it is highly unlikely that none of the individual units will successfully complete the mission.

The second principle that contributes to the appeal of the small combatant squadron is that the price of military systems increases exponentially as you attempt to improve individual unit performance closer and closer to perfection. Most of our warships today are designed well past the “knee” in the cost curve. Small combatants can be built with marginal capability at (relatively) very low cost. One new concept illustrates how less capable ships can affordably produce equivalent performance as more capable ones in certain situations. In his 2009 essay, “Buy Fords, Not Ferraris” Captain (U.S. Navy) Henry Hendrix proposes Influence Squadrons, composed of light amphibious ships, large combatants, littoral combat ships (LCS), and small combatants, to alleviate the need for some Carrier Strike Groups – with a smaller price tag (Hendrix, 2009). The purpose of the War at Sea Flotilla, however, is not to replace current fleet assets but to fill a vital niche not now covered to fight a war at sea in littoral waters. Therefore the cost must be small. Captains Hughes and Kline suggest the cost of maintaining a fleet of 64 flotilla ships, steady state, should be less than 3 or 4% of the shipbuilding budget (Hughes and Kline, 2012).

Think Small: Analysis Conclusion and Recommendations

One look at the writings of Sir Julian Corbett or Captain Hughes’ Fleet Tactics and Coastal Combat will show the reader that the benefits of small combatants in certain aspects of naval warfare are not a new discovery. In fact, this analysis may seem like the kind of thinking that led to the development of LCS, which was, after all, born out of wargaming and analysis that advocated for small combatants (Johnson and Long, 2007). The LCS program is not, however, a realization of the principles discussed in this analysis. Both Freedom and Independence class LCS are large multi-mission warships (albeit one at a time) in which mission packages cost a premium to achieve very high probabilities of success. The War at Sea Flotilla, if constructed as Captains Hughes and Kline recommend, would exemplify the advantages of independently operating small combatants.

None of this is meant to condemn LCS or any other ship class for that matter. Every ship in the US fleet, along with the distributed networks that multiply its combat power, has an important role in the mission of winning the nation’s wars, deterring aggression and maintaining freedom of the seas. The purpose here is to provide an analytical basis for including independently operating squadrons of small combatants in the discussion for future force structure. For targeted offensive missions at sea, concepts such as the War at Sea Flotilla can provide higher performance than large combatants at lower cost and with greater resilience to enemy action. In today’s fiscal reality and tomorrow’s projected operational environment, that is a combination Navy leaders should not ignore.

A Global Navy for a Global Mission

noreply@blogger.com (D. Eric Sayers) — Sat, 13 Apr 2013 18:25:00 +0000

My boss, Rep. J. Randy Forbes, published two pieces last week on Seapower issues. While I think many came across the one he co-authored on attack submarines with Rep. Courtney (AOL Defense), I also wanted to highlight the second piece he did for the new RealClearDefense website. American Seapower: A Global Navy for A Global Mission is written as a foundational piece that Rep. Forbes hopes will be part of a broader thesis he continues to expand on for why the Nation should prioritize a larger Navy. You can find it here.

Why does the United States maintain such a robust Navy? It's a fundamental question we should be asking because the answer has both major economic and national security implications. Many assume we have a strong Navy simply because others states that may do us harm also have strong Navies or because the U.S. is flanked by the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, waterways potential enemies may use to bring war to our shores. But if we maintained a Navy just to defend our coasts than our current battle force fleet of 285 ships would be more than sufficient for the task.

A better question, then, might be to ask what the Nation expects its Navy to provide. A number of enduring American interests present themselves....

2014 Navy Budget Share Predictable, Not Newsworthy

noreply@blogger.com (The Conservative Wahoo) — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 22:01:00 +0000

Searching for any real evidence for a rebalance to the Pacific and a concomitant shift in national military strategy as reflected how the budget is allocated among the Services continues to be unsatisfying.

Here is a table I put together of how the base defense budget has been allocated in the recent past (actual budgets 2010-1013) and projections for how the pie would be split up from 2014-2017. The figures in this table for future years are from the 2013 budget. All figures were rounded up or down to the nearest whole number, which is why some years do not equal 100:

	Army	Navy	Air Force	DoD
2017	24%	29%	28%	19%
2016	24%	29%	27%	19%
2015	24%	29%	27%	19%
2014	25%	29%	27%	19%
2013	25%	29%	26%	19%
2012	26%	29%	27%	18%
2011	26%	29%	27%	17%
2010	26%	29%	27%	17%

Next, I took figures from the 2014 Budget Submission as reported by DoD Buzz in an article trumpeting that fact that the “Navy” hauled in the largest budget share. Putting aside the fact that the “Navy” has two Armed Services in its budget, the Navy has been receiving the largest slice of the pie for several years and the size of it has been fairly consistent. Here is the table above with the 2014 line showing both the pre-FY 14 budget line and post FY 14 budget line, using the figures from the DoD Buzz story:

	Army	Navy	Air Force	DoD
2017	24%	29%	28%	19%
2016	24%	29%	27%	19%
2015	24%	29%	27%	19%
2014	25%/24%	29%/29%	27%/27%	19%/19%
2013	25%	29%	26%	19%
2012	26%	29%	27%	18%
2011	26%	29%	27%	17%
2010	26%	29%	27%	17%

Again, in the second table, the 2015-17 budgets have not been updated with figures from the 2014 budget input. It is entirely possible that the 2014 line is just the beginning of more important shifts of money among the Services and DoD. But don’t let anyone fool you; the 2014 budget—from the perspective of how budget shares reflect priorities—is business as usual.

Same Lyrics, Different Beat

noreply@blogger.com (Galrahn) — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 17:30:00 +0000

The plan is to create chaos and force political rivals to work together as they struggle to wrap their mind around what is happening. The plan includes ignoring laws and discarding good governance to achieve desired political objectives. The plan is to create as much fear and uncertainty as possible to cloud the judgment of the various parties involved. The hope is that by creating enough chaos everyone eventually gets tired and agrees to concessions.

This is North Korea's plan, right?

Nope. This looks to be Barack Obama's plan with the FY14 defense budget sent to Congress. Now political rivals, no not China and the US, but Republicans and Democrats - must find a way to work together as they struggle to wrap their mind around a budget that ignored - outright - the statutes related to sequestration. The last couple years suggest that's unlikely.

This is the worst possible way to govern, but good governance towards stability that would save the taxpayer money be damned, because political objectives must be met - the primary political objective apparently being to avoid making tough choices. Congress will fight it out, eventually get tired (probably sometime in Q2 next fiscal year), and will concede to concessions.

Don't tell me North Korea is acting irrationally unless you are ready to say the same about the way the President is handling sequestration. North Korea is playing games with the lives of others in the region, but Barack Obama is playing games with the jobs of Americans. Either way, the objective is political instability until everyone is worn out.

Kim Jong Un and Barack Obama are basically executing the same political strategy under different contexts. Worth noting that Kim Jong Un will likely ultimately lose because the world elites are not stupid and refuse to put up with people who create dangerous instability, but Barack Obama will likely ultimately win because American elites choose to act stupid and will put up with a President who creates dangerous instability.

Thinking Americans might want to ask themselves why the President of the United States is executing political strategies and tactics in America targeted at Congress that have everything in common with the political strong arm tactics being used by North Korea today, and whether that political standard is good enough.

Asia Pacific Integrated Air and Missile Defense

noreply@blogger.com (The Conservative Wahoo) — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 16:21:00 +0000

I will be a panelist at today's AUSA LANPAC 2013 Symposium Panel entitled "Integrated Air and Missile Defense in the Pacific Region". It will be livestreamed here, with our panel beginning at 2:40 PM Eastern time. Although I will be focusing on land based IAMD forces, implications for the Navy are easily discerned.

Bryan McGrath

Post Vacation Links

noreply@blogger.com (Robert Farley) — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 15:08:00 +0000

Some bits that may be of interest:

Colin Snider and I talked about Maggie Thatcher's legacy in Latin America, especially how the conflict is remembered in Argentina:
Along similar lines, some enduring strategic (as opposed to tactical and operational) lessons of the Falklands War.
Why accidental war on the Korean Peninsula is unlikely.
Doubt that this will be of interest to anyone who's not a political scientist, but some thoughts on blogging and the discipline.
And in case you're interested, this is the latest iteration of our work on intellectual property and military diffusion.

Joint Warrior 131 - Order Of Battle

noreply@blogger.com (GvG) — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 21:39:00 +0000

From 15-25 April the largest military excercise in Western Europe will be held in Scotland.

Around 12,500 personnel from 13 countries will be involved. And apart from around 40 aircraft (Typhoons, Tornado's, Rafale's, Super Etendards, EC2 Hawkeye, Sentry E3D, CP-140 Aurora's and other MPA's and tanker aircraft) there will also be a huge naval presence.

Here's a list of participants I found.

Belgium
BNS Bellis (M 916)

BNS Primula (M 924)

Canada

HMCS Iroquois (DDG 280)

HMCS St Johns (FFH3 40)

HMCS Preserver (AOR 510)

Denmark

HDMS Absalon (L 16)

HDMS Esbern Snare (L 17)

HDMS Vaedderen (F 359)

France

FS Primauguet (D 644)

FS Emeraude (S 604)

FS Marne (A 630)

Germany

FGS Bremen (F 207)

FGS Emden (F 210)

FGS Hessen (F 221)

FGS Weilheim (M 1059)

FGS Datteln (M 1068)

FGS Ueberherrn (M 1095)

FGS Werra (A 514)

FGS Frankfurt am Main (A 1412)

FGS Rhon (A 1443)

The Netherlands

HNLMS Evertsen (F 805)

HNLMS Rotterdam (L 800)

HNLMS Bruinvis (S 810)

HNLMS Urk (M 861)

HNLMS Vlaardingen (M 863)

HNLMS Luymes (A 803)

HNLMS Mercuur (A 900)

Norway

HNOMS Gnist (P 965)

HNOMS Steil (P 963)

HNOMS Uthaug (S 304)

HNOMS Karmoey (M 341)

HNOMS Hinnoey (M 343)

HNOMS Rauma (M 352)

HNOMS Valkyrien (A 535)

Poland

ORP Czernicki (511)

ORP Czajka (624)

Sweden

HSwMS Sundsvall (K 24)

HSwMS Visby (K 31)

United Kingdom

HMS Illustrious (R 06)

HMS Bulwark (L 15)

HMS Diamond (D 34)

HMS Sutherland ( F 81)

HMS Richmond (F 239)

HMS Montrose (F 236)

HMS Westminster (F 237)

HMS Talent (S 92)

HMS Brocklesby (M 33)

HMS Chiddingfold (M 37)

HMS Hurworth (M 39)

HMS Pembroke (M 107)

HMS Grimsby (M 108)

HMS Echo (H 87)

RFA Fort Austin (A 386)

RFA Lyme Bay (L 3007)

USA

USS Stout (DDG 55)

USS The Sullivans (DDG 68)

USS Bainbridge (DDG 96)

USS De Wert (FFG 45)

 USNS John Lenthall (T-AO 189)