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>Austal is the world’s premier manufacturer of advanced aluminum ships. An industrial iconoclast, Austal USA entered the brutal U.S. shipbuilding market in 2000, and is now producing two key components of the future U.S. Fleet, the Littoral Combat Ship and the Joint High Speed Vessel. I have been a fan of Austal and the LCS-2/JHSV concepts for

years.

Today, I embark on a new journey as Austal USA’s Vice President of Sales, Marketing and External Affairs.

The immediate impact is the suspension of blogging at NextNavy.com until a decision is made as to the future of this naval-affairs forum.

I am ecstatic that Austal values the public discussion of naval affairs

and national security strategy afforded by outlets like NextNavy.com. Over the coming weeks and months, I look forward to re-engaging the public (and the naval blogosphere) in new ways while helping Austal grow to become one of the best, most innovative naval shipbuilders in the business.

It has been a wonderful ride here at NextNavy.com. For my East Coast friends, I am attending the Navy League’s Sea/Air/Space Exposition, so please feel free to drop me a line at craig.hooper@nextnavy.com or, better yet, stop by the Austal booth (#411) to say hello!

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width=”300″ height=”209″ />Over the course of my naval blogging, nothing has worried me more than the Pacific. I worry that American policymakers have taken their eyes off the ball, distracted by impulsive, poorly justified national security choices (i.e. Iraq and Libya). As resources dwindle, the margin for error and or ability to absorb/compensate/fix strategic mistakes dwindle too.

Other countries are increasingly able to capitalize on American mis-steps. We don’t deal with that well, at all. With China, in particular, America’s penchant for panic in the face of even the most minimal of perceived challenges poses a real–and largely unrecognized–security threat.

That is why the US desperately needs a comprehensive national security strategy for the Pacific.

The United States needs a strategic outline for the Pacific. Not a milk-toast “glossy” maritime strategy “outline” or a some phone-book sized strategic door-stop (think QDR), but more strategy built around public discussion and good, thorough debates on basic strategy. That’s why I am excited to see this sort of conference take place out at the Navy War College. (I’m glad to have been invited, and hope to attend. It looks interesting, and I hope to be able to make some contributions there.)

In the Pacific theatre, I am particularly worried about how America will respond as other countries begin to employ naval force in ways that we have pretty much taken for granted. I fear the United States public (and policymakers) will fail to react in a constructive fashion once China decides to engage in some, oh, unilateral peace-keeping exercise of it’s own someplace in the Pacific (and, for that matter, nor do I believe the PLA will constrain its apatite for new territory–particularly if the pickings are tiny Pacific kleptocracies.). A good strategy would seek to prevent–or reduce the need–for the PLA to get into a situation where it might succumb to temptation.

To start that discussion off, Hoover Fellow Commander David Slayton (USN) and I penned a few papers looking at this very issue. In the Hoover Digest, we present “China at Sea“, and at USNI Proceedings we offer, “The real game changers of the Pacific Basin” (and no, to answer all the questions from those who have gotten the printed version, we didn’t write or see the captions on the illustrations there before the article went to press!). They’re pretty much identical papers–but I think the Hoover one reads better.

Anyway, the gist of the two papers is this: We feel that the first unilateral tests of China’s emergent amphibious force will take place in the deep Pacific, and that there is a risk China will exploit local (and very, very violent) anti-Chinese violence as a justification to carry out some form of a HA/DR or NEO evacuation. But we also fear that such activity will creep into some form of Spratly-like squatting and, in time, a permanent presence and/or territorial claim.

After all, what member of the PLA would refuse a Chinese “Diego Garcia” in the Pacific? Those islands can be darned useful, after all.

Are we panicking? Maybe. On a parochial level, panic is good–and the Marine Corps must be thrilled with us right now. But I feel that provocation is going to become a regular part of the Western Pacific’s strategic fabric. Australia’s Peter Howarth, I think, hit the nail on the head back in 2006, in “China’s Rising Sea Power: The PLA Navy’s Submarine Challenge.” In the book, he quoted Castex:

The side whose serious inferiority on the surface condemns it to the defensive ought always, despite its unfavorable situation, to try to be as active and aggressive as possible. Its fleet should remember that the very fact of its existence is sufficient to confer upon it the title of “Fleet in Being”, and that, if it wants to have some influence on events, it has to give some sign of its state of being, which it can do by undertaking something, by trying to impose its will to the extent that its means allow, seeking as far as it can the operational initiative, even if it does not result in anything decisive.

That’s what is going on here. China is not building a blue-water Navy–they’re building a Navy to serve as a goad.

China’s ships–even relatively recently built front-line craft (that are expected to remain in service for the next twenty years)–are glass-jawed wonders, complete with plywood interiors. The PLA(N) still has trouble producing sufficient fresh water for embarked crew. And on a regional basis, with South Korea, Japan, Australia or other allies added in, China’s Navy looks far less daunting. It’s a fleet built to confront than to provoke and exploit.

Just look at the strategic message put forth by naming their first aircraft carrier (a feeble, aged hulk that it is), after the Admiral who conquered Taiwan. Add in the fact that work was sped up on the craft to, in part, enter service during the U.S. Navy’s Centennial of Aviation. (Nevermind the fact that this platform will likely be mostly used as a test DF-21D targeting surrogate, but hey, that’s for another day, right?) China gets a heck of a lot of mileage out of minimal investment. China has a strategy, and they are doing the things they need to do to carry it out.

America isn’t. And that worries me.

**There is also an aside here about leveraging intellectual capital, too. I mean, why isn’t there far more collaboration between Australian and U.S. strategic think-tanks? As far as Navy studies go, Australia hits far above its weight, as does Singapore. We should have all kinds of joint strategic studies going on in that part of the world, but, frankly, I’ve not been impressed. We should be doing a lot more to engage our Pacific Partners–we can start by trying to send more officers over with the express purpose of forging good strategy. And, for that matter, let’s encourage more Aussies to come to the War Colleges as well.**

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height=”199″ />A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure to chat and email with the Mississippi Press’ Kaija Wilkinson, to discuss the future of the Huntington Ingalls’ yard. I think that yard has its work cut out for it.

Craig Hooper, a San Francisco defense consultant who runs the website NextNavy.com, said there are advantages to the split from Northrop – particularly the chance to focus more on building high-quality ships – but “Huntington Ingalls has its work cut out for it.”

In an email response to questions about the spinoff, sent last month, Hooper noted that the company has to worry about debt, strong competition from other shipbuilders and the possibility that its “signature products,” – large-scale amphibious assault vessels – may fall out of favor with the Navy.

“So while the immediate future for Ingalls looks rosy, there are storm clouds looming on the horizon,” Hooper’s email said.

Yes there are. There are a lot of hungry shipbuilders out there who would give an enormous amount to enjoy the “kid gloves” treatment the government has accorded this shipyard since Katrina. But that time is over, and the shipyard’s primary customer–the U.S. government–is set to become far less tolerant of failure.

There’s also that pesky DC-based undercurrent that big amphibs are “irrelevant” and should be cut from the inventory. If I were Huntington Ingalls, I’d be doing just about anything to urge that LPD-17s be given a chance to get out to sea and and prove themselves.

And, well, there’s quality. Put bluntly, the failure of a poorly-welded mast on a newly-delivered Ingalls-built DDG does a disservice to the entire national shipbuilding community. So, with that, we will eagerly watch the new Huntington Ingalls Industry management, and see if they can pull off a shipbuilding Cinderella story! Best of luck to HII, and I hope their yards pick up their game and get healthy soon. It’ll do everybody good.

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bay-300×154.jpg” alt=”" width=”300″ height=”154″ />Sometimes a deal is just so good, you’ve just gotta take it. Australia’s announcement that it will buy the the UK’s soon-to-be-redundant LHD Largs Bay for $100 million Australian dollars (@$105 USD at present rates) must have government minsters in a gleeful state. Even if the Largs Bay has serious problems, at this price, it’s a steal. Anybody involved in negotiating this deal should be congratulated.

Considering that initial stories were suggesting that the Aussies might end up paying $300 million ASD for the Largs Bay, the low price-tag is great news.

That said, the central issue of strategic direction still needs to be hammered out in Australian quarters. As I wrote before:

To be blunt about it, the Largs Bay is being pitched as a support vessel for the big Canberra Class mini-carriers. That’s all–and, well, that means the operational basis for selecting the Bay Class is wrong-headed. Don’t take my word for it–Here’s the Aussie 2009 Defence White Paper (.pdf):

“The Government has decided to enhance this amphibious capability by acquiring a large strategic sealift ship to move stores, equipment and personnel. Based on a proven design, the new ship will have a displacement of 10,000 – 15,000 tonnes, with landing spots for a number of helicopters and an ability to land vehicles and other cargo without requiring port infrastructure. The new ship will provide ongoing sustainment support for deployed forces, allowing the LHD ships to remain in areas of operations in direct support of the land force ashore.”

Small-to-mid-sized amphibs are meant to be used for lesser contingencies–not seconded to the two flatdecks.

Second, Australia is underestimating future demand for smaller amphibious platforms. One is not enough.

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Over the coming years–after the two Canberras enter service by around 2015–there will be, quite simply, too few “mid-sized” amphibious platforms readily available in Australia to fully address the ever-expanding (and ever-more complex) array of complex South Sea security threats.

Sending a Canberra platform to help squelch every outbreak of political upheaval is far too costly for such missions. Not only is the Canberra Class an over-match for most peace-keeping missions in the South Seas, no Canberra Class vessel will travel anywhere alone, ever.

Ginning up a task force for a dash deployment costs an enormous amount of money. And it can’t be done quickly, either.

What Australia really needs is some sort of fast-moving, small-force insertion “utility” trucks–ships that can get from one place to another rather quickly. Platforms that can be used to deploy police forces or other support personnel in low-threat environments–civil disruptions, disasters and the like. Keep the Canberra Class vessels for the big “out of area” stuff.

That’s why I am glad to see that the Australian MOD is discussing this:

AUSTRALIA may use a civilian transport ship to plug a gap in the Navy’s amphibious capability, despite the announcement yesterday that Defence will pay the Royal Navy $100 million for an amphibious ship.

Tasmanian boat builder Incat confirmed it was in talks with the Defence Department over the sale or lease of a 112-metre catamaran to tide the Navy over until 2015 when two huge new landing helicopter docks will be operational.

A good mix of high and low assets, all matched by the shared ability to carry/support the central components of the Australian amphibious armory–CH-47s in particular–makes sense. And with the price they’re paying for the Largs Bay, the Aussies now have no excuse to at least retire the old stuff, and then rent and experiment with a few new platforms.

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236″ />While doing some research on anti-mine and anti-submarine warfare (ASW) issues, I came upon this wonderful gem from a September 1964 ASW paper in the U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings. I strongly suspect that, at least for ASW, similar sentiment still holds true today:

“The problems in the field are tremendous, and getting worse, not only because of the increasing capabilities of submarines, but also because of the increasing complexity and capability of the weapons devised to combat them. These combine to make ASW a masochist’s paradise, bringing to mind the old story about the

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man who loved to hit himself on the head with a hammer because it felt so good when he stopped…

…Perhaps the simile does not apply, though, because in ASW you never get the chance to stop hitting yourself on the head.”

I almost wish Proceedings would, on occasion, republish old papers that, you know, are–through dint of naval habit, tradition or just sheer cussedness–ageless.

We cannot keep ignoring the renaissance that is going on underneath the waves. It’s enough to make one wonder just why the Navy is so darn set upon restarting the old multi-purpose DDG-51 seaframe.

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“300″ height=”229″ />If you have not read any of Hunter S. Thompson’s essays, then you are missing something. For all the drug-tinted, hard-living hyperbole of Hunter S. Thompson’s image, the guy wrote like a fiend. And he was an amazing observer.

For me, one Hunter Thompson essay particularly resonates–an essay about Air Force test pilots, entitled, “Those daring young men in their flying machines…Ain’t what they used to be.” Originally published back in 1969, Hunter republished the piece in “The Great Shark Hunt: Strange tales from a strange time.”

(As an aside, the test-pilot essay is really quite good; in fact, I suspect Tom Wolfe used it as a point of departure for The Right Stuff, a landmark exploration into the U.S. space program.)

Anyway. Hunter’s essay was one of the first to explore how the demands of high-tech weaponry were forcing the Air Force to move away from it’s old barnstorming, rules-breaking image. In the piece he notes, “the Air Force still benefits from the romantic pilot myth that its personnel managers have long since destroyed.” He caught the drift of a cultural trend.

Hunter Thompson didn’t like it–After Hunter rants about the risk-averse, family-friendly culture of the late-sixties Edwards Air Force Base, he finds one of the last remaining “old school” test pilots, and gets to hear tales about how this hold-out from the era when “men were Men” saved a plane with…a paperclip.

To some extent, Hunter’s observations ring true today. At NPS, I taught a lot of Air Force people (I approved my last thesis advisee, Col. W., late last year!), but the best pilot of my NPS Air Force student cadre was one of the best students–a delightful straight-A, want-to-be-called upon-every-time academic. Great guy…for high-level graduate study. But his piloting skills were, however, top notch–he (like every other good pilot out there) had his tales of saving a malfunctioning new-model aircraft by the thinnest of margins–only miraculously recovering moments before certain catastrophe.

So I feel a little conflicted. Here we are, today, still having to grapple with this idea that our “image” of an ideal “warrior” has to be something out of a Tom Cruise movie–while, in reality, there are some real gawky bookworms out there doing some amazingly crazy stuff in the sky (and seas and elsewhere).

Maybe it’s time we give credit to where it is due, and encourage the folks in the Pentagon’s image-making department to move beyond the idea that real war-fightin’ heroes are rule-breakin’ misogynists (like, say, CAPT Honors) and embrace the notion that there are lots of

average “Joes” out there in the national security community who, as professionals, do crazy, gutsy stuff.

And then drive Toyota minivans home to the wife, no less.

Let’s put the old Tom Cruise as Top Gun image to pasture, and work to reach beyond the easy stereotype.

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pg” alt=”" width=”300″ height=”214″ />One of the underestimated pieces of infrastructure in the American warfighter’s toolkit is, well, their meteorologists. It’s neat to be able to have an up-to-the-minute global read on the weather, so ships and aircraft can know–at a very, very high level of detail, where to go to avoid tough sea conditions or bad weather.

The U.S. Navy’s reliance on forecasters saves an enormous amount of wear and tear on ships and crews–and it must be a great relief knowing that the days of Halsey’s Typoon are past.

But is the Navy over-relying on our meteorological backup?

To some extent, the Navy’s forecasting infrastructure has enabled the development of what I’ll call an operational “Glass Jaw”–that is, the tolerance of operational margins that are insufficient to withstand heavy weather operations.

Take, oh, the Osprey–it’s long-fought struggle to kludge some type of functional de-icing system together led to some interesting weather-based operational restrictions/habits so the aircraft could avoid icing conditions. There are other examples, too–I mean, just how many of our successful Aegis Missile-Defense launches have been held in heavy seas? (Ahh…”Chirp” goeth them crickets…) I could go on–but it’s clear that the Navy simply can’t keep operating in a way that depends upon ready knowledge of the weather.

As I wrote back in 2009, the Navy’s demand for high-fidelity, just-in-time weather forecasts are:

“…tying us into an unhealthy dependence upon our weather centers. Our weather satellites. Our downlinks. Our meteorological service providers. What a fun prospect for a single point failure! Under the right circumstances, it’d be Halsey’s Typhoon all over again–but with ships far less able to take a weather beating.”

And

“The trends are not reassuring. As up-n-coming surface warfare officers focus their energy on on the twin power points of limiting energy consumption and controlling wear-n’-tear, we’ll not see commanders roar off into high seas too often–even if, in some cases, sneaking around in a storm might prove a force multiplier. Will ship drivers have enough familiarity and comfort operating in a storm to utilise weather’s potential tactical advantages?

(Or have we decided that weather no longer offers the cover it once did?)

As our operational expertise vanishes, the design will follow–we simply won’t design for the worst because we’ll soon not have enough operational experience with bad weather to know better. It’s the Airbus problem, redux.

I’d hope this ugly set of anti-heavy weather trends would change a bit as some of the smaller ships enter service. But how robust are these ships going to be? Will they be tech-heavy but glass-jawed, unable to stand the pounding? We’re already seeing durability problems in the NSC-1 and NSC-2 designs. Without draconian measures those two ships would be unlikely to survive five years of service (and, even now, the fix is probably, gamed by reducing the total time these platforms operate). We’ll see if LCS-1 or 2 will be any different.”

Well, that leads to the recent report of a heavy-weather-induced hull crack in the LCS-1. Now, all you readers know that I am no fan of LCS-1, but I am thrilled to see that LCS-1 is being run hard enough to break things. This is exactly what the LCS program needs, and though the results (a hull crack and leak) are disconcerting for those tracking LCS-1 manufacturing/design quality, the only way to fix it is to, well, discover the error in the first place. I expect LCS-2 to endure it’s share of slamming and banging, too.

But before we start grabbing our pitchforks and heading out to burn the LCS on the programmatic stake, it pays to put this episode into context.

Am I the only one to remember that the DDG-51s–the much-loved backbone of the fleet–had some trouble standing up to heavy weather lately? Anybody recall that bow slamming of the USS Gridley (DDG-101)? How the ship, a mere seven months after commissioning and with a single Miami-to-San Diego transit under her belt, suffered “significant” structural damage in 2007? And that the design problem had been known (and likely managed by changing operational parameters for an entire ship class) since 1993?

How quickly we forget.

So, while I am upset to see the LCS-1 taking on water, I am glad to see that the Navy is putting these new

ships through their paces now–and hopefully the Admirals in charge will have sufficient fortitude to enact necessary fixes today rather than waiting until the fleet has to wrestle with the challenge of fixing an enormous number of glass-jawed vessels (and no gaming the “presumed days operational” like the Coast Guard has done to “address” structural flaws in NSC 1 and 2).

The Navy no longer has sufficient resources to tolerate avoidable quality problems or design shortcomings. Find and fix now to avoid future failures in the dark financial wilderness of the 2020s.

This all leads back to something else that the Navy has not really “dealt” with yet–the bad welding scandals that have plagued the Northrop Grumman yards. Sure, “critical” welds are ok, but when will the bill for the poor-spec “not-so-critical-yet” welds come due? It worries me–and I don’t get the sense anybody in the Navy has really grappled with that stealth maintenance challenge–but we needn’t look beyond the recent dis-masting of the USS Gravely (DDG 107) to realize that this unsolved welding scandal is going to end poorly.

So readers, I throw it over to you…what other “Glass Jaw” systems/platforms are out there? What other systems have been overly harnessed to the promise of sunny skies and glassy, unfouled seas?

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g” alt=”" width=”214″ height=”300″ />One of the things that sometimes frustrates me about the quality of strategic debate in this country is that it sometimes becomes something of an discount viagra echo chamber–where the converted tend to spend an enormous time preaching to themselves. Public outreach and education sometimes gets a little shortchanged.

But given the challenges we face in the 2020s, the organization that fails to encourage public buy-in will…well…not get funded.

That’s why–at least for the Navy– public outreach is so important these days.

It’s tough. A chance to garner the attention of new audiences–who are unfamiliar with or don’t care about naval affairs–comes about only on occasion, so, it was a great pleasure to see New Hampshire Public Radio’s “Word of Mouth” program take a bit of a risk in exposing their audience to the somewhat wonky world of naval procurement.

It was great. They gave me about 15 minutes on March 21 to make the case for naval amphibs. Give it a listen, here. How do you think it went? And

what topics would you suggest for their show in the future?

(Also, I’d be remiss if I overlooked the San Francisco folks who made this possible–a big thank you to KQED (again) for allowing me the use of their excellent studios and for their production help, too.)

Bloomberg’s Tony Capaccio discovered something that is not supposed to happen to a new ship–particularly a new ship that has buoyancy issues:

During a heavy-weather ocean trial on the USS Freedom in mid-February, he said, sailors discovered a six-inch horizontal hull crack below the waterline that leaked five gallons an hour. Inside the hull the crack measured three inches. It originated in a weld seam between two steel plates.

The ship returned to its home port in viagra canada San Diego, avoiding rough seas, after the commanding officer judged the leak rate “manageable,” Johnson said.

Smaller cracks that indicated welding “defects” showed up in the welds of the vessel’s aluminum structure during sea trials last year, Johnson said in his e-mail.

Initial analysis of the second Lockheed-built vessel, the USS Independence, showed improved welding, he said.

A reminder to Bloomberg–the Independence is NOT built by Lockheed.  I’m surprised that I still need to point this out, but far too many people out there are

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failing to distinguish between the LCS-1 and LCS-2 classes.

But this, the latest recent failure aboard LCS-1…shouldn’t have happened. What also shouldn’t have happened is the release of this news the day after a contract gets awarded.

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