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Department of the Navy Policy Paper
"...From the Sea" Update
CARRIERS FOR FORCE 2001: A STRATEGY BASED FORCE STRUCTURE
May 1993
"...From the Sea" focuses on projecting high intensity power
from the sea. The centerpieces of that focus are the aircraft
carriers and the amphibious ready groups. In order to determine
the proper number of carriers and amphibious ready groups required
for the 21st century, the Navy and Marine Corps conducted Force
2001, a major "bottom-up" review.
Using a rigorous Joint Mission Area Assessment process,
including a series of wargames, this review determined that a
force structure centered around 12 carriers will be required to
satisfy the National Command Authorities' requirements into the
21st century. This force structure was tested and validated
against a Major Regional Contingency scenario wargame in Newport,
R.I.
SIZING THE CARRIER FORCE
Carrier force levels cannot be derived solely from
warfighting or forward presence requirements. It is not an
either/or proposition. Naval forces are built to fight and win
wars, but an equally, if not more important, function is to
prevent wars. We, as a nation, do this by stationing and
deploying forces into regions of the world where we have national
interests.
Those forces promote and protect our interests by influencing
regional events. As America's overseas land-basing is reduced,
naval forces will become even more important to overall national
security. Therefore, sizing the future force must necessarily be
a function of the demands for warfighting and those needed for the
"myriad of other important tasks."
The calculus used to arrive at a force level of 12 carriers
includes an analysis of historical and anticipated combatant
commander requirements; an estimate of contingency demand; an
assessment of how naval forces will be used to further other
important national security objectives; some judgment regarding
acceptable risk; and finally, important surge and rotational base
considerations to ensure that naval power projection forces can
arrive early, fight and win, remain for post-conflict operations,
yet still fill all of these requirements on a continuing basis.
OTHER IMPORTANT TASKS
The presence of naval forces in flash point regions of the
world provides the National Command Authorities a range of options
with which to persuade or reassure friends, deter or give pause to
the actions of potential adversaries, and serve as tangible
symbols of United States commitment around which we can build
multinational coalitions for a variety of purposes. Additionally,
today's degree of global economic interdependence links America's
prosperity at home directly to regional stability overseas.
Naval forces have long been in great demand by our national
leadership and the commanders of our overseas unified commands.
At this writing, we are involved in operations Provide Promise,
Maritime Guard, and Deny Flight in the Adriatic Sea; operation
Southern Watch in the Persian Gulf; and operation Restore Hope in
Somalia. This involvement illustrates the inherent flexibility,
utility and global reach of naval forces in supporting important
national taskings. Today, roughly 40% of our Navy is at sea at
any given time. Approximately 20% are routinely deployed to
overseas locations while the remainder train for upcoming
deployments. By 1999, our Navy will be over 25% smaller than it
is today, yet we do not anticipate a corresponding decrease in the
demand for naval force employment.
Combatant Commanders continue to demand continuous or near
continuous naval presence to meet the missions assigned them by
our National Command Authorities. The one ship they demand most
is the carrier. Carriers are major factors in their planning for
peacetime operations, crisis response options and conflict. Since
we cannot anticipate that the world will become less dangerous and
U.S. global interests, driven principally by economics, will
certainly not diminish, it is reasonable to assume the demand for
carriers will continue even as we draw down our forces.
The full range of implications must be taken into account
when considering a carrier force of fewer than 12 ships.
Especially important is the need to maintain operational
competency and readiness to meet the warfighting requirements of a
potential flash-point. Training in the actual geographic and
physical environments where crises may disrupt our interests
provides invaluable experience to our ship and air crews. In
addition to providing opportunities to work with allied and
friendly forces, such operations and exercises can also have a
deterrent effect on potential adversaries. At the same time, our
presence reassures friendly nations of our continued commitment
and interests in their region. We cannot accomplish any of these
important objectives in the Virginia Capes or Southern California
Operating Areas: You affect the game by being on the field...not
on the sideline waiting for something to happen.
Non-deployed, "surge" carriers cannot respond effectively to
a short-duration crisis or early on in a protracted crisis. This
is particularly true if the crisis is in the Persian Gulf area.
For instance, the Achille Lauro incident erupted and was
terminated by carrier aircraft from Saratoga (CV 60) in three
days. Likewise, in August 1990, power projection aircraft on
Eisenhower (CVN 69) and Independence (CV 62) were within range of
Iraqi targets less than 48 hours after the President gave the
order. In less than 30 days they were joined by two additional
carriers, a response that compelled General H. Norman Schwarzkopf
to note:
"The Navy was the first military force to respond to the
invasion, establishing immediate sea superiority. And the Navy
was also the first air power on the scene. Both of these first
deterred, indeed -- I believe -- stopped, Iraq from marching into
Saudi Arabia."
As most U.S. forces were returning home at the conclusion of
Operation Desert Storm, the carrier Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71)
was able to provide immediate support to Operation Provide
Comfort, placing a protective umbrella above allied forces and
displaced Kurds in northern Iraq. Importantly, it was the
carriers which were first to arrive and carriers remain on station
in the Gulf today. The ability to maintain carriers on station
before, during, and after hostilities is as important as being
able to surge a large number of carriers for a short period of
time. The initial Cold War example of this was the Korean War and
its aftermath. The first post-Cold War example of this was the
Persian Gulf conflict and continuing crisis. Today, in the
Adriatic, where a carrier has been an important element in
Operations Provide Promise and Deny Flight, we find the most
recent example of positioning carriers in crisis regions for
extended periods.
RISKS AND SUBSTITUTES -- DOING MORE WITH LESS?
The important consideration is that there are no replacements
for the carrier in naval warfare, only complements. Some risks
entailed in deploying a force without a carrier include:
-- Considerably reduced command, control and surveillance
capabilities. The absence of organic airborne early warning,
tactical reconnaissance and electronic support aircraft severely
restricts the ability to surveil and develop a clear tactical
picture of the area. Reduced command and control suites limits
the ability to host or act as a commander of a Joint Task Force or
Joint Force Air Component Commander, and substantially diminishes
the capacity to process and disseminate tactically critical
information.
-- Decreased ability to dominate the battlespace. A
carrier-less force cannot maintain local air superiority, enforce
no-fly zones, suppress enemy air defenses or effectively establish
local sea superiority.
-- Greatly diminished capacity to project power against
mobile targets, to provide sustained close air support for troops
ashore, and to conduct sustained fixed-wing operations.
A force that includes carrier based aviation can better
influence and shape world events. In crisis, it can effectively
support joint and combined operations in seizing an adversary's
ports and coastal bases, enabling the entry of follow-on Army and
Air Force land based forces. Sea based aviation is essential in
crises where regional land basing is denied by nations whose
political interests do not agree with our own. In the future, as
overseas U.S. land bases continue to decrease, these crucial
capabilities will become all the more important.
Does increasing transit speeds or lengthening deployments
make sense? Not really. Over the long haul, stretching fewer
carriers to achieve more presence keeps our crews away from their
families longer and stretches maintenance cycles designed to
guarantee a carrier service life of 40 to 50 years. In the end,
such a scheme really costs more. We burn out our people and they
leave; we use up the service life of our ships and aircraft faster
than planned, and we end up with a force that is fundamentally
less ready to meet the demands of future challenges. We've been
through this before; our assessment is based on painful
experience. In our judgement, a twelve carrier inventory allows
us the depth to satisfy both peacetime deployment and warfighting
requirements.
CARRIERS IN CONFLICT
As discussed earlier, the unique contributions naval forces
make to the United States' military team is the ability to project
power from the sea. When attempting to size a force necessary to
meet national needs, we should not make the mistake of assuming
that the next time we must employ the nation's armed forces it
will be under "best case circumstances." By that, we mean the
availability of substantial, well developed and in-place
infrastructure of ports, airfields and communications networks to
support the enormous requirements of joint warfighting. Likewise,
we cannot assume immediate international consensus for our
proposed actions in all cases where our national interests are
threatened. In short, even if the infrastructure is available in
the region, it is entirely possible that, for political reasons,
we will not be granted access. It is important to note that even
with access, operations with land-based aircraft are subject to
host-nation diplomatic and political concerns which may limit our
operational options. We also need to understand the next conflict
will not mirror the last; we most likely will not be given months
to position our forces and the conflict may well be protracted
such that a requirement will exist for not only surge forces, but
also rotational forces as well. Finally, "rest of the world"
events and crises will likely demand the continued use of our
military forces in areas other than the"conflict region."
In March 1993, a war game, designed to test a maritime
application of joint forces in a Southwest Asia scenario with
limited access to land based regional bases, was conducted.
Although the principal players were USN/USMC officers from
Washington and Fleet operational units, there were representatives
from the other services as well. Depending on when and where
access to land bases was made available, the scenario called for
five to nine carriers to produce the number of strike sorties
required to gain initial access and then enable the introduction
of heavier land based forces.
Given the current plan to configure carrier decks with 50
strike fighters (a number which, because of the flexibility of the
carrier, can be increased as required), each carrier at the scene
of conflict can generate from 100-150 strike sorties per day in
sustained operations. When combined with long range bomber
support, the joint naval and air force team was able to meet the
requirements for air interdiction, close air support, and air and
maritime superiority in the region.
WHAT MUST WE AFFORD?
The aircraft carrier provides a better return on investment
over the long haul than any other combat system, land or sea
based. Consider that carriers are built for a service life of 40
plus years; they are national assets that will represent our
security interests well into the 21st Century. They can and have
adapted to tremendous operational and technological changes. The
figure below illustrates the adaptability of the carrier Midway
(CV 41) over her nearly fifty years of service life.
A smaller carrier force might be less expensive to operate
and maintain in the short run, but it would be at the long term
expense of being incapable of protecting United States interests.
A properly sized carrier force provides adequate strategic depth
and maintains our core capability to project high-intensity power
ashore at the time and place of our choosing.
MAKING THE SACRIFICES
In "...From the Sea," the Navy has made a decisive move away
from the Cold War paradigm and has pursued a new and innovative
assessment process that reviews the entire range of anticipated
naval missions. This process concluded twelve carriers would be
sufficient, but it also identified near term sacrifices required
to accommodate this force.
They are:
-- A significant reduction in nuclear attack submarines
(SSNs);
-- The decommissioning of the dedicated training carrier
Forrestal, six cruisers, eight frigates, and six hydrofoil patrol
boats;
-- The retirement of the A-6 Intruder aircraft, the SH-2
Lamps MK1 helicopter, the SH-3 Sea King helicopter, divestiture of
all F-16's from naval aviation adversary programs; and,
-- The reduction of P-3 Orion squadrons and elimination of
the Update IV modification program.
These were not easy decisions; they were reached only after
hours of analysis, discussion, and war gaming necessary to achieve
consensus on this critically important issue.
CARRIERS - AN ESSENTIAL ELEMENT OF POWER
The United States has global interests and will remain
globally engaged for the foreseeable future. While the elements
of power include diplomatic, political, economic and military
capabilities, and one might hope that our future would be one
which does not necessitate the use of military force, reality
suggests otherwise. We, as a nation, must therefore determine
what specific capabilities our military requires for the world in
which we live and preserve those, if necessary, at the expense of
others. History demonstrates conclusively that the carriers
represent a core competency and have been repeatedly used in
meeting our nation's needs. Carriers provide the National Command
Authorities the unique ability to position forces well ahead of
crisis, project power from the sea and remain long after conflict
termination to ensure our objectives are realized.
Today, the Nation's carrier forces can dominate the littoral
battlespace and project sustained, precise and awesome offensive
power at a time and place of our choosing. Carrier based aviation
can shape the operational environment, support joint and combined
operations in seizing and defending an adversary's port, naval
base or coastal air base and enable the entry of follow-on Army
and Air Force land based forces. And, importantly, they can do
these without first obtaining overflight or basing rights,
developing expensive land based support infrastructure or having
operational flexibility encumbered by a host nation whose
diplomatic and political concerns may not coincide with ours.
Carriers and their embarked air wings are essential elements
of the joint military team. A military without twelve carriers
denies the leverage now available to the nation's leaders to meet
United States security needs. History suggests this leverage is
extraordinarily important. The strategic landscape projected for
the 21st century offers no promise of a world in which demand for
these national assets will be any less.
-USN-