Sea Service Chiefs Address Short-, Long-Term Concerns

By Amy L. Wittman, Editor In Chief

Building and maintaining the right mix of hard and soft power within the U.S. sea services is a challenge in today's difficult budget environment. Tackling the topic of “Seapower and America's Security” May 4 during the first in a series of professional seminars at the 2009 Sea-Air-Space Expo were Adm. Gary Roughead, chief of naval operations; Gen. James T. Conway, commandant of the Marine Corps; Adm. Thad W. Allen, commandant of the Coast Guard; and James E. Caponiti, acting maritime administrator at the Maritime Administration (MARAD).

Navy League National President J. Michael McGrath kicked off the Service Chiefs' Panel by welcoming attendees and panelists to the expo at at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center, National Harbor, Md.

“We are indeed fortunate to have leaders like these here with us today, and they, in turn, are blessed to lead the finest Marines, Sailors, Coast Guardsmen and Merchant Mariners this country has ever had,” McGrath said. “I want to thank them for there service, their incredible leadership and consistent support of the Navy League and the Sea-Air-Space exposition.

World events during the past year “have certainly validated the need for the integration of hard and soft power in the areas of instability around the globe,” said moderator Bill Cross. “Whether it's the challenge of globalization, shifting worldwide demographics, climatological impacts, competition for increasingly scarce resources, the influence of radical extremist movements or any number of others, our maritime forces will be expected to apply the right mix of both hard and soft power.”

All of this, Cross said, is expected to take place in during a time of economic uncertainty.

“We have the leaders with us today who can successfully confront these and other challenges, he said

Roughead said the Navy “is being used aggressively, with 14,000 Sailors on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan. They are doing incredible work in assignments that just a few years ago our Navy never thought we would be involved in.”

He noted that the Navy today is seeing increasing demands in the areas of ballistic missile defense; intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance; and proactive humanitarian assistance and maritime security.

“Of course the most newsworthy even in recent times,” he said, “is the counter-piracy operations several nations are involved in off the coast of Somalia.”

The service recently completed its fiscal 2010 budget, some of the items in which “reaffirms the direction we put in place a year ago,” Roughead said. Specifically, the service is moving forward with the Littoral Combat Ships (LCS), the second of which is “is marching toward completion,” he said.

Restarting the DDG 51 Arleigh Burke destroyer line, truncating the DDG 1000 destroyer program at three ships and completion two weeks ago of the P-8 Maritime Patrol Aircraft also are among recent positive steps taken by the service, the CNO said.

The Navy had to make some difficult decisions in recent years, including canceling LCS 3 and 4 and some weapons programs that were costly without performing.

“Performance is going to be key,” Roughead said.

Roughead said he was looking forward to shaping the programs of the future through the 2011 budget process and the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR).

The CNO said the key areas of concern for him are manpower, how will the fleet of the future be manned and the total costs of ownership of the Navy.

“What are we doing today, what are we acquiring today and what will I be delivering to my successors many years down the road?” he said. “When I look at some of the cost projections, I believe that we have to have a fundamentally different way of acquiring things, and it's not simply looking at the acquisition costs of today, but what are we delivering to the future leaders and Sailors of the Navy.”

This is a “tough year for the U.S. Marine Corps,” Conway said. Being in both Iraq and Afghanistan “will put more stress on those people with the MOSs [military occupational specialties] that we have already stressed trying to satisfy the troop requirements in both areas.

“We hope [2010] is better,” he said. “We hope that we are able to turn off the light for the Marine Corps and close the door in Iraq and focus completely on Afghanistan. Of course, that remains to be seen.”

Conway's near-term concerns include training, because the traditionally expeditionary force has been training for and conducting counter-insurgency operations, being, in effect, a second land army as a result of those deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan.

“We have lost a number of our expeditionary and amphibious skills,” he said, “simply because we don't have the opportunity to exercise with the Navy and, increasingly, with the Coast Guard that we used to have.”

The Corps has become heavier, which is paradoxical to its expeditionary role.

“I have great hopes for the Maritime Strategy and soon-to-published Naval Operating Concept that will tell us what the implementation needs to look at,” Conway said. Nodding to Roughead and Allen, he said, “Give me a raincheck, OK? We'll be there, we just can't be there right now.

Conway's long-range concerns include the vitality of the naval forces. There needs to be a fact-based, rigorous discussion about the capacity of ground forces, the amphibious force.

“We want to see that kind of rigor in the QDR” to determine the right kind of force structure for the country. “The question will be asked in the QDR: How much amphibious capability is enough? I would almost reverse the question and say: How much amphibious capability perhaps becomes too little?” he said.

He said the service is about in the right place right now, with enough ships and Marines to provide forcible entry.

“If you get below two regiments of trigger-pullers, at some point you don't have forcible entry capability,” Conway said.

Caution must be exercised so that the Corps does not go below that level.

“It's simply too risky,” he said.

Allen noted it has been a very busy year for the Coast Guard as well. The service is interdicting drugs in record numbers, deployed to the Middle East, guarding oil platforms, serving as law enforcement aboard Navy ships, and working on piracy cases as part of joint operations, among other things.

“It is clear we are all needed in the littoral,” he said. ”The Navy, Marines and Coast Guard ... there is a growing sense of the combined capacities and competencies of the naval forces, together, are what's needed to execute the 21st Century Maritime Strategy. To that end we are also interested in the Naval Operating Concept.”

Allen noted that the service will be having its own QDR, where issues will include cutter capacity to support theater security cooperation in both hemispheres, “law enforcement detachments and port security units for the safe deployment and redeployment of materiel as we move around to different hot spots around the world.”

The service will be working with the Navy and Marine Corps on the Naval Concept of Operations, which will carry three signatures just like the Maritime Strategy.

Caponiti explained that MARAD is the civilian interface with industry.

“One good recent illustration of some of the roles of the Merchant Marine and the Maritime Administration was provided by the piracy attack on the Maersk Alabama. While ultimately it was the U.S. Navy that ended the standoff, it was the skill and resourcefulness of the Merchant Mariners aboard the ship that saved the ship and its cargo,” he said.

There is a worldwide shortage of skilled mariners, so MARAD is working with partners to find sea-going billets on foreign-flagged ships, liquefied national gas tankers and international-flag cargo vessels, Caponiti said.

There are concerns, he said, that the capacity of U.S. ports might not be able to keep pace with the growth in international trade. He is, however, encouraged by the Obama administration's support for the Marine Highway Program.

This year, as part of economic stimulus efforts, MARAD will be able to award a total of $100 million in small shipyard grants. The agency last year had $10 million with which it awarded 19 small shipyard grants covering 13 states.

“Highways, transit and rail have already gotten billions of dollars in funds. We will be competing with them for good projects. ... These will need to be shovel ready,” he said, and provide regional significance and national benefit.