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Navigation Brief

This is an e-newsletter that first ran August 6, 2020

WASHINGTON – Good Evening, Drifters

We’ve talked quite a bit here about what could possibly be wrong with the Navy. It has been a rough run from Fat Leonard to Farsi Island to Fitz and McCain to Bonhomme Richard: the hits just don’t stop coming.

I’ve had hours of arguments with my regular sounding board Bryan McGrath, a former destroyer skipper who you probably know of through being quoted in stories (mine and others), over whether there is one thing wrong with the Navy, whether it’s a culture problem and whether or not now-Indo-Pacific Command head Adm. Phil Davidson had a point or not when he said this:

“These two collisions were a tragedy, there is no doubt about it,” Davidson said. “And all the senior leaders of the Navy feel a tremendous amount of accountability for it. But the fact of the matter is 280-odd other ships weren’t having collisions.”

So whenever someone is brave enough to offer an opinion on the matter, I pay attention. Because it seems important that the Navy get out of the bad news spiral it has been caught in these past few years.

I also had a chance to chat this week with a new arm in the Navy analysis rotation: Brent Sadler, a retired submariner and Navy captain who just came on board at The Heritage Foundation, taking the seat once so ably occupied by Friend of The Drift Tom Callender.

Bent posted a thoughtful piece on what he thinks is missing in the Navy, and we’re going to welcome him to the starting rotation by combing through it.

Let’s Drift.

-DBL

Cracked Hulls

Brent’s thesis really is in the headline: Cracks in the Hull—Urgent Action Required to Ensure the U.S. Navy’s Role in Great-Power Competition.

But the argument breaks down into a few points:

The Navy cannot sustain enough presence to alter or shape the current competition with Russia or China:

Excerpt: The U.S. Navy as it is now is unable to sustain the forward presence needed to pace the Chinese and Russian maritime challenges let alone shape them; the last time coordinated multiple carrier operations were conducted in the South China Sea was in 2012.9

This situation necessitates greater coordinated deployments with the Navy’s sister services to achieve the desired strategic impact. While such joint deployments cannot replace the Naval presence, emerging maritime capabilities, such as the Army’s ground-launched anti-ship cruise missiles, the Air Force’s long-range maritime patrol and anti-shipping missions, and the Marine Corps’ evolving expeditionary amphibious forces, can complicate Chinese and Russian calculus and contribute to effective deterrence. However, given the nature of great- power competition, deterrence can no longer be the only or primary objective of U.S. Naval presence.

Another point: In the wake of the Fitzgerald and McCain accidents, the Navy’s basic seamanship is in question, as is its resilience in the face of combat casualties given the long timelines associated with fixing damaged ships.

Excerpt: Despite the fact that the Navy implemented several maintenance and training reforms to improve fleet and aviation readiness, more is needed. As then-CNO Admiral John Richardson testified in April 2018, it will take several years of leadership oversight and stable funding to ensure the that the Navy’s sailors and platforms are returned to required states of readiness, at the earliest in 2021.

The Navy’s demonstrated inability to return ships to service is unacceptable. After their collisions with commercial ships in 2017, it took the USS Fitzgerald over a year to depart its dry-dock and almost two years to return to sea; and the USS McCain spent nine months in dry-dock, to eventually return to sea in October 2019. With a small fleet, quick turnaround on battle damage repairs is vital.

The Crux: The heart of the matter, as Sadler lays out, seems to be a lack of consistent vision for the fleet from Navy leadership and mixed messages about what the Navy actually needs.

Excerpt:Most troubling has been the confusion that turmoil in the most senior ranks has caused, beginning with the last-minute withdrawal of prospective Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) Admiral William Moran in August 2019, then the firing of the Secretary of the Navy in November 2019, followed by the acting Secretary of the Navy’s departure in April 2020. In this environment, control of the Navy’s future fleet building plan—the Integrated Naval Force Structure Assessment (INFSA)—was for the first time taken over by the Secretary of Defense. It has not been helpful that the Navy first argued in its 2016 Force Structure Assessment (FSA) that more than 653 warships would be needed to meet Combatant Command needs and then, in the same document, stated that 355 would be adequate. Such divergences strain credibility in the absence of an accessible articulation of how those smaller forces would be adequate

Here’s what Sadler suggests might help the situation:

Recommendations:

  • Perhaps unsurprisingly, Heritage (which makes a point of calling for what they think the military needs regardless of cost) calls of the Navy to resurrect a Reagan-era talking point of calling of the nation to build a fleet of more than 600 ships, manned and unmanned. “Much as President Ronald Reagan’s 600-ship Navy did in the 1980s, tangible commitment to this course can deter adversaries by giving the Navy the means for a forward deployed and effective presence, and the capacity for training that sustains war-fighting proficiencies and seamanship.”
  • Sadler calls for a sustained robust presence in the South China Sea with episodic surges, essentially turning the South China Sea into what the Persian Gulf has been since the Gulf War.
  • Sadler calls for a decade-long “national seapower initiative” that seeks to reinvigorate the industrial base and expand the Navy’s maintenance capacity. “Given the need for a larger fleet and persistent maintenance backlogs, shipyard modernization alone is not adequate, and the number of facilities must be increased.”
  • Sadler calls for the Navy to articulate how it will fight with a joint force.

Do check out the whole report, linked up top. It’s a quick read so have a look.

Now on to The Hotwash!

The Hotwash

My colleague Geoff Z over at Navy Times published a story today that you really should pay attention to. Our Civilian Mariner force is under a lot of pressure.

Excerpt: For nearly five months, thousands of civilian mariners assigned to the Navy’s fleet of U.S. Military Sealift Command ships have been living under what are believed to be some of the strictest COVID-19 restrictions in the military. And those restrictions were dropped on them with almost no notice, according to their advocates.

Under the “Gangways Up” order issued by MSC March 21, the mariners — or CIVMARs — have been forced to live on their ships, unable to go home when pierside and sometimes unable to obtain basic hygiene and comfort supplies, according to union officials representing the workers.

Such restrictions — aimed at keeping the crews free of coronavirus infection — are pushing the crews to their breaking point, three unions representing the workers warned in a July 29 letter to Rear Adm. Michael Wettlaufer, MSC commander.

The letter, posted to the Seafarers International Union’s website, notes “increasingly grave concerns regarding the mental health and well-being of MSC’s CIVMARs” as a result of the order.

“There is growing anger, frustration and despair throughout the fleet,” the letter states. “People have a breaking point and many of these crewmembers are nearing it.”

Read the rest here: ‘Despair’ spreading throughout the Military Sealift Command fleet over ‘draconian’ COVID-19 restrictions, unions warn

More Reading

Pentagon nominee slams the US Navy’s fleet plans as ‘not a credible document’

Petters: Virginia-Class Subs Facing Most COVID-19 Delays at Newport News Shipbuilding

China’s New Type-075 Amphibious Warship Kicks Off Sea Trials

Navy Families Seek Compensation for Extra Time Apart During Coronavirus Pandemic

Braithwaite Speaks: Those who battled Bonhomme Richard blaze risked all to save ship

Rest in Peace, John: Legendary Navy Times reporter John Burlage dies at age 80

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David B. Larter was the naval warfare reporter for Defense News.

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