Critics Question Depth Of Navy s Sea Power Vision

Defense News | June 24-30, 2002 | Gopal Ratnam

[Stand Watch Listen]

Under congressional pressure to present a coherent vision of Navy’s transformation, the U.S Navy’s top officer announced a new concept of naval operations, called Sea Power 21.

Some analysts say the Navy, after lagging behind the Army and the Air Force in articulating a clear vision of transformation, finally has a clear template. But some critics say the Sea Power 21 concept is heavy on style and light on substance.

Speaking at a June 11 conference at the Naval War College, Newport, R.I., Adm. Vern Clark, the chief of naval operations, said the concept calls for the future Navy and Marine Corps to be built on three broad principles: Sea Strike, or projection of offensive power; Sea Shield, which is projecting defensive power; and Sea Basing, or projecting sovereignty.

Under a concept called FORCEnet, the Navy and Marine Corps would combine their information networks with those of the other services.

While many Navy observers expected Clark to "lay out his vision for Navy transformation, his announcement sounded like old wine in a new bottle," said one senior naval analyst at Newport.

"If Sea Strike is power projection … what is new about that? The Navy has always been doing Sea Shield, and Sea Basing is no different from forward basing and deployment," the analyst said. The chief of naval operations "has done a nice job of laying out the vision of a 21st century Navy you would expect from a 19th century officer."

Although the Sea Power 21 concept appears to favor building new capabilities, the Navy’s budget priorities continue to be driven by spending on weapon platforms, some analysts say.

The Navy’s preliminary budget proposal for 2004, called Tentative-Program Objective Memorandum (T-POM), continues to be centered on weapon platforms while Clark’s Sea Power 21 concept calls for more funding for information networks, the senior naval analyst said June 19.

The T-POM, which lays out the budget plan for the next six years, is a draft budget document and subject to change before becoming a part of the final Pentagon budget in February 2003.

Funding for some critical programs that could contribute to the Navy’s transformation would be cut in the next six years, according to the May 8 budget document.

Compared with the Navy budget for 2003, funding for FORCEnet would be cut by $50 million between 2005-2009, according to the budget document. In assessing the risk of such a cut, the budget document concludes that "full capability [is] neither needed nor attainable until transformational communications and battle force command and control foundation is in place and healthy."

However, one Navy official familiar with the FORCEnet program said June 12 efforts were under way to restore funding to earlier proposed levels.

Experiment Funding Cuts

While Clark said June 12 that a well-coordinated experimentation process would be key to naval transformation, and that the Navy Warfare Development Command would play a vital role, the T-POM proposes reducing the command’s budget from the $278 million proposed in the 2003 budget, and excludes the command from future joint warfare experiments.

The reduced funding and the diminished role for the Navy Warfare Development Command, Newport, R.I., could lead to "reduced experimentation and concept development [which] might delay implementation of network-centric warfare warfighting concepts," the budget document said.

Another concept, called Naval Fires Network, would provide a combined battle management picture that is key to time-critical targeting, where airborne fighter aircraft and bombers are fed data on mobile targets. The preliminary 2004 budget proposal also reduces its 2003 budget of $184 million for the next five years.

The budget proposal also eliminates 50 percent of the research and development budget in 2004 and 2005 for Advanced Submarine Technology, leaving the program with about $256 million.

The cut in funding for the submarine improvement program may be to accommodate the costs of converting Trident-class submarines from SSBN, carrying nuclear missiles, to SSGN and carrying Tomahawk cruise missiles and special operation forces, one congressional analyst said.

The Navy would "accept near-term risk caused by slowing of Naval Fires Network installation schedule," the budget document said.

The 2004 budget document emphasizes new capabilities such as development of the long-range Standard Missile-5, modernization of the E-2C Hawkeye airborne early warning aircraft fleet to enable the plane to conduct littoral surveillance, new investments in the unmanned aerial combat vehicle (UCAV) and a new Littoral Combat Ship.

Fitted with new radar, the E-2C planes would travel deep inland to conduct surveillance and guide the Standard Missile-5 to targets deep inland, one congressional analyst said. That would be a significant addition to the Navy’s offensive power projection capabilities, the analyst said.

Despite the Navy’s investment of $337 million on UCAVs between 2005 and 2009, the first vehicle is expected to be ready by 2015, while Congress has mandated that one-third of the U.S. airborne fighter aircraft must be unmanned by 2010, the congressional analyst said.