The US Navy needs a comprehensive strategy to support future fleet design 

The Unted States is an island nation, and its way of life depends on commerce. Since the 18th century, America has relied upon its Navy deter our adversaries from attacking our shores, and if necessary, to win the nation’s wars. The Navy’s forward presence posture has preserved freedom of the seas in the global commons. As our Navy shrinks in size, none of these missions are foregone conclusions in the 21st century. The threats to our nation and allies today pose greater challenges than either of the authors have seen in 60+ years of combined naval service. The FY2018 NDAA ratified the Navy’s proposal for 355 ships as law. Unfortunately, we have not achieved that number due to an undersized and overburdened industrial base. That begs the question, where is the comprehensive maritime strategy that assesses the threats along multiple axes, and then provides a force design to deter or defeat them? 

The maritime strategy and 600 ship Navy 

Looking back, the Maritime Strategy of 1986 was the playbook for overwhelming the Soviets in their own maritime bastion at the operational and tactical level, but also as a cost-imposing effort in strategic competition. The Soviet Union was exposed as suffering from imperial overstretch, that could not keep up the pace with the West or NATO. Cracks started to emerge as the Warsaw Pact collapsed in 1989 and the Soviet Union simply evaporated overnight. The West had prevailed – and not a shot was fired. Navy Secretary John Lehman captured the impact of the Maritime Strategy in his book “Ocean’s Ventured”:  

“At first, the Soviets were aghast at the Maritime Strategy and then soon tried to react with increasing vigor. But as more and more ships, aircraft and technology joined the fleet, it became clear to the Soviet Navy that it could not cope… After beggaring their economy to achieve the dream of military superiority, the Soviet Union now found itself worse off than ever.” 

The strategy did not happen in a vacuum and was tied directly to a 600-ship force necessary to carry out its operational objectives. In 1981, that meant growing the fleet by more than 80 ships in the next 10 years. While some criticize the cost at which this force was achieved, and the potential challenges involved in maintaining it had the Cold War not ended, the 600-Ship Navy was undoubtedly successful as Russian leader Mikhail Gorbachev and Marshal Sergei Akhromeyev both complained about being “encircled” by U.S. naval forces. A CIA report from 1995 specifically cited the aggressive U.S. naval exercise program as a successful component of the U.S. effort to show the vulnerability of the Soviet Union to conventional military action.  

As Secretary Lehman later stated, “We had won the Cold War at sea: the world’s oceans had been ventured and the world’s oceans has been gained.” The question now was whether we could hold it. 

The decline of real strategy and the rise of budget-driven strategy 

Victory in the Cold War had almost immediate impact on the Navy as it took away the Soviet opponent and, apparently with it, the need for a maritime strategy. CNO Admiral Frank Kelso said in his 1990 confirmation testimony that an enemy was needed for a strategy and in the absence of an enemy the Navy needed a policy. Putting the Maritime Strategy “on the shelf” until needed again. In the 1990s, the Navy force structure supported the conduct of “two major theater wars” like that of the 1991 Gulf War, but after the 2001 9/11 attacks the service shifted to provide deployed naval firepower for combat in Afghanistan and Iraq. 

Despite these ongoing missions, the size of the Navy precipitously declined from 529 ships in 1991 to less than 280 by 2018. Repeated attempts by the Navy to stem the shrinking fleet tide were stymied by a lack of a firm reason for a specific number of ships. In such an environment without a risk calculation, budget decisions became the de facto Navy strategy, as specifically stated by CNO Admiral Vern Clark in 2005. As the fleet shrank, it nonetheless supported an average forward deployment of 100 ships per year. When sourced from 550 ships that was a manageable rotation. When sourced from less than 300, it resulted in deferred maintenance which caused more worn and degraded equipment leading to delayed at the shipyard, longer deployments for vessels on station, and perpetuated an increasingly destructive cycle that progressively wore down the Navy surface fleet in particular.  

Meanwhile, China quietly expanded its industrial base and experimented with market capitalism, surpassing the West’s exportation of goods. This afforded its authoritarian regime the capital to massively grow its armed forces and its influence around the globe. Beijing’s well-documented revisionist vision of global politics leads it to challenge international norms and institutions. Its intention to do so is laid bare in its substantial naval proliferation.  

The U.S. Navy must prepare for this threat. Its decline is accelerating as the Navy this budget cycle seeks to decommission a number of the aging cruisers and amphibious ships, as well as increasing numbers of littoral combat ships, while replacing them with fewer ships. The Navy made a good move to save time and money by acquiring the Italian FREMM design for its Constellation class frigate, with the first ship on track to deliver in 2026. Yet, the Navy, Marine Corps, and OSD remain locked in a numbers dispute over the suspended, continued construction of the LPD-17 class without planning for other ships that could be constructed in its place. The Navy is locked in a cycle of declining force structure and must break free before it drops below 250 ships, a likely outcome as the first generation of Arleigh Burke-class approaches the end of their service lives. 

The Way Back to a Strategy-Based Fleet 

Since the end of the Cold War, however, the idea of a maritime strategy has been severely criticized by budgeteers as a concept that ignores budget realities. Much of this critique may be a holdover from the 1980s when many Navy and OSD budget analysts criticized the 600 ship as unsustainable. This argument made sense during the short peace dividend after the end of the Cold War. The increasing threat to our nation and way of life today, obviates a call to action.   

While numbers and ship type recommendations may vary, it’s almost certain that a larger force of U.S. ships, aircraft, and submarines, manned and unmanned will be required to sustain a strategy of competition against both China, Russia, North Korea and Iran. The budget will never be large enough to cover all areas of concern and a new maritime strategy must define the risks associated with any given number of ships, as the 1980s version did. Strategy and fleet design are indelibly linked concepts that cannot be separated without loss in fidelity. Many geopolitical experts believe that war clouds are looming over the Pacific. We have a short window in which to act decisively as a maritime power. To do otherwise would be to surrender our hegemonic position on the world stage and where we go our allies will follow.   

Admiral James G. Foggo, U.S. Navy (ret.), is the Dean of the Center for Maritime Strategy and Steven Wills, Ph.D., is a Navalist for the Center for Maritime Strategy at the Navy League of the United States.