"A Fleet Must Be Able to Fight"

A Fleet Must Be Able to Fight by Admiral Scott Swift is a need to read look into the the thinking of the Commander of the U. S. Pacific Fleet on preparing to fight a fleet.

A fleet is the Navy’s essential fighting element, our central contribution to the joint fight and to the nation’s defense. Forming a fleet into a coherent fighting organization brings an inherently integrated multi-domain warfighting structure. The natural synergies enjoyed by the surface, subsurface, and air domains are obvious and speak to our current day-to-day warfighting organization. Deliberate inclusion of the organic Fleet Marine Force and Naval Expeditionary Combat Command expeditionary capabilities enhance the fleet organization into one that can fight a highly mobile, maneuver-focused naval campaign sustained in austere locations over time. As we contemplate peer-level maritime adversaries, we need to recall the Navy’s foundational strength and resiliency. In response, we have focused the Pacific Fleet into full-spectrum and multi-domain numbered fleets within theater-level warfighting organizations capable of overmatching any adversary. Careful focus at the operational level of war is necessary to craft and wield this force

The cautionary part of the piece points to a lack of preparation of flag officers to carry out the mission of "fighting the fleet" -

But after what will be five years in command of two fleets, I find myself making similar observations as Admiral Willard: There is no classroom instruction and little doctrine or guidance for fighting a fleet.

The article then lays out Admiral Swift's observations on "...the fleet as a combat formation."

It has been about 73 years since the U. S. Navy fought as fleets. Admiral Swift's thoughts are timely indeed.

Very much worth the time to read and contemplate.

U.S. Navy Surface Force Strategy: Return to Sea Control

Unclassified U.S. Navy Surface Force Strategy laying out the revitalization of USN surface forces in the context of a contested global commons, the need to keep open vital sea lanes and exploring the means by which this may be done. These means include "distributed lethality" which

"requires increasing the offensive and defensive capability of surface forces, and guides deliberate resource investment for modernization and for the future force. Providing more capabilities across surface forces yields more options for Geographic Combatant Commanders in peace and war.
In order to achieve the desired outcome of this strategy, we must rededicate the force to attain and sustain sea control, retain the best and the brightest, develop and provide advanced tactical training, and equip our ships with improved offensive weapons, sensors, and hard kill/soft kill capabilities. Pursuing these ends will enhance our capability and capacity to go on the offensive and to defeat multiple attacks."

U.S. Navy Surface Force Strategy: Return to Sea Control by lawofsea on Scribd

On Midrats 13 Nov 2016 - Episode 568: Seapower as a National Imperative, with Bryan McGrath

Please join us on at 5pm EST on 13 Nov 2016 for Midrats Episode 568: Seapower as a National Imperative, with Bryan McGrath

Why a Navy? Why a strong Navy? Why is a strong Navy an essential

requirement for the United States Navy?

From its ability to project national will, to it hidden hand in the economics of every citizen's life, why is it so critical that we have a Navy second to none.

To discuss this and more - especially in light of the election - will be returning guest, Bryan McGrath, Commander, US Navy (Retired).

Bryan McGrath grew up in Mount Laurel, New Jersey, and graduated from the University of Virginia in 1987. He was commissioned upon graduation in the United States Navy, and served as a Surface Warfare Officer until his retirement in 2008. At sea, he served primarily in cruisers and destroyers, rising to command of the Destroyer USS BULKELEY (DDG 84). During his command tour, he won the Surface Navy Association’s Admiral Elmo Zumwalt Award for Inspirational Leadership, and the BULKELEY was awarded the USS ARIZONA Memorial Trophy signifying the fleet’s most combat ready unit. Ashore, Bryan enjoyed four tours in Washington DC, including his final tour in which he acted as Team Leader and primary author of our nation’s 2007 maritime strategy entitled “A Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower.”

Since retirement, Bryan has become active in presidential politics, serving first as the Navy Policy Team lead for the Romney Campaign in 2012, and then as the Navy and Marine Corps Policy lead for the Rubio Campaign in 2016.

He is the Assistant Director of Hudson Institute’s Center for American Seapower, and he is the Managing Director of The FerryBridge Group LLC, a small defense consulting firm.

Join us live if you can or pick the show up later by clicking here or pick the show up later from our iTunes or Stitcher pages.

New U.S. Chief of Naval Operations: "A Design for Maintaining Maritime Superiority"

CDR Salamander put this up this CNO "Design" first, but it's in keeping with the strategy discussion posted here recently.

Before reading it, you should know that in 1974, VADM Stansfield Turner wrote an article for the USNI Proceedings, "Missions of the U.S. Navy," (may be behind a subscription wall) the subject of which we seem to be forced to repeat because of the short attention span of both the American public and our political class, which class seems intent on skimping on defense, despite a most challenging and dangerous environment, in order to buy votes with various social programs that have proved to be of dubious value except as  "money pits."

In any event, Admiral Turner discussed four Navy mission areas:
1. Strategic Deterrence;
2. Sea Control;
3. Projection of Power Ashore; and
4. Naval Presence.

As he wrote nearly 42 years ago:

One of the important challenges facing naval officers today is to define, then articulate, why we need a navy and what is should be able to accomplish for the country.

As you read the new CNO "Design" you will see that that challenge still exists today. In fact, that challenge may be even more severe today, when we seem to operate in a "What have you done for me lately?" mentality.

As you read through the CNO "Design" you will note that ADM Turner's 4 mission areas are still there - somewhat modified in terminology and somewhat altered by the tireless forces of time and technology - which like the enemy, get a vote.

Admiral Turner's fine essay is part of the USNI Wheelbook Naval Strategy book discussed yesterday.

CNO_STG

A Quick But Excellent Read on Naval Strategy

Yesterday's strategy post provided the latest "A Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower" and links to other key works on the topic. In the volume discussed below, this is described as:

. . .[T]he so-called maritime strategy, which is periodically devised or revised by the chief of naval operations and his contemporaries in the Marine Corps and Coast Guard, serves not only as a guiding document for professionals but a form of "advertisement" for the sea services as well.

From USNI "Wheel Book Series," The U.S. Naval Institute on Naval Strategy, Thomas J. Cutler, Editor, a selection of articles first appearing in the pages of the Institute's Proceedings

Strategy is described by the Dictionary of Modern Strategy and Tactics as having “a permanent nature, but an everchanging character.” For more than a century, both the nature and the character of this essential discipline have been explored in depth by contributors to the Naval Institute’s magazines, books, and oral histories. Drawing from those powerful resources, this collection makes clear why naval strategy has always straddled the boundaries between art and science and why its study and employment are essential components of the sea service profession.

All so available as an ebook.

Well worth the small cost.

Time to Re-Read "A Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower"

Let's start off 2016 with a brief visit to the basics, as in recalling the March 2015 revision to A Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower, introduced as follows (excuse the caps, they are from the Navy-provided transcript):

MARITIME LEADERS FROM THE U.S. NAVY, MARINE CORPS, AND COAST GUARD UNVEILED AN UPDATE TO THE COOPERATIVE STRATEGY FOR 21ST CENTURY SEA POWER MARCH 13TH. THIS STRATEGY UPDATE IS DESIGNED TO HELP U.S. FORCES ADAPT TO CURRENT WORLD AND TECHNOLOGICAL SITUATIONS.

"THAT IT REALLY DEFINES WHAT YOU'RE DOING TODAY, WHAT THE PEOPLE THAT I HIGHLY ADMIRE AND RESPECT ARE DOING OUT AND AROUND THE WORLD BEING WHERE IT MATTERS, WHEN IT MATTERS.THIS CODIFIES THE EFFORTS OF OUR SAILORS OUT AND AROUND TODAY."

"THE BIGGEST CHANGE IS THE OTHER DOMAIN IN WHICH WE OPERATE, THAT'S THE CYBER DOMAIN. IT IS EXPLICIT IN EVERY LINE OF OPERATION THAT WE CONDUCT TODAY. ONE FROM A DEFENSIVE POSTURE, TO MAKE SURE THAT OUR ABILITY TO OPERATE IN THE CYBER DOMAIN ISN'T COMPROMISED."

A Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century

By the way, if you want to read A. T. Mahan's Influence of Seapower of History Upon History (1660-1783), you can find it for free here. I also recommend reading B. J. Armstrong's 21st Century Mahan but unless your library carries it, you might have to pay for it (Kindle version is about $13).

Another free book on Maritime Strategy is Sir Julian Stafford Corbett's Some Principles of Maritime Strategy.

You might have heard mention of these books on our Midrats podcasts, including the latest show Episode 313: Fleet Architecture and Strategic Efficiency with Barney Rubel.

Somewhere along the way you might want to consider, that level of war often called "operational":

The operational level of war is concerned with the planning and conduct of campaigns. It is at this level that military strategy is implemented by assigning missions, tasks and resources to tactical operations. See also campaign.

Campaign

A controlled series of simultaneous or sequential operations designed to achieve an operational commander's objective, normally within a given time or space. See also operational level of war.

Have fun.

USNS Yukon,  U.S. Navy photo by Jason D. Landon

Oh, and don't forget - logistics, logistics, logistics. It's not enough to field a force if you can't sustain it and its operations.

A nice look back at WWII sea logistics in Beans, Bullets, and Black Oil: The Story of Fleet Logistics Afloat in the Pacific During World War II in the introduction to which Admiral Spruance wrote:

A sound logistic plan is the foundation upon which a war operation should be based. If the necessary minimum of logistic support cannot be given to the combatant forces involved, the operation may fail, or at best be only partially successful.

In a war, one operation normally follows another in a theater and each one is dependent upon what has preceded it and what is anticipated. The logistic planning has to fit into and accompany the operational planning. The two must be closely coordinated, and the planners for each must look as far into the future as they can in order to anticipate and prepare for what lies ahead.

Got all that?

Have fun!