The Challenges Ahead for the New Administration

When Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Vern Clark testified before the House and Senate Armed Services Committees on 27 September 2000 he was characteristically straightforward in discussing both the strengths and weaknesses of today's Navy.

First, the strengths: "Our forward-deployed forces ... are ready to respond to all taskings," he said in his report on The Status of the Navy. The Navy is making progress in both recruiting and retention, he continued, and has reduced but not eliminated many of the personnel shortfalls that existed just one year earlier. There also has been "some improvement" in the readiness of nondeployed forces and in reducing the shortage of spare parts. Thanks to the combined efforts of Congress and the Clinton administration, moreover, there have been "great improvements in the quality of life of our Sailors."

There also are a number of major concerns, however, Clark said, including a very high tempo of operations--"One-third of our fleet is deployed on average every day." However, there are fewer ships in the Navy than there were just 10 years ago. This means that theater commanders "have fewer assets to cover commitments," and that translates into "more underway time per unit." The end result, Clark continued, is "additional wear and tear on our ships and aircraft" and higher maintenance requirements.

The aging of the Navy's aviation force--"now the oldest it has ever been in its history"--is another particularly difficult problem, Clark said, as are various "shortfalls in maintenance, spare parts, and support equipment ... [that] are impacting the training readiness of nondeployed [Navy] forces." Training readiness also has been adversely affected, the CNO said, by political restrictions that have severely limited, for the foreseeable future, use of the unique combined-arms live-fire training range at Vieques Island in Puerto Rico.

"Urban sprawl, the obligations of environmental compliance on land and at sea, and concerns over noise and airspace" have combined, Clark also said, to limit the use of other training areas--on San Clemente Island off the coast of California, for example. "We will need the support of Congress to ensure the availability of those ranges in the future," he said.

The CNO's principal concern, though, Clark made clear, is not current readiness, but future readiness--which will be determined primarily by the funding allocated today for procurement of the ships, aircraft, weapons, and electronics and avionics systems that will enter the fleet over the next several years. "Sustained future naval readiness," he told the two committees, "begins with a recapitalization program that delivers the right number of technologically superior platforms and systems. Current DOD [strategy] ... requires an 8 to 10 ships-per-year build rate to sustain a QDR [Quadrennial Defense Review--the 1997 QDR postulated a minimum fleet of 305 ships] force. The actual number of ships in our [current and long-term budget] plan is not sufficient to meet this need. The steady erosion of the service life of our platforms and equipment and the lack of a viable recoup plan will eventually lead to a point where we will be unable to sustain our operational commitments [emphasis added]."

As it has throughout its storied 225-year history, the Marine Corps continued the march without missing a beat during Gen. James L. Jones's first full year as commandant. The Corps also continued to live up to its reputation as the finest fighting force in the world, and was in position at all times to carry out the mandate given to it by Congress: "To be the most ready when the nation is least ready."

Like all of its sister services, though, the Marine Corps was increasingly hard-pressed to carry out all of its current commitments while at the same time preparing to fight the asymmetric wars of the future. The Marine Corps provides more fighting capability per dollar than perhaps any other combat force in the world--and that capability continues to improve as the Corps modernizes its weapons inventory, hones the skills of the legendary "individual Marine," and stands watch in the most likely trouble spots overseas as this nation's--and the entire world's--first line of defense.

The Marine Corps is the leanest of all the armed forces. Of the 172,500 Marines now on active duty, more than 114,000 are in the operating forces, and about 30,500 of that total are forward-deployed overseas. During the past 18 months Marines participated in U.S./coalition operations in the Balkans, East Timor, and the Persian Gulf. They trained in bilateral or multinational exercises in Greece, Turkey, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, and with various allies throughout the Pacific. They served in humanitarian-relief missions in Turkey as well as in Central and South America. At home, they participated in counternarcotics missions along the U.S. borders and in fire-fighting operations in Montana.

In his testimony during the 27 September readiness hearings, Gen. Jones pointed out the key to the Marine Corps' continuing success: "We train for the worst-case scenario--high-intensity conflict--and as a result we are prepared for the full spectrum of our missions." One of the best examples of the Corps' forward thinking was the creation--under Gen. Charles C. Krulak, Jones's predecessor as commandant--of the Chemical/Biological Incident Response Force (CBIRF), which is now recognized as a major national asset and was recently moved to Indian Head, Md., where it is in better position to respond to any terrorist incident in or near Washington, D.C.

Another Marine success story has been the performance of the Marine security guard (MSG) detachments at U.S. embassies around the world. The Marine security guards posted to the American embassies in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya, carried out their duties in the Corps' typical "above and beyond" manner when both embassies were bombed, minutes apart, on 6 August 1998. The inevitable result was a State Department request for enough Marines (300 or more, at the minimum) to guard 37 more U.S. diplomatic posts overseas.

Synergistically complementing the MSG detachments are the Corps' 50-man FAST (Fleet Antiterrorism Security Team) platoons, also much in demand not only by the State Department but also by the regional CINCs (commanders in chief).

The Marine Corps has paid a high price, though, for its forward thinking and its adherence to the "most ready" mandate. To maintain readiness under the budget limits imposed, Jones testified, the Corps has had to reduce procurement virtually across the board and is now at the point "where failure to rectify modernization shortfalls can no longer be ignored." A sustained period of increased funding is required, he told the committees, " ... to ensure the readiness of your Corps [emphasis added]."

All of the Marine Corps' most urgent acquisition priorities fall into the "replacement" category--i.e., the aircraft, ground equipment, and weapon systems needed to upgrade the aging current inventory with newer and better systems and platforms. The Advanced Amphibious Assault Vehicle (AAAV), which will replace the ancient AAV7A1 that first entered the inventory in the late 1960s, is a prime example. So are the MV-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft and the STOVL (short takeoff/vertical landing) version of the Joint Strike Fighter, both of which will replace workhorse aircraft that also have been too long in the inventory and are becoming increasingly unsafe to fly. The tragic Osprey accident on 11 December that killed four Marines was a major setback for the program that requires a full investigation--which was immediately ordered--but it does not invalidate the Marine Corps' need for faster and more versatile advanced-technology medium-transport aircraft to replace the Corps' aging CH-46E and CH-53D helicopters.

It can be taken for granted that, as it has always done in the past, the Marine Corps will ensure that its new systems and platforms will be as safe, as reliable, and as combat-capable as they possibly can be before going into full production. Jones's principal concern, therefore, is not the assured high quality of the replacement systems but the pace at which they will enter the active inventory. The key here is not IOC (initial operational capability, obviously a major milestone) but FOC (full operational capability). The AAAV does not reach FOC until 2013, and the Osprey will not be fully fielded until a year after that. FOC for the Joint Strike Fighter, which cost-effectively replaces both the AV-8B Harrier jumpjet and the Corps' F/A-18 Hornets, is almost a full decade later.

It is most unlikely that any would-be adversary will wait that long. Which is why Jones told the two armed services committees that "Acceleration of the pace of modernization is absolutely essential" to the Corps' future readiness "and to the timely improvement of our capabilities."

If there is any other government entity that comes close to the Marine Corps in cost-effectiveness it is the Coast Guard, which is not only the world's premier lifesaving service but also one of America's most effective law-enforcement agencies, the principal protector of the marine environment, a facilitator of commerce, and at all times a uniquely valuable national-defense asset.

The Coast Guard also is perhaps the most overworked agency of government. Its missions increase almost annually in both scope and magnitude--while its workforce remains stable and its physical assets age. The Coast Guard's cutters, aircraft, electronics and avionics systems, and shore facilities are obsolescent and in urgent need of replacement. They have been worked far too hard for far too long, and are now simply wearing out. The Coast Guard's people are young, among the finest young men and women this nation produces, but they also are overworked and overcommitted. They certainly do not need replacement, but they do need help--from the new Congress and the new administration, and from the American people as a whole.

The worst aspect of the Coast Guard's current in extremis situation is that matters will almost inevitably get worse before any meaningful relief can be provided. The volume of U.S. seaborne trade is expected to double and perhaps triple in the next 20 years or so. That means an exponential increase in the Coast Guard's workload. Hazardous spills also are likely to increase, as are the number of recreational boaters--and that translates into more search-and-rescue missions. The interdiction of illegal drugs and illegal migrants is another growth area for the multimission service. With fewer Navy ships available, and more of them deployed overseas, the Coast Guard's national-defense responsibilities also have increased significantly.

The service's most daunting future mission, though, might be port security. America's port infrastructure, coastal areas, and inland waterways are all tempting targets for international terrorists and would be impossible to defend all at the same time.

There is one glimmer of hope on the horizon--the innovative Deepwater program advocated by Coast Guard Commandant Adm. James M. Loy and his team. The Deepwater concept envisions replacing and/or upgrading the Coast Guard's entire physical inventory--cutters, aircraft, shore facilities, and ship and aircraft systems--on an incremental basis over the next 20 years. This integrated long-term approach not only makes common sense in terms of future as well as current operations but would also be the most cost-effective way to keep the Coast Guard Semper Paratus (Always Ready) for the foreseeable future.

Let there be no doubt about it: If the Coast Guard is unable for any reason to carry out any of its missions, the American people and the U.S. marine environment both suffer. That fact alone should make Deepwater a high priority for a new administration and new Congress seeking to reach common ground as early as possible on as many issues as possible.

Another priority on which President-elect Bush and Congress should reach early agreement is the rebuilding of the U.S.-flag Merchant Marine--which was not an election-year issue between the two parties, but should have been--for sound economic as well as military reasons.

The military rationale is particularly straightforward: In any overseas conflict involving U.S. forces more than 95 percent of the equipment and supplies--including fuel, ammunition, and other consumables--required by American forces in-theater must be transported by sea. History has shown that U.S.-flag ships, manned by American seafarers, are the only reliable source of strategic sealift in such times of crisis. Reliance on foreign-flag ships--most of them manned by Third World nationals of uncertain allegiance--is not only politically and economically imprudent but might be militarily disastrous as well.

The economic arguments for rebuilding the U.S.-flag fleet--and, not incidentally, the U.S. port infrastructure at the same time--should be just as obvious, and would start with this alarming fact: American ships now carry less than three percent of the nation's two-way seaborne cargo, exports as well as imports.

That would be a shameful admission for any maritime nation. For the largest trading nation in all world history it is no less than a national disgrace. A sustained bipartisan program to rebuild the U.S.-flag fleet would: (1) ensure the immediate availability of the sealift ships needed by U.S. forces in time of war or other national emergency; (2) significantly increase the pool of trained American seafarers required to man those ships; (3) help preserve the vital U.S. defense industrial base, particularly the shipbuilding sector; (4) create hundreds of thousands of new jobs in the shipbuilding and ship-operating industries; (5) generate additional billions of dollars in tax revenues for America's federal, state, and municipal treasuries; and (6) reduce the current deficit in the U.S. balance of payments.

The only seemingly plausible argument against such a program is an economic one: It costs more to build ships in U.S. yards, and American seafarers earn higher wages than Third World crews. But that argument is spurious. Studies have shown that the higher tax revenues generated by building and shipping American would more than offset the higher building and operating costs.

Because of the projected doubling or tripling in the overall volume of U.S. trade over the next quarter of a century there will probably never be a better time, economically as well as politically, to develop and implement a long-term program to expand and modernize the U.S. port infrastructure and rebuild the U.S.-flag fleet. Such a bipartisan program--similar in scope, magnitude, and imagination to the hugely successful Interstate highway program--would benefit all Americans for many years to come.

The new Congress and the nation's next commander in chief will have numerous demands on their time and major conflicting priorities. But, as the preceding sea-service summaries suggest, one of their top priorities must be a rebuilding of America's armed forces and the overall U.S. defense infrastructure. Fortunately, the 2000 presidential election debates showed that the American people still favor a strong U.S. national defense program and are willing to pay the price necessary not only to protect this nation's economic and political interests against enemies both foreign and domestic but also to help preserve global peace and stability.

One of the most intractable problems that must be dealt with--preferably on a multinational basis, but unilaterally if necessary--is the still growing threat posed by international terrorism, tragically thrust into prominence once again by the 12 October attack on the USS Cole. Like the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, the attack on the Cole showed that forward-deployed U.S. naval and military personnel are among the most likely targets for international terrorists, particularly in any area of potential conflict. But the World Trade Center and Oklahoma City bombings showed that U.S. cities also are at risk in the brave new world of the 21st century.

The proliferation of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons of mass destruction (WMDs)--and of the means to deliver such weapons--has exponentially increased the power not only of rogue nations but also of relatively small terrorist groups. Counterterrorism experts say, almost unanimously, that the possibility of a terrorist organization gaining possession of one or more WMDs is now a matter of "not if, but when."

That same grim assessment might well be true of the even more cataclysmic threat posed by the growing number of nations building, or buying, both intermediate-range and intercontinental ballistic missiles (IRBMs and ICBMs, respectively). North Korea and the People's Republic of China (PRC) are the most obvious current examples. North Korea's Kim Jong-Il has been surprisingly docile of late, meeting last June with South Korean President Kim Dae Jung and last October with U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, curbing his anti-American rhetoric, and in general behaving like a responsible world statesman. It should be remembered, though, that he has much to gain by extending the olive branch--billions of dollars in economic aid of various types, for example, from South Korea, Japan, and United States--and almost nothing to lose. Only time will tell--a considerable length of time, in all likelihood--if the current rapprochement is illusory or might lead to eventual unification of the two Koreas and a true era of lasting peace on the long-divided peninsula.

Even in a worst-case scenario--a second Korean War, for example--North Korea today represents no more than a regional threat and falls into the category of problems that might be exceedingly difficult but are at least "manageable." The same is not true, though, of the People's Republic of China, which today poses probably the most dangerous as well as least manageable military threat the United States faces anywhere in the world. Over the past 10 years the PRC has been steadily upgrading the quality and combat capabilities of all of its armed services. It has engaged in military espionage against the United States. It has purchased Sovremenny-class destroyers and Kilo-class submarines from Russia, as well as a number of air-superiority fighters, aerial-refueling tankers, and other aircraft. It has increased the size of its ICBM force and is reportedly arming some of its ICBMs with multiple independently targetable warheads.

Furthermore, as House Armed Services Committee Chairman Floyd Spence pointed out last year in a National Security Report titled China in the Ascendancy, Beijing has become "one of the most serious proliferators of WMDs and related technologies to nations such as Iran and Pakistan."

What is particularly ominous is China's continued angry rhetoric on the Taiwan issue. In 1996, Chinese leaders ordered military exercises in the waters around Taiwan that, Spence pointed out, "included the firing of several ballistic missiles on trajectories that bracketed the island and landed in nearby shipping lanes." Last year, China's leaders said, in a White Paper on "The One-China Principle," that if Taiwan "authorities" do not agree by 2007 on "the peaceful settlement of cross-Strait reunification through negotiations, the Chinese government will ... be forced to adopt all drastic measures [available to it] ... including the use of force."
China already has deployed hundreds of relatively short-range ballistic missiles within easy striking distance of Taiwan. China has literally thousands of land-based combat aircraft of varying quality and capabilities that also could be used against Taiwan. The deployment of two U.S. Navy carrier battle groups into the South China Sea at the time of the 1996 missile "exercises" proved to be a restraining influence on Beijing. Since then, though, the U.S./PRC balance of naval power in the region has tilted more in favor of China, which has been building up its power-projection capabilities at the same time the United States has been cutting its force structure.

The "X" factor, not always taken into account in the Pentagon's contingency planning: In any future confrontation between the United States and China the PRC would need only local, not global, naval/military superiority--in the narrow 110-mile band of water called the Taiwan Strait. There is no guarantee that U.S. forces would prevail in such a scenario.

Also lurking in the wings is Russia, no longer an all-purpose military superpower but still very much a nuclear superpower--and increasingly unstable, both politically and economically. U.S. and European economic aid has helped some, but much of that aid has been siphoned off to enrich corrupt political and military leaders with overseas bank accounts. The Russian people are both noble and long-suffering, but several times in the last century finally said "Enough!" Serious scholars say the possibility of another Russian revolution cannot be dismissed out of hand, and that could easily lead to the rise of another dictator or military strongman.

There are numerous other national-security and diplomatic challenges facing President-elect Bush and his key national-security advisers. How to cope with the sudden escalation of violence in the Middle East, for example. The always precarious relationship between Israel and its Arab neighbors went from bad to worse in the last few months of the year, and could easily deteriorate further. Elsewhere in the Mideast, Saddam Hussein has toned down his rhetoric, but already has demonstrated that he is willing to use Iraq's principal revenue resource, oil, to gain new friends and punish his enemies.

East Timor and Rwanda, Haiti and Somalia, Bosnia and Kosovo: America's armed forces have deployed to all of them in recent years on peacekeeping and/or humanitarian missions. Those and other deployments, as important as they were and as well-intentioned as they were, caused additional wear and tear on people as well as platforms. The new president and his advisers will have to decide whether such missions are absolutely essential to U.S. political and economic interests. The decision will not be an easy one--but it must be made.

It is reassuring that, during last year's presidential-election debates, President-elect Bush and Vice President Al Gore both recommended sustained increases in defense spending over the next 10 years. Both of them are to be commended not only for making national defense a top priority, but also for creating the foundation for a truly bipartisan approach to national security in the first decade of the 21st century.

President-elect Bush is to be further commended for selecting former Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney as his vice president, Gen. Colin Powell as his Secretary of State, and Condoleezza Rice, an expert on Russian affairs, as his national security adviser. That highly experienced triumvirate ensures that any national-security issues that develop in the foreseeable future will be handled both expeditiously and competently. The fact that the president's White House chief of staff will be Andrew Card, a former secretary of Transportation--and, therefore, knowledgeable in Coast Guard and maritime affairs--is an unforeseen bonus.

The president-elect and his team will nonetheless need the support, and the prayers, of all Americans if they are to take this nation safely through the rocks and shoals--the very difficult challenges already known and the perhaps even greater challenges as yet unforeseen--of the next four years. As national president of the Navy League of the United States, I am proud and honored to offer them that support on behalf of all of our members, particularly on matters of national defense, with special focus on our sea services.

The Navy League was formed in 1902 with the support of another strong president, Theodore Roosevelt, who was dedicated to maintaining a powerful U.S. defense posture and to the building of a fleet worthy of a true world power. As the Navy League prepares this year for the centennial of our birth, we must dedicate ourselves anew to our original and still primary educational mission: to educate our fellow citizens and, through them, the media and the executive and legislative branches of government, about the continuing need for a strong presence at sea, both naval and commercial, to defend and protect America's economic and political interests throughout the world and to ensure continued prosperity at home.