Washington Report

Naval Advocates Face Pivotal Re-Election Battles

With the clock ticking down on the hotly contested midterm congressional elections, veteran shipbuilding advocates on Capitol Hill are finding themselves entrenched in some of the country’s toughest re-election battles, making this year’s campaign season a potentially pivotal one for naval interests.

The tight Missouri Senate race, in particular, could have long-term ramifications should Congress shed Senate Armed Services Seapower Subcommittee Chairman Jim Talent, R-Mo.

Talent, a first-term senator with an eight-year House career on his résumé, has worked to boost the Navy’s shipbuilding accounts — something he sees as a critical component of the country’s security.

“I just believe the rebuilding of the Navy and the execution of the [chief of naval operations’] plan is crucial to the next generation of American security,” Talent said in a recent interview.

In his first six years, Talent has teamed up with Senate stalwarts, such as Trent Lott, R-Miss., despite the fact that he’s from the “hinterlands” as far as shipbuilding is concerned.

Unlike many other congressional shipbuilding enthusiasts, Talent has no dog in the race — Missouri is bereft of any naval shipyards. His Democratic challenger is state auditor Claire McCaskill.

“I don’t have a parochial interest in how many shipyards are competing for a contract,” Talent said. “I have an interest as an American in sustaining the industrial base.”

Robert Work, an analyst at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, said Talent is “not seen as a parochial guy. That’s why losing guys like [him would be] tough. You always [have] guys who are going to fight for the parochial shipbuilding industry.”

In Connecticut, Rob Simmons, vice chairman of the House Armed Services Projection Forces Subcommittee, is one of several moderate Republicans facing an uphill contest for re-election. Simmons is being challenged by former Connecticut state representative Joseph D. Courtney in his bid for a fourth term in Congress.

A close ally of House Armed Services Chairman Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., Simmons has emerged as a leading voice on subsurface warfare, a matter of major concern to his eastern Connecticut district, which includes General Dynamics Electric Boat, a submarine builder, and the New London Submarine Base.

In the last year, Simmons waged a successful battle against the Bush administration, convincing the independent Base Realignment and Closure Commission to overturn the Pentagon’s recommendations to shutter the submarine base, the largest installation on the closure list.

And he masterminded a deal between Washington and Taipei to move forward with a long-stalled sale of eight diesel submarines to Taiwan — a move that will save jobs at struggling Electric Boat.

Simmons’ interests, though in support of a stronger submarine force, often run counter to Navy goals, as with a provision he helped pass in the fiscal year 2007 defense authorization bill that authorizes $400 million for the Navy to begin building two submarines a year in 2009 — three years earlier than planned.

The Navy opposed the submarine provision, stating that it was unaffordable. But Simmons battled with Senate conferees on the bill over the issue and ultimately prevailed.

Despite the tight re-election road ahead for Talent, Simmons and a handful of other Navy proponents, their voices could be replaced by at least two upstart Democratic challengers with strong naval backgrounds.

Joseph Sestak, a retired admiral and former deputy chief of naval operations for warfare requirements and programs, is giving Republican Rep. Curt Weldon a vicious fight for the incumbent’s southern Pennsylvania district, which includes Boeing’s V-22 tiltrotor aircraft plant. The Osprey is a joint-service effort being led by the Marine Corps, and has endured a long and troublesome development process. Weldon is vice chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.

Meanwhile, first-term Sen. George Allen, R-Va., is in an unexpected battle against his Democratic challenger, former Navy Secretary Jim Webb. A win for Webb would put two former Navy secretaries — Webb and Senate Armed Services Chairman John Warner — at the helm of Virginia’s congressional delegation.

Though the race is not consistently ranked among the most contentious, Webb is considered to have a legitimate shot, particularly if Democrats boost advertising dollars in the state.

The Navy, which hopes to implement an ambitious shipbuilding plan that congressional investigators have deemed unaffordable, can use all the help it can get — from both budgetary and policy standpoints — on Capitol Hill.

“For the Navy to build the fleet, it’s going to need a consistent ship procurement line and a steady topline,” Work said. “Proponents of naval power will be important to make sure that happens.”

The DOG Has Its Day As New Coast Guard Unit

The Coast Guard is creating a deployable operations group (DOG) that will control all of the service’s deployable specialized forces, including tactical law enforcement teams, maritime safety and security teams, port security units — which are usually located overseas — and oil, chemical and biological response teams.

Cmdr. Jeff Carter, Coast Guard chief of media relations, said creation of the DOG unit stems from the strategy of Adm. Thad Allen, Coast Guard commandant, who wants to deploy specialized units as a “force package” accessible by field commanders and, in the event of disaster operations, federal officials.

To be led by Rear Adm. J. Timothy Riker, a retired reservist who has recently been reactivated, the DOG will bring fundamental change to the Coast Guard. Initial activation is scheduled in October; commissioning of the new group is slated for July 2007. The DOG is expected to be fully operational by July 2008, with the command staff based at Coast Guard headquarters in Washington.

Analyst: Navy at Risk For Lack of Message

The Navy is at risk for budget reductions unless it polishes its message about its role in the current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to the senior analyst in the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).

“Rightly or wrongly, the Navy today is the most vulnerable of the four services to budgetary, programmatic and force structure reductions over the next 20 years,” said Eric Labs, senior analyst for naval forces and weapons in the CBO’s National Security Division.

“The Navy does not have a coherent message in explaining what its role is in the long war,” Labs said.

Rear Adm. Dan W. Davenport, director of the Assessment Division/

Capability Analyst Group for the chief of naval operations and director of the Navy Quadrennial Defense Review, agreed that, “We could do a better job selling it. Our [new] maritime strategy will help do some of that.”

The Navy expects to publish its strategy in approximately nine months.

However, Davenport is less worried about the funding future.

“The nature of this war is such that the Navy’s contribution is less visible than any other service, clearly, and we’re okay with that,” he said. “It’s important to connect the story to the program, so that what we’re trying to buy makes sense with what our defense contribution is. Most of our decision-makers in the Pentagon and the Hill get it.”

More Support for Curbing Payday Loans

A legislative provision aimed at preventing predatory lenders from targeting service members and their families picked up steam just as Congress returned from the month-long August recess, garnering the support of a bipartisan group of 31 senators who penned a letter to House and Senate conferees on the fiscal 2007 defense authorization bill, urging them to back a Senate provision that caps payday interest rates for military personnel at 36 percent. (See related story, Page 12)

At press time, House and Senate lawmakers still were negotiating differences in the two chambers’ versions of the bills. But the strong Senate support — as well as the backing of several House members — bodes well for the provision.

Hunter said the military payday lender issue is “of great importance to us,” and signaled that the final defense authorization bill will contain some sort of language on the issue.

No Fourth Star For Guard Chief

Leaders of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees struck a historic provision from the Senate’s version of the fiscal 2007 defense authorization bill that would have promoted the three-star chief of the National Guard Bureau to a four-star general.

The “Big Four” Republican and Democratic leaders of the two panels instead agreed to push that decision onto the Commission on the National Guard and Reserves, which will issue recommendations on an array of issues involving the military’s reserve component next year.

At press time, work on the defense authorization conference report had not been wrapped up, but it appeared the decision to nix the Senate’s Guard provision would be in the final report.

The decision amounts to a striking defeat for dozens of bipartisan National Guard leaders on Capitol Hill who have been working fervently to increase the Guard’s position of power in the Pentagon.

Coast Guard Orders Covert Aircraft

The Coast Guard is acquiring the RU-38B reconnaissance aircraft. Manufactured by Schweizer Aircraft Corp., Horseheads, N.Y., the RU-38B is a manned aircraft with turbine engines fore and aft that operates covertly. The twin-engine configuration allows the aft engine to be shut down during its “quiet” surveillance mode. Additionally, the RU-38B releases jet exhaust across the top of the aircraft to lower its in-flight signature.

The gray-blue color of the RU-38B makes the aircraft difficult to see even during daylight at its typical surveillance altitude of 2,000 feet.

Schweizer and the Coast Guard were unable to comment on the cost, number of planes or delivery date for the aircraft due to ongoing contract negotiations.

The Coast Guard is purchasing the planes in a joint procurement with Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and the number of planes has yet to be determined. Current funding for the planes is $24 million for the Coast Guard and $14 million for CBP.

The Coast Guard used RU-38Bs in 1998-1999 in support of drug interdiction operations over the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean. The program was halted in mid-2000 due to problems with aircraft serviceability.

Deputy IG Gives USCG Mixed Review

The Coast Guard is doing a better job of achieving mission goals, though there remains room for improvement. Moreover, the lack of resources, such as aircraft and cutters, means it has a limited ability to respond to extended crises, according to a report to Congress by a deputy inspector general (IG) for the Department of Homeland Security.

In 2005, the service achieved five of six non-homeland security goals, such as search-and-rescue missions and protection of marine resources, said the deputy IG, Edward M. Stulginsky. However, that year it met only two of four homeland security goals, which included the interdiction of migrants and dealing with foreign vessel incursions. Over the five-year period ending in 2005, the service was less successful in attaining all of its goals, he said.

During a Sept. 14 hearing, Stulginsky told the House Transportation and Infrastructure subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation that in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the Coast Guard deployed more than one-third of its aviation assets to the Gulf Coast, which depleted the resources available for other missions.

The service’s limited “bench strength” is a continuing concern of the Coast Guard commandant, Stulginsky reported. He also said the service should do a better job of defining its goals and the means to gauge its performance.

Giambastiani: Broaden Expeditionary Concept

The U.S. military should develop a “very broad conception of what it means to be expeditionary,” said Adm. Edmund P. Giambastiani Jr., vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in Sept. 5 remarks at the U.S. Naval Institute and the Marine Corps Association’s Defense Forum in Arlington, Va.

Citing major humanitarian operations over the last 18 months — Indian Ocean tsunami relief, Pakistan earthquake relief and the deployment of the hospital ship USNS Mercy to Asia — that he termed outstanding successes in winning friends among the affected nations’ populations, Giambastiani challenged the notion of simply equating expeditionary warfare with forcible entry.

“These operations — as well as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — should cause us to think carefully about what we mean about the term expeditionary warfare,” he said. “Developing an expeditionary capability and capacity to meet irregular challenges that we face in this long war are key tasks that we face in the days ahead.”

Giambastiani mentioned such initiatives as the creation of a new riverine capability, a revitalized foreign area officer program and the establishment of the Marine Special Operations Command as examples of meeting new challenges. n

Reporting by Seapower Correspondent Megan Scully. Managing Editor Richard R. Burgess, Assistant Editor David W. Munns and Special Correspondent Eileen Sullivan contributed to this report.