The US Navy – Charting a Course for Tomorrow’s Fleet
The Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments recently released a report intended to inform and shape the United States defense strategy review.
This paper assesses the adequacy and affordability of current US Navy plans in light of current trends in naval warfare, expected future budget environments, and, most importantly, the likely operational demands associated with three enduring, long-term strategic challenges. After conducting this assessment, the report lays out recommended changes to the current Navy plans in order to envision a future fleet that is both more capable and more affordable.
These recommended changes are shaped by the observation that the US Navy finds itself alone at the top of the global naval hierarchy with a comfortable margin of superiority. Given that the size of the US Navy’s battle force stands at 280 ships — less than half the size of the ultimate Cold War fleet — this may be surprising to some. However, while the US battle force is smaller than it has been in over seven decades, so too are the rest of the world’s navies.
Furthermore, the US Navy is transitioning from a fleet of ships to what officials describe as FORCEnet: a system of collaborative battle networks that would share data across the force to form common operational pictures and use internet protocol-based systems to enable interactive combat planning, targeting, and execution. This transition means that the Navy is now defined less by the numbers of ships in its Total Ship Battle Force, and more by the combined capabilities found in its Total Force Battle Network.
Based on the analysis of future tasks and missions for the Total Force Battle Network, as well as expected future budgets, this paper makes several recommended changes to the Navy’s current plans. Over the next thirty years, this plan would see the new construction of 328 major warships and submarines, not counting any ships built or leased for the sealift fleet. Using the more conservative Congressional Budget Office estimates as a basis for comparison, the average yearly total shipbuilding costs for this plan would be $21.8 billion, including $19.9 billion in new-ship construction. These figures include the costs for the SSBN(X), as well as those for small boats, craft, and manned underwater vehicles.
Nevertheless, the plan would still call for a significant increase in shipbuilding resources — about 74 percent more than the $12.6 billion per year spent on shipbuilding between FY 2003 and FY 2008.
The complete report (PDF format) can be downloaded from here
About the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA)
The Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments is an independent, nonpartisan policy research institute established to promote innovative thinking and debate about United States national security strategy and investment options. CSBA’s goal is to enable policymakers to make informed decisions on matters of strategy, security policy and resource allocation. CSBA provides timely, impartial and insightful analyses to senior decision makers in the executive and legislative branches, as well as to the media and the broader national security community.
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