The Navy is a Deployment Machine​

By Dr. Steven Wills

There has been much discord of late regarding the mission of the United States Navy, how that mission should be accomplished and what force structure of ships, submarines, aircraft, and other components ought to execute those assignments. There is an increasing chorus of voices in Congress that the Navy must grow in response to a rising Chinese threat and the return of a revanchist Russia seeking renewed influence in its near abroad. Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) Admiral Mike Gilday has an update to his Navigation Plan for the fleet, calling for an expanded force of more than 350 ships and 155 unmanned vessels to be in service by 2045 – a significant increase from the current force of 296 manned ships and only 4 experimental unmanned vessels.

While there is growing consensus, especially in Congress, that the fleet needs to expand to 350 ships, as CNO Gilday maintains, there remains controversy over how the current fleet, or its larger, future variant would execute its mission. To better understand both the need for growth in the size of the Navy and arguments over its mission, one must first know how the fleet has been executing its peacetime mission since the late 1940s and why more ships are needed for that continuing assignment. Consider the Navy as a deployment machine that uses rotational ship deployments to generate “combat-credible forward presence” in multiple geographic areas where crisis and conflict could occur.

Deployed Forward from the Start

The U.S. Navy has been a forward deployed force for most of its existence. From its earliest missions fighting the Barbary Pirates in the Mediterranean to Commodore Perry’s expedition to Japan, to the World Wars and the Cold War, the Navy’s primary field of operations has been far from home, and as naval hero of the Revolution John Paul Jones said, “in harm’s way.” The Navy campaigned in U.S. coastal areas and the Western rivers to defeat the Confederacy in the Civil War, but much of the fleet was still deployed protecting U.S. interests and hunting Confederate raiders like the CSS Alabama.

The Navy was mostly in home waters conducting training in the period between the World Wars from 1919 to 1941. Following the end of the Second World War, it was thought that the fleet could again return to U.S. waters but the start of the Cold War and the need for what would later be called, “combat-credible, forward deployed forces to assure allies, deter adversaries and if necessary, compel opponents with combat force again forced the Navy to return to active forward deployments. The economic and military retreat of Great Britain, whose Royal Navy had been the global defender of liberal democratic free trade compelled the U.S. Navy to deploy further afield and in greater numbers than in peacetimes past. This process continued through the Cold War, to the point where the U.S. Navy was providing forces to three forward deployment “hub” locations: the Mediterranean Sea, the Western Pacific Ocean, and the Persian Gulf region.

Not Enough Ships to do the Job

The U.S. Navy could never sustain the thousands of ships it possessed during the Second World War, and its numbers declined rapidly at first after 1945, and then more slowly to where the Navy possessed a little over nine hundred ships in 1970. That number declined further to just over 450 ships by 1980 as Second World War-era ships all finally retired and newer vessels joined the fleet. Still, by the end of the decade there were concerns that the fleet had grown too small for its potential wartime missions against the Soviet Union. The advent of the Reagan Administration in 1981 brought with it a plan for a 600-ship force and Navy Secretary John Lehman tirelessly campaigned for this force increase as a means of fully supporting two of the three hubs in wartime, but with the risk that forces could not be supplied to the Persian Gulf.

The end of the Cold War and calls for a “peace dividend” again forced a reduction in the size of the fleet, but still with the demand to provide combat credible forward deployed forces to the same deployment hubs to protect U.S. interest and deter conflict. This deployment machine has always needed a specific number of ships to maintain a constant presence in the deployed, geographic hubs. While initially it was determined that about 550 ships, including fifteen aircraft carriers would be needed to sustain that deployment effort, the numbers were gradually reduced to 350 ships in 2000, with twelve aircraft carriers and now to 296 ships with eleven flattops.

The 1993 Bottom-Up Review of the Clinton Administration made it clear what numbers were needed as illustrated below:

1993 Bottom-Up Review

From 1990 to recent years, there were no peer opponents deemed threatening to the U.S. Navy and a larger fleet was not seen as important as the nation struggled in Afghanistan and Iraq to defeat unconventional forces in the wake of the 9/11 terror attacks on the United States and the 2003 invasion and collapse of Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi regime. Now, members of Congress including Representative Elaine Luria from Virginia, and Representative Mike Gallagher from Wisconsin are looking for ways to help the Navy grow back to the size recommended in the CNO 2022 Navigation Plan. Rep. Gallagher specifically has called for changes in the Navy’s Title X responsibilities.

“Congress must also act to codify my NDAA language aligning the Navy’s Title 10 mandate with its day-to-day responsibility of peacetime forward deterrence. In the absence of statutory change, the Pentagon will continue shortchanging the Navy when it comes to its indispensable role in forward deterrence and reassuring our allies and partners.”

Given that the Navy has almost always been a deployed force over the course of the Republic’s history it would seem absolutely correct to include such language in the government’s description of the Navy’s mission. It is also very much in line with Article 1, Section 8, Clause 13 of the United States Constitution that states, “Congress shall have the power to provide and maintain a Navy.” In the run up to the ratification of the Constitution Alexander Hamilton stated in Federalist paper # 11, “without a navy, a nation, despicable by its weakness, forfeits even the privilege of being neutral.”

Representatives Gallagher and Luria seem on the right course to support the Navy with more ships and the addition of specific language that codifies in law what the Navy has been doing for 225 years, forward-deploying in strength to protect U.S. interests long before hostile opponents threaten American shores and cities. All members of Congress should support this growing, bipartisan effort to equip America’s Navy with the ships, submarines, aircraft, and other units it needs to compete globally with China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, and the continuing threat posed by international terrorism.

Dr. Steven Wills is the Navalist at the Center for Maritime Strategy. His research and analysis centers on U.S. Navy strategy and policy, surface warfare programs and platforms, and military history.

The views expressed in this piece are the sole opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Center for Maritime Strategy or other institutions listed.