INTRODUCTION

For almost fifty years, the focus of US defence strategy, and consequently of Navy planning, was on the protection of US interests from perceived threats emanating from the Soviet Bloc. However, in the past ten years, strategic planners have had to deal with the end of the Soviet Union, increasing interest in regional conflicts, and the difference in governing priorities of three consecutive presidential administrations. In viewing navies and their ships, it is always illuminating to look at force levels, and the capabilities of individual ships and task groups and their employment. For the past five years, observers of the US Navy have had a particularly interesting time watching the organisation as it attempts to meet the changing world situation since the end of the Cold War. For its part, the US Navy has done its best to meet these challenges, producing the planning document From the Sea and its successor, Forward ... From the Sea in an effort to plan force levels capable of meeting new challenges.

However, beyond the operational use of assets, the end of the Cold War and the subsequent shift in national priorities, the Navy has also had to respond in its planning to internal economic and political considerations in the US government. These have had a profound effect on force planning for the future. Before the viability of the From the Sea concept can be debated, the other forces that affect planning must be considered.

THE ‘HOLLOW NAVY’ OF THE 1970’S

The end of the Carter administration saw many real and perceived deficiencies in the material readiness of the US military as a whole. From the US Navy’s standpoint, the term ‘hollow force’ was added to the vocabulary by a well publicised incident in 1979 whereby the Commanding Officer of a ship refused to depart, saying that his material and personnel readiness would not safely support operations. Overlooking the somewhat strident rhetoric of a Presidential campaign, the US Navy, at this time, did suffer from real shortages in equipment, and budget constraints led to deficiencies in training and personnel readiness.

THE BUILD UP OF THE 1980’S AND THE FIRST DRAW DOWN

One of the priorities of the Reagan administration when it came into power in 1981, was the expansion of the US military, and the improvement of conditions that led to the ‘hollow’ force of the 1970s. To this end, the Defense Department received funding to acquire new weapons systems, increase the pay of military personnel, correct shortcomings in military housing and quality of life issues, and to fill deficiencies in supplies and ammunition stocks. During this time, the watchword for the Navy became the ‘600 ship’ force. New ships came into commission, four battleships were reactivated from mothball status, and existing ships were updated with new weapons and sensors.

By the mid-1980s, the spending spree on military items began to slow down as the need to address a growing budget deficit became clear. Defence spending actually dropped from $294,7 billion in 1985 to $289,1 billion in 1986 and $287,4 billion in 1987.1

THE FIRST RESPONSE TO THE END OF THE COLD WAR

The event that had the largest affect on US defence spending at the end of the 1980s was the over-extention and final collapse of the Soviet Union and its subsequent dismantling. In one amazing moment, the Eastern Bloc monolith, that was regarded as the greatest threat to US interests and the focus of US international security concerns, had disappeared. In the place of East-West confrontation, a world emerged with many potential areas for low level conflict that presented a completely new set of international security concerns. The purpose of this article is to discuss the current response to the changing world in overall US strategic planning, and the effects on US Navy force levels. While the Navy has conducted its own planning on a service level, and has arrived at new mission statements in documents such as From the Sea and its successor Forward ... From the Sea, the planning will have to remain the subject for future discussion.

THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION - THE BASE FORCE

The Bush administration made the first attempts to deal comprehensively with the end of the Cold War through reductions in the size of the US defence establishment. On 2 August 1990 in a speech in Aspen, Colorado, President Bush stated that the United States would be ill served by forces representing nothing more than a scaled back or shrunken down version of the forces that were necessary to win the Cold War. In this statement, made while Iraq was invading Kuwait, Bush defended the task of shaping military capabilities to meet the needs of regional contingencies and peacetime presence. The response by the Department of Defense to Bush’s initiative was elaborated in the August 1991 publication, National Security Strategy of the United States, that stated that the US military would be 25 per cent smaller than the forces maintained at the end of the Cold War by the mid-1990s, and described how planned reductions would cut forces to a minimum acceptable level, called the Base Force.

The National Military Strategy of the United States, published in January 1992, outlined the fundamental shift from the focus on containment during the Cold War, to a strategy of responding to regional requirements. It was designed to protect US interests and support world-wide objectives, and it provided the strategic principles underlying force planning for the Base Force. The Base Force was initially conceived as the minimum essential force to meet anticipated requirements. It was designed to maximise the capabilities of each service and to integrate active and reserve components into a military capable of responding across the full spectrum of military contingencies. Through the Base Force, the Bush administration began the post-Cold War ‘draw down’, only temporarily being interrupted by the Gulf War.

The defence policies of the Reagan administration and the planning and movement towards the Bush Base Force initiative, led to the following force levels for the Navy by 1994:

Strategic Submarines 16

Strategic Support Ships 2

Aircraft Carriers 12

Attack Submarines 87

Surface Combatants 110

Amphibious/Command ships 41

Mine Warfare Ships 15

Logistic Force Ships 88

Reserve Combatants 16
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Total Battle Force Ships 387
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THE BOTTOM UP REVIEW

Defence cuts already began late in the Reagan administration and were carried into the Bush administration. Before significant movement could be made towards the implementation of the Base Force plan, however, the 1992 election brought Bill Clinton to office. As the new administration took over in January 1993, Secretary of Defense, Les Aspin began his own review of the status of the US military and its ability to meet world-wide commitments. The purpose of the review, know as the Bottom Up Review or BUR, was to produce a long term plan for US security. It was intended to provide details of the forces, programmes and defence budgets needed by the US to meet post-Cold War requirements. In all, four broad classes of military operations were used in the BUR to evaluate future force structure alternatives. The analysis of these four types of operations allowed to plan building blocks required by the forces to support them. The list is not all-inclusive, as the US will also plan for the provision of forces and military support for other types of operations, such as peacekeeping, humanitarian assistance, and to counter international terrorism. The four classes of military operations were:2

major regional conflicts;



presence overseas - the need for US military forces to operate in critical regions;



smaller-scale conflicts or crises that would require US forces to take part in peace enforcement or intervention operations; and



deterring attacks with weapons of mass destruction, either against US territory, US forces, or the territory and forces of US allies.

On the basis of a comprehensive assessment of US defence needs, the Department of Defense determined that the goal would be a force structure that could carry out US strategy and meet national security requirements, scheduled to be in place by 1999. This force structure was designed to meet both requirements for military presence overseas in peacetime and for a wide range of small scale operations. It was also designed to enable the US to prevail in two major regional conflicts should it occur simultaneously. For the Navy, the BUR envisioned a 1999 force structure of eleven active aircraft carriers, one reserve/training carrier, eleven large deck amphibious warfare ships, 45-55 attack submarines, eighteen ballistic missile submarines assigned to Strategic Nuclear Forces, and 346 ships (including 110-116 major surface combatants and ten reserve frigates). The Marine Corps of the 1999 BUR would consist of three Marine Expeditionary Forces, with an active end strength of 174 000 and a reserve component of 42 000. It should be noted that the Defense Budget for the 1995 financial year and the Defense Program for the years 1995-99 proposed that the Navy’s total ships be reduced below BUR force objectives, calling for a total of 331 ships by 1999.3

RESULTS OF THE BOTTOM UP REVIEW

SHORTCOMINGS FROM A NAVAL STANDPOINT

On 1 September 1994, guidelines contained in the Bottom Up Review were released, showing that the Navy was scheduled to shrink to about 330 ships, including 110-116 warships, by 1999. As these guidelines were publicised, reports began to surface about the Navy’s dissatisfaction with the force levels indicated by the review. Since cuts in force levels were initiated by the Bush administration, the Navy had been forced to meet commitment levels similar to those of the Cold War (over 200 ships underway world-wide in September 1994 involved in more than fourteen ongoing exercises or operations4) with fewer assets. The need to keep more ships deployed, threatened to divert already scarce funds from modernisation and shipbuilding programmes.

Furthermore, the new Clinton administration brought about expanded peacekeeping missions and defined further roles that were not fully addressed in the BUR. In 1994 the Navy was involved in the Caribbean in expanded deployments, with more than twenty ships responding to events in Cuba and Haiti, and further commitments in the Adriatic and Mediterranean Seas, the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean.5 For example, 1 February 1994, being a typical day, saw a Navy, consisting of 417 ships, three Marine Expeditionary Forces and three Maritime Prepositioning Squadrons, deployed as follows6:

Underway:
175 ships (42percent)
5 aircraft carriers
6 helicopter carrying amphibious vehicles

Deployed:
87 Ships(21percent)
3 aircraft carrier battle groups
4 amphibious ready groups
12 exercises ongoing with 14 countries and port visits to 10 coutnries
1 Marine expeditionary force
3 Maritime Prepositioning Squadrons(MPS)

With the release of the Bottom Up Review guidelines, Navy officials became concerned. CNO Boorda stated that if the Navy finds itself dealing with mission levels such as those seen in 1994, "the Navy is going to be challenged at a greater rate than the Bottom Up Review anticipated. We need to look at our numbers again to make sure we have what we need."7

Of particular concern to Navy planners is the impact of current operations on future force levels. In October 1994, a Navy study which utilised vigorous war games and seminars conducted by military experts, concluded that the Navy would require a future warships force of 135 to 145 combatants simply to meet current mission levels. According to Rear Adm Philip Coady, director of Surface Warfare, the Navy will require the additional warships to meet the needs of current missions. Coady said, "The numbers are beginning to come into a central focus. Now we have the analytical backing to support a larger force requirement."8

Increased operating expenses also had an impact on the Navy’s reserve force. In September 1994, the Navy cancelled training and drills for thousands of reservists, because the Naval Reserve ran out of funds. About 20 000 members of the reserves were affected. The Navy has a large force of reservists who, in addition to being prepared to supplement wartime missions, have recently borne a larger share of peacetime responsibilities. Such a large number of reservists had been activated in the 1994 financial year for operations, for example extracting US troops from Somalia and interdicting refugees in the Caribbean, that the Naval Reserve may have overspent its budget by as much as $36 million. It was the first time that the Navy had been forced to cancel reserve training due to a budget shortfall.9

PRESIDENTIAL RESPONSE TO CRITICISM OF THE BOTTOM UP REVIEW

Even before the November elections, the Bottom Up Review had drawn fire from several directions. As the cost of meeting overseas contingencies ate into funds earmarked for training and maintenance, force readiness was affected. Recently, the Secretary of Defense acknowledged that three out of twelve Army divisions that would be deployed in a crisis were operating at low levels of readiness. Late in 1994, the General Accounting Office (GAO) reported that the Defense Department’s five year plan for weapon acquisition and for the maintenance of a force of 1,4 million personnel had a $150 billion shortfall (the Department acknowledged the shortfall, but placed the amount at $40 billion).10

With the GAO report and the Secretary of Defense’s statements in hand, Republicans and some conservative Democrats became more critical of the force levels and funding contained in the BUR. Representative Floyd Spence, the ranking Republican member of the House Armed Services Committee, issued a report entitled, Military Readiness - The View From the Field, while Senator John McCain issued his own review entitled, Going Hollow, the Warnings of the Chiefs of Staff. The bottom line of Congressional criticism was that the Bottom Up Review guidelines do not provide the necessary funding and troops to enable the US to participate in two major regional operations taking place almost simultaneously.11

In response to criticism of the BUR and apparent funding shortfalls, and to the fact that Republicans would control both houses of Congress after January 1995, President Clinton announced the Presidential Defense Funding Initiative in December 1994, with a proposal for $25 billion in additional defence spending over the next six years. The Initiative also included an emergency supplementary submission forthe 1995 financial year for contingency costs, adaptation of Secretary of Defense quality of life improvements and full funding of military pay increases in the 1996-1999 budget. The actions proposed to strengthen readiness include full funding of training, reduction in backlogs in depot and facility maintenance, funding of munitions requirements, and selective force structure increases in Navy frigates, Patriot crews and AWACs crews. The 1995 Emergency Supplemental also provides $2,3 billion appropriation to cover the expense of unexpected missions over the past year. However, this addition of $25 billion would still mean that the Clinton administration would be cutting defence by $100 billion more than President Bush had planned over five years.12 The President’s initiative affects the budget as follows (in billions of dollars):

THE 1994 CONGRESSIONAL ELECTIONS - REPUBLICANS IN CHARGE

ccording to Republican lawmakers, the Bottom Up Review "...is not quite dead letter, but some of the inherent flaws in it are becoming more evident. It underfunds its own mandate of fighting two wars simultaneously." Now that they are in a position to do more than criticise the defence policies of the White House, what will Republicans do? In the Contract With America, upon which Republican candidates based the 1994 Congressional elections, the Republican leadership of the House of Representatives committed itself to increased military spending. The draft bill which was proposed, the National Security Restoration Act, calls for the establishment of a blue-ribbon, twelve member commission to reassess US security needs, modernisation and readiness planning. The act does not specify the level of defence spending over the next five years, but calls for the restoration of adequate national security funding. It also says little about any particular military programme, except in the area of antimissile defence.

In spite of the vagueness of the National Security Restoration Act, sources report that the new Congress will be ready to provide additional money for the Defense Budget to pay for new aircraft and warships, as well as troop training, ammunition and fuel. Among Republican initiatives likely to be enacted are the following13:

Installation of budget ‘firewalls’ to prevent the transfer of Defense funds to other agencies to finance social programmes not related to military readiness. This could remove up to $17 billion of what the GOP considers non-defence items, such as defence conversion money for firms switching products and for environmental cleanup of abandoned bases. Funds becoming available would be switched to readiness accounts.



Development of a missile defence system for a theatre of war, without being limited by the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty (ABM) signed with the Soviet Union.



Reversal of the trend that sees the Department of Defense losing an average of 7 000 troops, 37 aircraft and one ship per month. The target of 1,4 million active duty troops by 1996 could be increased to 1,5 million.



Action on language in the Republican National Security Act that restricts the President’s option of putting US troops under UN command and control. It is envisaged that this would prohibit the US from participating in UN operations that would place American troops under foreign command, except in cases determined by the president to be ‘vital’ to US interests. By proposing strict requirements to report to Congress, the Republicans also hope to keep closer track of what the US is spending on UN activities - a current bone of contention between Congress and the President.14



It is further expected that the new Congress will support the Defense Department’s remaining new weapons systems: the Air Force F-22 fighter and C-17 cargo aircraft, and the Marine’s V-22 tilt-rotor transport.

THE NAVY’S VIEW OF THE FUTURE

Through the above process, the US Navy has attempted to plan assigned missions to meet the new challenges of the post-Cold War world. However, it is clear that not only the Navy but also the entire Department of Defense, are suffering from the divide between shrinking capabilities and a mission that is not reduced in parallel.

In response to a request from Congress to assess the greatest risk factors to Navy readiness by the end of the 1990s, the Chief of Naval Operations15 has stated that the major problems are the increasing risks the Navy has to face in order to maintainadequate readiness levels. These include the continued reduction of fiscal resources that reduce flexibility that would enable it to handle emerging execution problems without having an impact on readiness, increased costs due to unforeseen contingency operations, changing domestic conditions and the rapidity of the ‘draw down’ process that may influence the ability to recruit and retain a proper combination of skill and seniority. In listing the ten greatest risk factors now faced by the Navy, Admiral Boorda pointed to the following:

Recruiting and retention:
high quality personnel must be recruited and retained.



Navy top line:
further reductions to the Navy’s top line would impact on readiness funds in the year of execution.



Base realignment and closure:
the inability to shut down unnecessary infrastructures and/or conduct planned force reductions from previous base realignment and closure.



Base realignment and closure savings:
the loss of base realignment and closure savings due to delays in 1994 financial year closings.



Personnel tempo:
inability to maintain personnel tempo goals due to operational requirements.



Operations tempo:
increased deployed operations tempo places an increasing burden on equipment and personnel.



Training funds:
the ability to send personnel on training courses and to operate units sufficiently to gain on-the-job training and exercise experience. Particularly important is the need to maintain sufficient ship steaming hours and aircraft flight hours.



Maintaining spares:
service equipment, technical documentation and available spare parts should be properly maintained.



Weapons systems costs:
unforeseen increases in weapons systems costs reduce opportunities for new acquisition as a means of increasing future combat capability. This has a direct impact on the balance between capability and affordability.



Logistics stockpiles:
spare parts and consumables should be provided timely to support operations and maintenance.

CONCLUSION

The overall decrease of the US defence establishment has been in progress since the late stages of the Reagan administration. As the Cold War ended and was replaced by a new set of challenges, the administrations of three US Presidents have tried to deal with the ‘New World Order’ through long term plans for the restructure of the American military. Unfortunately, planning has often been affected by debates over the status of military technology and US industry, the politics of base closure, various attempts to generate a ‘peace dividend’, and the need by American forces to respond to the challenges to US interests, from Somalia to Bosnia to the Caribbean.

All these considerations have had an impact on Navy plans to reduce and modernise the fleet, while still being able to meet all the requirements of US policy makers. With more restricted defence budgets, the Navy will find it difficult to keep more ships at sea, while still reserving the funds required each year to allow for the acquisition of three DDG-51 destroyers, a new class of attack submarines, further purchases of the F/A-18 E/F, and a new class of amphibious assault ships. To compensate further for the unanticipated $250 million necessary for operations in the Caribbean alone, the Navy has been forced to postpone critical maintenance and overhauls on ships and aircraft engines to 1995. In September 1994, Admiral Boorda stated that the Navy intends to fund these backlogs in its 1995 budget, but admitted that it would cost even more to recover from the maintenance deficit of the 1994 financial year.

Because of the conflicting goals of force reduction and world-wide deployments that have not declined significantly with the end of the Cold War, the US Navy is currently walking a tightrope between the short term need to meet world-wide commitments and the future need to modernise and update the fleet. In the short term, the need for more ships in commission, especially those suitable for patrol and interdiction such as the FFG-7, may slow the programmed decommissioning of some vessels. Yet, every vessel in commission not provided for in the Bottom Up Review guidelines, costs the Navy money which would otherwise be allocated for the purchase of new vessels in the long term. It is as yet unclear if the National Security and Restoration Act, proposed by the Republican Party-dominated 104th Congress, will provide relief in terms of more funds or fewer missions.

The story does not end here, because when all is said and done, the bottom line must be to design a force that will be able to meet the requirements of world-wide US interests. So far, military planners have tried to provide for a coherent transition from the Cold War, through the Base Force to the tenants of the Bottom Up Review. It has become clear that it is difficult to plan force levels required to meet assigned missions, when the missions have not been fully identified. With a new, Republican-controlled Congress in session and in competition with the President, it is unlikely that the situation will be clarified in the near future. Stay tuned for an interesting two years.

Washington Times, 2 December 1994, p. A1.



Les Aspin, Annual Report to the President and the Congress, January 1994.



Ibid., p. 27:



Defense News, 19-25 September 1994, p. 10.



Defense News, 12-18 September 1994, p. 4.



Department of the Navy 1994 Posture Statement, p. 7.



Defense News, 12-18 September 1994, p. 4.



Defense News, 31 October - 6 November 1994, p. 6.



Washington Post, 23 September 1994, p. A16.



Washington Times, 2 December 1994, p. A1.



Washington Times, 27 December 1994, p. A1.



Washington Times, 2 December 1994, p. A1.



Washington Times, 27 December 1994, p. 9.



Washington Post, 12 December 1994, p. A23.



The Views of Admiral Boorda, in Senator John McCain, Going Hollow: The Warnings of the Chiefs of Staff, An Update, September 1994, p. 8.