By Geoff Fein
CHARLESTON, S.C.–The Navy and the nation need to have a lively discussion about the maritime domain and what it takes for the service to operate in that area–including the ability to support and maintain sailors and ships dispersed around the globe, according to the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO).
Additionally, the Navy is looking to flush out its requirements for the Naval Expeditionary Combat Command (NECC) during the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), hoping those discussions will create an opportunity to see how the NECC should evolve.
On a recent trip to the commissioning of the USS Truxtun (DDG-103), Adm. Gary Roughead told reporters that besides discussing global logics and the ability to support ships as they operate far from their home ports, there also needs to be discussions on the ability to communicate with those ships as well as the command and control structures that allow the Navy to conduct operations over large ocean areas.
“Those are the fundamental attributes for a global Navy in my mind, and I think that a good discussion about that would be important,” he said.
“I think that the proliferation of the more sophisticated threats is something that would be a good discussion…such as ballistic missiles [and] advanced cruise missiles,” Roughead added.
“The fact that as an expeditionary force we have the ability to provide air and missile defense in areas where we go before you even have to put one [warfighter] on the beach. I think that’s something that’s important to talk about as well,” he said. “We can protect interests we have ashore, whether it’s our troops, or infrastructure, or partners we are working with. I think just a broader discussion about that…why you have the Navy, as opposed to the shipbuilding or aviation procurement account, which is where we tend to go all the time.”
Roughead added it’s important for people to understand the criticality of what it takes to get parts and supplies out to ships…what it takes to support a distant fleet.
“We have been taking advantage of…commercial lift for a long time. Even when I was chief engineer I recall having one of my sailors at the airport pick up a small little diode that we needed that was coming in on a United flight,” he said. “Because we have a very sophisticated logistics system we can take advantage of that, we can move things around, and then when we get into regions we have the infrastructure and fleet structure to [distribute] that. A lot of navies don’t have that.”
As the Navy enters into the QDR, Roughead sees the opportunity for discussions about the military at large and the role of the various components within the military, as well as, discussions on the naval capabilities the nation needs, the capacity of those capabilities and the numbers of those capabilities. “That’s what we are going to be doing in QDR.”
One topic Roughead is looking to discuss during the QDR is the NECC.
“Clearly, I think we are going to be looking at that under the rubric of irregular warfare…what are the components that make that up,” he said. “For the first time we did a force structure assessment on the expeditionary combat command and remarkably as we went out into the COCOMs there was not a definitive requirement that came through loud and clear on riverine. I want to get into that.”
But the lack of a definitive requirement from the combatant commands should not be seen as the possible demise of the riverine force, Roughead said.
Proof of his support for NECC was demonstrated this year as he pulled funding for the command from the supplemental and, for the first time, placed it into the Navy’s baseline budget.
“My position was, if we are going to have this capability you can’t be hanging it on supplemental funding because if it goes away where are you? So we are migrating NECC into the base budget,” Roughead said. “We’ve developed some costing models for NECC that allow us to better predict what the costs are.”
Roughead views the QDR as a good opportunity for the Navy to also explore where it wants to grow NECC because, in some instances, the sizing of that capability is influenced by the other services as well, he said.
For example, Roughead pointed to the Seabees. “How many do you need? Because of the work they are doing, they are pretty much exclusively focused on Iraq and Afghanistan. So what’s the growth in Army engineers? That’s why the QDR is going to be a good process.”
If the Navy needs more combat engineers and looks to grow its force, and the Army is growing its engineering force, too, is that the optimum way to do that? Roughead said. “The QDR is going to let us get into things like that. The QDR will allow us to better flush out the riverine portion.”
Roughead said the NECC is performing a really good mission and he is trying to get his arms around how much bigger it should grow.
The capability is so good, Roughead said, he has been working with his foreign counterparts to explore a riverine exchange program.
Because of the varying locales the riverine force could operate in–from operations in Iraq to densely forested or complex delta environments–Roughead wants the force to get some different experiences.
“The boats we have are great where they are operating, but how do they hold up in shallower, muddier, thick vegetation areas? I want to find out more about that,” he said.
In the past year and a half, Roughead said he has taken steps to legitimize and put in place things that portend a good future for NECC.
“A future based on getting it into our base budget, getting force structure analysis–not just what people think we should have–but where do we think the demands are going to be? And then getting in and looking at what the internal structure and manning concept should be for NECC,” he said. “I would say we are doing some good substantive work and good foundational work to really get NECC forward.”