Seablindness. Seth Cropsey
the idea of force transformation.33 This harkened back to the “military revolution” of the early modern period, when the combination of gunpowder technology, massed infantry tactics, and improved logistics transformed how wars were fought. The 2001 Quadrennial Defense Review defined transformation as the result of “the exploitation of new approaches to operational concepts and capabilities, the use of old and new technologies, and new forms of organization that more effectively anticipate new or still emerging strategic and operational challenges and opportunities and that render previous methods of conducting war obsolete.”34 President Bush expanded on this concept, stating that the force should be “defined less by size and more by mobility and swiftness, one that is easier to deploy and sustain, one that relies more heavily on stealth, precision weaponry, and information technologies.”35 This force would “redefine war on our terms.”36
Proponents of transformation argued that the overwhelming victory of the United States in the First Gulf War was due to the nation’s major technological edge over its adversary. Precision-guided missiles and bombs, along with stealth aircraft and immediate air supremacy, ensured America’s victory over Saddam Hussein’s million-man army. By combining these advanced technologies with the power of computer networks, U.S. force planners hoped to create a better-informed, more advanced military that could apply precise force at any location on the planet. Maintaining this technological advantage was therefore the key to preserving American military dominance and deterring future threats to U.S. power. By revolutionizing warfare, the United States could ensure its dominance for decades to come.
Asymmetric conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan only encouraged these ideas. In urban operating spaces crowded with noncombatants, minimizing collateral damage was, and remains, a crucial U.S. military objective. “Smart weapons” were meant to achieve this objective.
Transformation affected every service. While the F-22 and F-35 tactical aircraft are the most public demonstrations of the approach, the strategy had the greatest impact on the Navy, since fleet construction takes place over decades, not months or years. Transformation called for placing experimental technologies on platforms under construction in order to get ahead of America’s adversaries, much as the innovative Royal Navy Admiral Jacky Fisher did when constructing the HMS Dreadnought.
Two important examples are the Gerald R. Ford–class supercarrier and the Zumwalt-class destroyer. The Ford-class substitutes a highly efficient electromagnetic catapult for the old steam-powered ones. The new ship’s reactors generate over three times more power than its Nimitz-class predecessors, allowing it to use directed energy weapons.37 The Zumwalt-class was designed as the nation’s first stealth fighting ship and can fire a guided land-attack 5-inch shell.38
None of this was cheap. Both projects have seen major cost overruns: the Ford-class is $2.3 billion over its projected cost,39 while the three ships of the Zumwalt-class are expected to cost nearly $12.8 billion, a result partly caused by greatly reducing the number of ships purchased.40 Such overruns also delayed the delivery date of the new ships.
President Bush’s defense budgets accelerated the hollowing out of American seapower. The Bush administration’s critics still fault the former president for his high defense expenditures, arguing that the economic costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan outweigh strategic benefits. Bush’s supposedly bloated defense budgets, his critics argue, undermined American prosperity and stability while giving the military too much power in setting foreign policy.
This view of Bush-era defense spending misses the most important issue. President Bush came into office promising a $1.35 trillion tax cut. A modest defense budget would be only part of a broader policy to shrink the U.S. government and keep debt under control. Bush inherited the advantage of the Clinton-Gingrich revenue surplus from 1997 to 2001.41 Executing the president’s transformation vision would require subordinating operational and manpower budgets to high-tech advances in network warfare. The military services as a whole resisted such efforts, emphasizing already low operational budgets.42
The September 11th attacks forced the new administration to act quickly and decisively. The military was shifted to a war footing as the administration poured funds into operational budgets, particularly for the Army and Air Force. The Navy proved its worth as a rapid reaction force: carrier-based aircraft flew three-quarters of the strike missions in the opening phases of the Afghan War.43 However, the service was encouraged to act as a support element for ground troops rather than as a global force with an international role and strategy. Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Vern Clark’s Fleet Response Plan reconfigured the Navy for this role. The service was now redesigned to “surge” when needed, leaving unnecessary ships in port to decrease operational costs.44
The Navy was caught in a bind. Expensive transformation projects continued, but the service was required to maintain a high operational tempo to support engaged ground forces. An evaluation of the Bush administration’s defense budgets purely by the numbers thus yields a skewed picture. Despite high defense budgets, the Navy was hollowed out during the first decade of the twenty-first century.
President Obama’s cuts simply continued to squeeze the Navy. Sequestration—explained in full in chapter 8—extended the hollowing process by further reducing funding. Since the Navy’s global missions have remained static, the sea service has been forced to choose between funding current operations and long-term procurement. As a result, operational efficacy, future development, and personnel funding have suffered.
Force hollowness has had a material effect on the Navy. The major projects of the past decade—the Zumwalt-class destroyer and Ford-class carrier—are good demonstrations. Initial plans for construction of thirty-two Zumwalt-class destroyers were slashed to three.45 This has had a major impact on available weapons systems. Weapons like the Navy’s guided land-attack 5-inch shell—a rocket-assisted round with a range of 100 miles, fired by a standard 5-inch naval gun—are no longer viable because of the project’s high cost compared to its volume of output.46
The Ford-class has been plagued by delays to its new technological systems. To keep the Navy at the congressionally mandated eleven-carrier minimum, the service commissioned the Gerald R. Ford while retiring the Enterprise, even though the Ford is not combat ready.
The littoral combat ship (LCS) project has also experienced major cuts. A December 2015 memo from the secretary of Defense ordered the Navy to cut its LCS procurement from fifty-two to forty ships. This reduction is significant: after much wrangling over its initial design, which was deemed insufficiently defensible, the LCS’s firepower was increased with the expectation that it would become the Navy’s future frigate.47 Questions about the LCS’s lethality in combat remain. However, there is no doubt that frigates are indispensable to commanding the sea in such strategic places as the South China Sea.
Force hollowness is also evident in the Navy’s tactical fighter fleet. The F-35 project is unhappily famous for its cost overruns and major delays. Slated for initial operational capability in 2006, the F-35 was not fielded until 2016, and even then in limited numbers. The project is over $160 billion above its initial budget projections.48 Concurrently, the Navy’s fighter fleet of F/A-18 Hornets, Super Hornets, and Growlers is degrading over time: the service must rely on airframes from the Cold War.
When discussing the Navy’s difficulties during the post–Vietnam War drawdown, Admiral Thomas Hayward, the twenty-first chief of naval operations, said:
The Admirals back in Washington had so many pressures on them, so many diversions, they forgot their primary job is to make sure that the fleet is ready to go with highly trained and motivated sailors. The problem particularly manifests itself when the budget is way down.49
Just as after the Vietnam War, morale and motivation in today’s fleet has significantly declined. A combination of high operational tempo and poor funding has created force hollowness among personnel, a phenomenon even more dangerous than material hollowness.
Officer retention rates are telling. The junior officer corps combines technical