On 21 April 2008 Robert Gates delivered a jaw-dropping speech to students at the Air War College, criticising US Air Force leadership for moving too slowly. It was like "pulling teeth", said the defence secretary, to get more intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance assets to Afghanistan. Two months later, he fired the USAF's top civilian and military leaders.
If Gates's habit is to signal shocking changes by delivering speeches to targeted audiences, the Navy League may long regret hosting him as keynote speaker at its Sea Air Space Expo last week.
To the Navy League - whose top legislative priority is to build the fleet up to nearly Cold War-levels - Gates began by inventorying the US Navy's vast arsenal: 11 large deck carriers, 10 amphibious carriers, 57 nuclear submarines and 79 Aegis-class destroyers. But then he stunned his partisan audience by posing a whopper of a question: "At the end of the day, we have to ask whether the nation can really afford a navy that relies on $3-6 billion destroyers, $7 billion submarines, and $11 billion carriers."
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© US Navy/Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Daniel S. Moore |
Gates's record on acquisition policy suggests there is more to this question than idle curiosity. Gates stared down the air force to terminate F-22 production after building just 187 aircraft. He also terminated the army's Future Combat System. Perhaps it is now the navy and Marine Corps' turn.
Gates's agenda is to transform the US military from a force inherited from the Cold War to one postured for the most likely threats of the future. "The more relevant gap we risk creating is one between capabilities we are pursuing and those that are actually needed in the real world of tomorrow," he says.
The implications for navy shipbuilding are extreme, but only marginally more than the impact on naval aviation.
The navy is currently buying two different carrier-based strike aircraft - Boeing F/A-18E/Fs and Lockheed Martin F-35B/Cs. A third ship-based strike aircraft is being demonstrated with the Northrop Grumman X-47B.
Expensive, Cold War-like Boeing P-8A and Northrop RQ-4 surveillance platforms are currently in the budget, and the navy recently asked industry for data about a "Global Discovery" aircraft with capabilities similar to the Beechcraft King Air 350ER.
If Gates's view of sea power prevails, something will have to give.
Source: Flight International
