Americas Defense Meltdown - IT Acquisition Advisory Council

William S. Lind • 127fuel and ammunition resupply and barracks (many of the craft being too small to havecrews live aboard permanently). In the case of coastal craft, these support capabilitieswould be based on a “mother ship” that would deploy as the flotilla’s home base.Support facilities for flotillas for inland waters would be designed for basing ashoreor afloat. Flotillas could deploy quickly to take control of a troubled region’s coastaland inland waters as the Navy’s contribution to dealing with either a Fourth Generationconflict or a state-on-state regional conflict. Flotillas designed for inland watersshould be air-deployable, as some of those waters may not have navigable outlets tothe sea. Marines would be inherent to both types of flotillas.How many flotillas do we need? As is usually the case (despite pretense otherwise),numbers can only be arbitrary until situations unfold. A reasonable place to startmight be with six coastal flotillas, each capable of controlling a small country’s coastalwaters, and three flotillas for inland waters. Some or all of these flotillas might bemanned by naval reservists. The wide variety of skills (and common sense) reservistsbring from civilian life often makes them more capable in Fourth Generation conflictsthan active service personnel.ConclusionThe military reform Navy outlined here maintains America’s naval dominance of theAtlantic and Pacific oceans, plus selected other seas when needed. America wouldretain a force of capital ships equal or superior to any other in the world. This wouldnot be done in anticipation of any particular conflict, but as a reflection of our geographicand economic realities.At the same time, the military reform Navy would enhance our capability to projectnaval power in ways that are relevant to where war is going in the 21st century. Ouraircraft carriers would become more useful as we decouple them from standardizedair wings that can do little beyond defend the carrier and bomb civilians ashore, ashappened routinely in Iraq and Afghanistan. Big, empty boxes that can quickly carrylots of different kinds of things, including Jaeger air, almost anyplace in the world areworth their high cost. The Navy’s new flotillas for coastal and inland waters wouldprovide a highly relevant capability that at present is almost completely lacking. Theability to take control of a country’s or region’s coastal and inland waters is real navalpower projection.How much will it all cost? We would rather avoid the usual Washington practiceof pulling numbers out of thin air and leave that question open. The fact that we willretire the cruisers and destroyers to the naval museums where they belong and buildno more means it will cost less than the current Navy budget. We can buy a lot offlotilla craft for the price of a single Zumwalt-class destroyer.