{"id":36069,"date":"2022-03-14T11:30:00","date_gmt":"2022-03-14T11:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/uncategorized\/2022\/03\/14\/top-navy-official-says-service-needs-a-larger-fleet-and-a-larger-share-of-the-budget\/"},"modified":"2026-08-07T22:55:59","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T22:55:59","slug":"top-navy-official-says-service-needs-a-larger-fleet-and-a-larger-share-of-the-budget","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/naval\/2022\/03\/14\/top-navy-official-says-service-needs-a-larger-fleet-and-a-larger-share-of-the-budget\/","title":{"rendered":"Top Navy official says service needs a larger fleet and a larger share of the budget"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

NORFOLK, Va. \u2014 If you\u2019re confused about the size of the future U.S. Navy fleet<\/a>, you\u2019re not alone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The service and Pentagon officials have teetered between multiple plans for the last three years, moving back-and-forth between different approaches.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indeed, in 2019, Navy and Marine Corps officials conducted an extensive analysis to plot out their ideal combined naval force. But before they could announce a decision, Pentagon officials took over that effort in early 2020, concerned the ideal fleet would well exceed what the department would fund.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But when then-Defense Secretary Mark Esper ultimately announced his version of the plan that fall, it outlined a future fleet larger than the Navy could have imagined: 355 manned ships by 2035, and 500 manned and unmanned ships by 2045.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Within months, the incoming Biden administration released a new, less detailed vision of a smaller fleet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amid these changes, one constant has been Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday\u2019s priorities. He has consistently said the Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine<\/a> is the service\u2019s top spending priority, followed by readiness, modernization and lethality improvements, and then \u201ccapacity at an affordable rate.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But at a January conference, he said: \u201cI really want to make a shift here, and I\u2019d really like to stop saying \u2018at an affordable rate.\u2019 I\u2019d really like to have the top line to have a bigger Navy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
190927-N-BH414-1212 \rSAN DIEGO (Sept. 27, 2019) Vice Adm. Scott D. Conn, center, salutes Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) Adm. Michael M. Gilday, right, after receiving command of U.S. 3rd Fleet during a change of command and retirement ceremony aboard the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71), Sept. 27, 2019. Conn assumed command from Vice Adm. John D. Alexander, who retired after 37 years of honorable service. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Casey Trietsch\/Released)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe can\u2019t just keep on saying, \u2018It\u2019s all about the capability,\u2019 \u201d he later added. \u201cIt\u2019s about the capacity to bring those capabilities to the fight.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His comments mark a strategic change to the way the Navy thinks about and pursues budget requests<\/a>. Gilday confirmed to Defense News he is arguing the Navy needs a large portion of the pie \u2014 because a larger naval fleet will be critical to the U.S. military.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He foresees the Navy conducting distributed maritime operations, meaning it will need more ships to operate in more locations at once, spreading out firepower and sensors across wide swaths of ocean. \u201cTo fight in a distributed fashion, you need volume,\u201d he said in a Feb. 4 interview with Defense News.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe argument I make now simply is: Although we can\u2019t have a Navy bigger than the one we can afford, capacity does yield capability. You can only get so much capability out of 296 ships, physically,\u201d he said. \u201cWe do need a bigger Navy, and you can\u2019t just talk about capabilities without talking about size.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still, Gilday won\u2019t discuss specifics. Once the fiscal 2023 budget \u2014 which is expected to be a tough one for the Navy \u2014 is released this spring, more information will be available. The FY23 budget will include a five-year spending plan, unlike the FY22 budget request, he said, and the Navy will release its 30-year shipbuilding plan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why capacity matters<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

Vice Adm. William Merz, the deputy chief of naval operations for operations, plans and strategy, told reporters in February that capacity is a clear limiting factor for today\u2019s fleet. \u201cWe\u2019re facing capability shortfalls across every platform,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pointing to the expeditionary advanced base operations concept as an example, Merz said the emerging capability must be scaled up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a reason that one of the CNO\u2019s priorities is capacity because we\u2019re all giving him that feedback. And he sees it play out every day. His fundamental concern is the health and welfare of the fleet, so we are very, very committed to our rotational [deployment] models to make sure nothing gets broken \u2014 but that\u2019s still going to provide a limit to the capacity that we can field at any one time, and that hip-checks right into the larger defense strategy on what we expect the Navy to do,\u201d Merz said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Merz, who in his last assignment led U.S. 7th Fleet in the Indo-Pacific region, said the Navy understands it needs the capacity to move around in a contested environment and to simultaneously address multiple threats; it just needs the top line to grow that capacity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Boatswain\u2019s Mate Dylan Virruertorres signals a helicopter during flight operations with JS Kaga aboard the destroyer Milius in the South China Sea Nov. 15. Milius is assigned to Commander, Task Force 71\/Destroyer Squadron 15, U.S. 7th Fleet\u2019s principal surface force. (MCSNA RuKiyah Mack\/Navy).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

He said it\u2019s unlikely the soon-to-be-released National Defense Strategy will ask the Navy to build anything dramatically new \u2014 \u201cwhich gives us the luxury of focusing more and more on the capacity challenge, which is going to be very, very top-line dependent, which is still in negotiation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But when it comes to the actual platforms and technologies the Navy needs to accomplish distributed maritime operations, \u201cwe feel very confident that we are on very strong trajectories within the confines of the top line.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The driving priority<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

Merz told reporters in February the distributed maritime operations concept is \u201cthe secret sauce\u201d to Navy missions. After years of work, it\u2019s now \u201cvery well defined, and you can probably see hints of that just in how we operate the fleet around the world.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the lack of long-range shipbuilding plans<\/a> and budgets obscures how the DMO concept is shaping the future fleet. However, Gilday and Merz are confident the Navy understands the concept and will be ready to transition into the right platforms for optimal execution in the coming years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The defining attribute of the future fleet, Gilday said, will be long-range firepower.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe more I take a look at the progress we\u2019re making across many lines \u2014 whether it\u2019s [Project] Overmatch or unmanned \u2014 I keep coming back to long-range fires as a key capability for the future that we\u2019re going to need to deliver on \u2014 not just from a Navy perspective, but from a joint perspective,\u201d Gilday said. \u201cThat then becomes kind of a central focus of what we\u2019re designing and why we\u2019re designing it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLooking through the lens of the distributed maritime operations concept allows us to begin to understand what the composition and size of the fleet is [in order] to deliver those long-range fires,\u201d Gilday said, adding that these missiles will be \u201ccentral to power projection\u201d at sea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Funding that vision<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

Several sources, who spoke to Defense News on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss pre-decisional budget negotiations, said the Navy weighed dramatic options to pay for its shipbuilding needs \u2014 including retiring at least a dozen surface ships to pay for a second destroyer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rep. Mike Gallagher, a Wisconsin Republican who sits on the House Armed Services Committee, said in a January speech that all indications are the FY23 budget request will be a \u201cbloodbath\u201d for the Navy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gilday struck a more optimistic tone at the WEST naval conference in San Diego in February, saying the FY22 National Defense Authorization Act showed a commitment from Congress for more funding for the Navy and Marine Corps and that the FY23 budget request might begin to show the Pentagon is onboard, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indeed, the longer it takes the Biden administration to release the FY23 federal budget request, the more optimistic think tank analysts appear. Reuters recently reported the administration may ask<\/a> for more than $770 billion, though it remains unclear whether that top line would address concerns over an insufficient shipbuilding budget, or if the extra funding would offset challenges such as rising inflation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Regardless, for the Navy to get the kind of funding to significantly grow the fleet, it would have to take a departure from past budgets that generally split money fairly evenly among the Army, the Air Force, and the Navy and Marine Corps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe top line is going to be what it\u2019s going to be,\u201d Gilday said. \u201cThe bigger question is, with respect to determining what the numbers look like and an end game is, what is the Navy expected to provide, and why. And I think that both the new National Defense Strategy, as well as highly classified concepts like the Joint Warfighting Concept, I think are going to have an impact on how money is distributed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said the Pentagon should look across the joint force and identify areas worthy of more investment \u2014 either those where the U.S. has an advantage over chief rival China that it wants to maintain, like undersea warfare, or in areas of known capability gaps against China that must be addressed. Either way, he said, there\u2019s a good argument for more funding for the Navy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s certainly support on Capitol Hill for a budget proposal more heavily weighted toward the Navy. Rep. Elaine Luria, a Democrat from Virginia who serves as vice chair of the House Armed Services Committee, told Defense News \u201cthere\u2019s a lot of consensus that China should be our No. 1 concern as far as national defense,\u201d but the historical split of funding among the services is hard to change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Cmdr. Mehdi Akacem, Ford’s air boss, second from right, briefs Rep. Bobby Scott, chair of the House Education and Labor Committee, second from left, and Rep. Elaine Luria, vice chair of the House Armed Services Committee-Seapower subcommittee, center, during a tour of Ford’s advanced arresting gear spaces on June 17, 2019. Rep. Scott and Rep. Luria visited Ford to see first hand the progress the ship is making during its post-shakedown availability and to speak directly to Ford leadership and sailors. Seaman Zachary Melvin\/ US Navy.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnyone who\u2019s looked at a map or globe can see that this is a maritime issue,\u201d she said. \u201cBut just between [the White House\u2019s Office of Management and Budget] and the Pentagon \u2014 however that split happens over there \u2014 that paradigm just doesn\u2019t seem to be able to be broken.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luria said the committee supports paying for the Columbia submarine program outside of the Navy\u2019s budget in order to remove that pressure from the rest of the service\u2019s budget and \u201cfree up more resources for some of the other potential platforms\u201d in which it will need to invest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She said Defense Department budgets often arrive on the Hill with little context regarding how they directly relate to the department\u2019s priorities and address the most pressing threats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the Pentagon\u2019s budget request \u201cwas presented to us with a sound strategy and a sound assessment of the risk of not shifting more resources to the Navy and the Air Force, I think Congress would be receptive to a proposal like that from the services,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gilday said that could happen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m hoping … this new [National Defense Strategy and] the Joint Warfighting Concept allow us to have a better understanding of what exactly we want to prioritize and put money against,\u201d he said. \u201cThat ought to be reflected in the shipbuilding plan because that\u2019s a public document that\u2019s intended to provide both Congress and industry with a clearer view\u201d of what the Navy needs to buy and why.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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