Navy Force Structure: Alternative Force Structure Studies of 2005 -- Background for Congress

Publication Date: April 2007

Publisher: Library of Congress. Congressional Research Service

Author(s):

Research Area: Military and defense

Type:

Abstract:

This CRS report summarizes three studies submitted to Congress in 2005 on potential future Navy ship force structures, and is intended as a lasting reference source on these three studies.

Two of the three studies were conducted in response to Section 216 of the conference report (H.Rept. 108-354 of November 7, 2003) on the FY2004 defense authorization act (H.R. 1588/P.L. 108-136 of November 24, 2003). The two studies were conducted by the Center for Naval Analyses (CNA) and the Office of Force Transformation (OFT, which was then a part of the Office of the Secretary of Defense). They were submitted to the congressional defense committees in February 2005. The third study was conducted by the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA), an independent defense-policy research organization, on its own initiative. The study was made available to congressional and other audiences in March 2005.

The CNA study presents a fairly traditional approach to naval force planning in which capability requirements for warfighting and for maintaining day-to-day naval forward deployments are calculated and then integrated. The CNA-recommended force parallels fairly closely Navy thinking at the time on the size and composition of the fleet. This is perhaps not surprising, given that much of CNA's analytical work is done at the Navy's request.

The OFT study fundamentally challenges current Navy thinking on the size and composition of the fleet, and presents an essentially clean-sheet proposal for a future Navy that would be radically different from the currently planned fleet. This is perhaps not surprising, given both OFT's institutional role within DOD as a leading promoter of military transformation and the views of retired Navy admiral Arthur Cebrowski -- the director of OFT until January 31, 2005 -- regarding networkcentric warfare and distributed force architectures. (OFT was disestablished on October 1, 2006, and its activities were transferred to other DOD offices.)

The CSBA study challenges current Navy thinking on the size and composition of the fleet more dramatically than the CNA report, and less dramatically than the OFT report. Compared to the CNA and OFT reports, the CSBA report contains a more detailed implementation plan and a more detailed discussion of possibilities for restructuring the shipbuilding industrial base.

This CRS report will not be updated.