SUMMARY OF THE CENTER FOR SECURITY POLICY HIGH-LEVEL ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION ON U.S. POWER PROJECTION CAPABILITIES

Introduction

Within the next few weeks, President Clinton will submit — and the Congress will begin to
consider — the Administration’s Fiscal Year 1997 defense budget. Underlying the debate
regarding how much will be spent on the Nation’s defense are some key questions: What threats
to vital U.S. national interests still exist — or are beginning to emerge — as the Cold War fades
into history? What level of spending will be required to ensure that those threats are adequately
met? Which military programs will be necessary for the U.S. to be able to project the power
needed to meet those threats?

In anticipation of the coming debates over these questions, the Center for Security Policy last
fall
convened a day-long “High-Level Roundtable Discussion on U.S. Power Projection Capabilities,”
attended by over fifty senior civilian and military officials — both past and present — and leading
journalists and congressional staff members. Among the participants in this event held on 20
September 1995 were: former Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger;
former Deputy Under
Secretary of Defense for Acquisition T.K. Jones; Major General
Charles Link, the Air Force
Chief of Staff’s Special Assistant for Roles and Missions; John Kaskin,
Programs Director,
Logistics, Plans and Policy, Strategic Sealift Division, U.S. Navy; Rear Admiral Brent
Bennitt,
Director of Naval Aviation⁽¹⁾; and Brigadier
General Dick Vercauteren, the Marine Corp’s
Director of Plans. (A complete list of the participants is
attached.)

This paper briefly summarizes the key points that emerged in the course of this Roundtable
Discussion. No effort was made to define or approve consensus positions on the issues discussed,
nor were specific recommendations adopted by the group.

The Requirements for U.S. Power Projection

The lead discussant for the first part of the day’s program was T.K. Jones, former Deputy
Under
Secretary of Defense for Acquisition. His remarks, and the ensuing discussion, focused on an
exploration of the likely threats that the U.S. military may confront in the near future — and their
implications for American strategy and required defense capabilities. Highlights of this part of the
Roundtable included the following points:

• A great irony of the West’s victory in the Cold War is the fact that the Soviet Union was a
  stabilizing factor in world affairs. The United States’ strategic context was simpler
  with one
  dominant adversary.
• In the near future, the United States will face an unpredictable and probably volatile
  international environment with declining military resources. Policy-makers can be expected to
  try to stretch a shrinking budget to cover situations that cannot always be foreseen.
• Potential aggressors learned an important lesson from the Gulf War — keep the United
  States
  out of tactical aircraft range. With the proliferation of first-line air defenses and weapons of
  mass destruction, conflicts in the future are likely to be characterized by chemical, biological,
  or even nuclear attacks against U.S. and allied airfields and bases “in-theater.”
• Unpredictable rogue states are increasingly taking the place of the monolithic
  Soviet
  threat. Although it is often difficult to predict the goals of these rogue states, we do
  know
  something of their “shopping lists” — the technologies and weapons that they are seeking to
  acquire. As a result, we can deduce something of their incipient capabilities.

A Tour d’Horizon

• The Persian Gulf region is a probable area of future conflict. Iran is the
  main threat there —
  as it has been for quite some time. Thanks to a recognition of this reality, the United States
  appears relatively well prepared to contend with this threat.
• Russia may become a threat to U.S. interests in the near future.
  Although a new Cold War is
  not likely, neither is Russia likely to become a capitalist ally on the world stage. Its economic
  situation is wildly unstable, and Boris Yeltsin’s ability to maintain control is by no means
  guaranteed.
• The western Pacific is a more unpredictable region of likely future
  conflict. It poses a
  multitude of possible combat conditions and combinations of belligerents, making it very
  difficult for the United States to scope the forces it will need in this region in the future. For
  example:

• China is the strongest potential belligerent in East Asia and is embarking
  on a plan to
  acquire the ability to project its power. Unfortunately, since China has no modern
  history of effective power projection, it is difficult to anticipate how and where it may
  strike. Of special concern is the fact that China already has the ability to deliver
  weapons of mass destruction to American soil — and the U.S. has absolutely no means
  of defending its population against such an attack.⁽²⁾ China’s
  political situation is at best
  uncertain after the death of its leader, Deng Xiao Ping.
• Renewed hostilities between China and Japan are possible in the future.
  They may be
  made less likely or less imminent if Japan continues to focus primarily on strengthening
  its economy. China has also indicated that it may have expansive interests in Taiwan,
  India and the Spratly Islands.
• North Korea is clearly hostile, but it is even more unpredictable in its
  actions.
  Pyongyang’s military capabilities — especially in the areas of chemical, biological and
  nuclear warfare — are a matter of particular uncertainty.
The Korean peninsula presents an interesting set of possibilities. The two
Koreas may go to war, or they may unite. Depending on which side remains
dominant in a unified Korea, it may become either militarily belligerent or
commercially aggressive. So a unified Korea may come to present as much
of a threat to the United States and its strongest ally in the region — Japan —
as a Korean peninsula at war.

• Eastern Russia also represents an area of unpredictability in the western
  Pacific. It
  may coalesce — or it may come apart. Either way, it could be a major destabilizing
  force in the area. It is a region with few people and a wealth of natural resources,
  making it a target of possible Chinese aggression.
• The Caspian Sea contains the second largest supply of oil reserves in the
  world. These
  reserves happen to be located in an area characterized by (actual or potential) violent political
  instability in and between neighboring countries such as Russia, Iran, Turkey, Azerbaijan,
  Armenia and Georgia. The contest to control the exploitation of this region’s oil deposits may
  give rise to armed conflict there.

Sizing U.S. Power Projection Capabilities

• Current U.S. force projection requirements are based upon a scenario in which the Nation
  has
  to fight in two major regional conflicts (MRCs) nearly simultaneously. It was generally agreed
  that it is absolutely critical that the U.S. devote the resources necessary to ensure that
  both conflicts can be won decisively. If the United States becomes involved
  in one conflict
  and is left unprepared for a second, a potential aggressor could be tempted to seize such a
  moment to strike. Conversely, the American ability to cope credibly with a second significant
  contingency helps to discourage such thinking, making this challenging scenario far less likely
  to arise.
• The ability to attack mobile targets will be crucial in future conflicts — potential aggressors
  learned in the Gulf War that as long as something of value remains in one place, it is vulnerable
  to U.S. attack. Unfortunately, right now the United States’ capability to find and track mobile
  targets is inadequate even in a single theater of operations, to say nothing of two nearly
  simultaneous ones.

The Adequacy of U.S. Air-and Sealift Capabilities and Related
Modernization
Programs

The discussion then moved to a topic that does not receive as much attention as some other
military issues — the Nation’s ability to move its forces from their home bases to areas of conflict.
The lead discussants for this portion of the program were Major General Charles Link, the U.S.
Air Force Chief of Staff’s Special Assistant for Roles and Missions, and John Kaskin, the
Programs Director for Logistics, Plans, and Policy in the U.S. Navy’s Strategic Sealift Division.
Highlights of the discussion included the following:

• Power projection is about influencing events or other actors. In order to
  be effective,
  those who are the targets of this influence must be made to understand the consequences of
  not being influenced. That is essentially a political function — unlimited military might cannot
  compensate for poor policy-making.
• The Department of Defense, in its Mobility Requirement Study update to the Bottom-Up
  Review (MRSBURU), calculated that the United States needs to be able to move 52
  million
  ton-miles-per-day to execute the two-MRC scenario. If measured against that goal,
  some
  participants argued that the United States’ armed forces are currently adequately equipped.

Airlift

• The C-17 has entered service after a rocky start. Operational squadrons are now routinely
  flying missions to Europe, Central America and the Pacific. href=”#N_3_”>⁽³⁾ Although the C-17 began as a
  troubled program, things have improved dramatically. There have been significant
  improvements in the contractor-government working relationship. The aircraft delivery
  schedule has improved to the point that the last nine aircraft were actually delivered
  early. The
  latest aircraft have 43% fewer problems than those of previous years.
• The C-130E is the Air Force’s main tactical/theater airlift platform. They will need to be
  replaced in the next 10-15 years, as they near the end of service life. The Air Force is planning
  to replace the C-130Es on active duty with improved C-130Js. The C-130J will have increased
  speed and range, reduced operating and support costs, and updated integrated digital systems
  with lower failure rates than current systems.
• Studies like MRSBURU use sophisticated modeling of potential conflicts to arrive at lift
  requirements. One problem with such modeling is that the Nation may find itself fighting an
  enemy who uses tactics or weaponry — chemical and/or biological weapons, for example —
  with which the U.S. military has had limited, if any, actual combat experience. As a result,
  such models and the conclusions they produce may not be as predictive or useful as
  advertised.
• Protecting ports and airbases in-theater will be critical in any future
  conflict. The
  abilities of even robust airlift and sealift capabilities are of limited utility if they have no place in
  the theater of operations safely to unload their contents. Consequently, it seems likely that
  overseas airfields and ports that would be used by the U.S. in a future conflict are likely to be
  the first targets of attacks by enemy theater ballistic missiles armed with chemical, biological or
  even nuclear weapons. Building an effective defense against such weapons is an
  absolute necessity.
• Non-combat situations such as humanitarian operations put a significant strain on the U.S.
  airlift inventory that could erode its wartime logistical-support capability.

Sealift

• In the late 1980s, the United States Navy began building its own sealift capability. It had
  previously relied on the merchant marine fleet. The Navy now has 13 maritime prepositioned
  ships (MPS) divided into three squadrons, each capable of supporting a brigade-sized Marine
  Corps air-ground task force for 30 days. Eight container ships have been converted by the
  Navy into roll-on/roll-off ships (RoRo’s), ready to move Army forces.
• The Army and the Air Force both have pre-positioned equipment in the Indian Ocean at
  Diego
  Garcia, ready to respond to a crisis in the Persian Gulf region.
• The government also decided in the late 1980s to increase the organic capability maintained
  by
  the Department of Transportation’s Maritime Administration — the Ready Reserve Force
  (RRF). Envisioned for the RRF were 100 dry cargo ships and 36 tankers. By the end of the
  decade, the United States was only about one dozen ships short of this objective.

• In 1992, the federal government did a new sealift requirements study, based on the
  two-MRC
  scenario reflected in the Bottom-Up Review. The study found that in order to move
  enough forces in-theater early enough, both surge sealift and prepositioning would need
  to be increased. This will require two million more square feet of prepositioned army
  equipment, three million more square feet of surge sealift, and 20 large, medium-speed
  roll-on/roll-off ships (LMSR’s).

The United States’ prepositioning capacity has almost tripled since the Persian Gulf
war, as has its readiness. Prepositioning of forces serves two important political
purposes. First, the fact that a host nation agrees to have U.S. forces stationed on its
soil is a signal to the world that it will also allow U.S. troops to operate on their soil, if
necessary. Second, in getting permission to preposition its forces overseas, the United
States builds close political relationships that can only help in the future.

• The RRF, after the LMSR’s come into service, will be reduced from 100 dry cargo ships to
  65
  due to an increased emphasis on prepositioning. Contracts have been awarded for five ships to
  be converted into LMSR’s. The first will be delivered by April of 1996. Contracts also have
  been awarded for 14 new-construction ships.

What is more, prior to the Gulf War, the RRF ships had no crews on board leading to a
long activation time in an emergency. Many of the RRF ships now have small retention
crews on board to keep the ship’s systems “warm” and ready to go in an emergency.
There is a problem brewing in the RRF acquisition program, however. Many of
the ships being bought and converted into RRF ships are foreign-built. Congress
does not want any more foreign-built ships to be bought. How this circle will be
squared remains to be seen.

• In short, the Department of Defense has built a fleet that can move our forces into
  battle,
  but to sustain those forces over a prolonged period of conflict, the Nation will still have
  to rely on the merchant marine. The subsidies that keep this fleet alive expire in 1997.
  If
  the subsidy programs are not renewed, the U.S. will have to negotiate access agreements with
  U.S. companies that own ships flying the flags of other nations.
• Sealift assets are very vulnerable. They are not warships and are unprepared to
  deal
  with hostile forces that can use mines, missiles and submarines to attack. Prepositioned
  forces at port are also vulnerable to pre-emptive strikes.

The Future of Naval Aviation as an Instrument of U.S. Power Projection —
and What It
Will Take to Realize That Future

The discussion then moved to an examination of the current and future state of the U.S.
Navy’s
aviation programs. The discussion was led by Rear Admiral Brent Bennitt, Director of Naval
Aviation. Highlights included the following:

• The U.S. has made significant improvements to its carrier-based air fleet since the Persian
  Gulf
  War. These improvements include:

• The addition of precision laser capability into the majority of F/A-18’s, giving them the
  ability to utilize self-designation of targets for laser-guided munitions;
• Software upgrades to the F/A-18, greatly improving its air-to-air and air-to-ground
  capability;
• The addition of an air-to-ground capability on the F-14;
• Significant upgrades to the night-attack variant of the A/V-8B and the forthcoming
  addition of a new radar system on the aircraft;
• The ability of naval aircraft to carry a penetrating weapon — the GBU-24;
• The creation of an organic strike-rescue capability on each aircraft carrier.

• The United States currently operates 12 big-deck aircraft carriers — down from 15 in 1990.
  This has left a serious gap in the ability of the Navy to maintain presence in all
  geographical areas of vital national interests, as there is a direct link between the
  number of carriers and the Navy’s ability not only to provide forward presence, but also
  to be able to respond to a crisis.
• The Navy recently unveiled the F/A-18E/F, a significant upgrade to the existing fleet of
  F/A-18’s. The E/F model is 25% larger than the older models, it carries 33% more fuel giving it
  increased speed and range, and it will have the ability to carry standoff weapons currently
  being developed. This “Super Hornet,” however, has a significantly smaller radar-cross-section
  than earlier models and it carries better electronic countermeasures, so it will be
  significantly more difficult to detect. Also, unlike other aircraft, the F/A-18E/F will be able to
  deliver every weapon in the Navy’s inventory.

Looking to the Future

• The Navy will also deploy the Joint Advanced Strike Technology (JAST) aircraft when it is
  built. This aircraft will employ many of the characteristics necessary to move naval aviation
  into the next century, including reduced infrared signature, a large internal payload capability,
  greater speed and maneuverability, and a reduced radar cross-section.
• The Navy’s intent to field the JAST aircraft is indicative of its move towards joint systems.
  This is also evident in the planned deployment of impressive new joint weapons such as the
  Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) and the Joint Standoff Attack Weapon (JSOW). JDAM
  and JSOW, precision weapons that use the Global Positioning System and inertial guidance,
  will allow the Navy to perform close air support in all weather conditions — even if the target is
  obscured by cloud cover, something not possible with current laser-guided munitions.
• The Navy does not currently have a stealthy aircraft in its inventory and has been searching
  for
  a viable stealth option since the A-12 program was canceled. Some have suggested modifying
  the F-117 stealth fighter to enable it to operate from aircraft carriers. Some
  participants
  expressed concern that, unless corrected, the absence of such a long-range/low-observable
  capability could greatly impinge upon the future flexibility of naval aviation
  as an instrument of power projection and, therefore, the priority likely to be accorded to
  it in the competition for limited defense resources.

The Role of the Marine Corps in U.S. Power Projection — and What Will be
Required
to Execute That Role

The final topic of discussion was the role to be played by the United States Marine Corps in
present and future warfighting plans. The discussion was led by Brigadier General Dick
Vercauteren, the Marine Corps’ Director of Plans. Highlights of the discussion included the
following points:

• Some of the most serious threats in the near future are derived from the fact that new
  technologies are becoming available to more countries, allowing them, for example, to take
  advantage of information warfare and nuclear, biological and chemical weaponry. These
  threats will require new and unconventional strategies and tactics.
• That said, wars in the future will still require that soldiers “get dirty.” The United States will
  need forces that are smart, lethal, mobile, hard-hitting and able to operate at distances away
  from commanders. The Marines are trained to operate this way. At present, there are roughly
  25,000 Marines forward-deployed around the world.
• The importance of the Marines becomes obvious when one realizes that 70% of the
  world’s population and 70% of areas of nuclear, chemical and biological proliferation lie
  within reach of the Marines’ primary area of operation — the coastline.
• The United States has closed a good portion of its overseas bases in the last four years and
  many countries are not willing to allow American forces to use their bases as they have been in
  the past. This is happening as conflicts continue to erupt around the world. In this
  environment, the U.S. will increasingly rely on the Marines, whose speciality is forward-deployed
  crisis response.
• The Marine Corps is counting on three systems to help modernize its forces — the
  landing craft-air cushioned (LCAC), the V-22 tiltrotor aircraft and the advanced assault
  amphibious vehicle (AAAV). These systems will allow the Marines to arrive at an area
  of
  conflict quickly, to strike quickly and lethally and to leave quickly. This modernization is being
  done in a budget-constrained environment where 70-75% of USMC funds go to personnel,
  leaving little room for research and development or procurement.
• The Marine Corps, like the other services, is struggling to balance needs with costs.
  Unfortunately, the resources that will be available to the military in the near future are as
  uncertain as the threats that it will have to face.
• America’s enemies will be more sophisticated — and therefore more dangerous — on the
  battlefield in the future as technologies such as Global Positioning Systems and LANDSAT
  photography that can now be bought on the open market become integrated into the military
  capabilities of potential adversaries even among less-developed nations.
• Current military planning is dominated by the two MRC scenario contained in the
  Bottom-Up
  Review. These MRCs have a tendency to happen not very often — about once every 25 years.
  In between, however, the Marines have found themselves very busy with lesser regional crises
  (LRCs), which are far less predictable than MRCs.
• Warfighters in the U.S. military have serious concerns about the adequacy of air-and sealift
  assets to support a two MRC scenario.
• Military commanders are under increasing pressure to avoid all casualties in conflict. This is
  not a realistic request. If the U.S. does not have the will to put forces into harm’s way
  and
  keep them there even in the face of casualties, then those forces simply should not be
  deployed.
• If the United States continues to downsize its military at current rates, it runs the risk of not
  being prepared for the start of even a single Major Regional Conflict. America had
  downsized
  its military so much after World War II that it suffered unnecessary and serious early losses in
  the Korean War. A similar prospect looms as military spending is slated to fall to 2.8% of
  GNP — a level of defense investment that has not been seen since before Pearl Harbor when
  roughly 3% of GNP went to armed forces.
• The Nation’s leadership has given the American people what is, in effect, a very powerful
  narcotic — the notion that the United States will fight only bloodless, stand-off, electronic wars
  in the future, and that there is no major threat on the horizon. Unfortunately, none of these
  conditions is likely to apply in the years ahead.

Conclusion

For the foreseeable future, the United States will face real, and probably increasingly
dangerous,
threats to its people, territory and interests. America’s ability to address such threats in a timely
and effective manner will be complicated by the loss of forward-deployed force structure and
other reductions in power-projection capabilities. These changes have inexorably arisen from
sustained reductions in defense spending over the past eleven years.

Most, if not all, participants in this High-Level Roundtable seemed in agreement
that, as a
result, a premium must now be placed upon highly mobile, flexible platforms and military
assets that lend themselves to the rapid, global projection of American power.
Importantly,
in addition to weapon systems that meet these criteria, the Nation must make a sustained
investment in logistical capabilities needed to support the forces that will be called upon to fight
its wars wherever and whenever they might occur.

— End of Summary —

1. Admiral Bennitt has since been promoted to the rank of Vice
Admiral and now Commander,
Naval Air Force, U.S. Pacific Fleet.

2. This concern has intensified with recent Chinese suggestions that
American interference in
Beijing’s campaign of intimidation against Taiwan would risk an attack against Los Angeles. For
more on these suggestions and their implications, see the Center for Security Policy’s recent
Decision Brief entitled China Threatens Taiwan — and the
United States: Will ‘A Missile a
Day’ Keep the U.S. Away? (No. 96-D 09, 26 January
1996).

3. Subsequent to this Roundtable Discussion, C-17 aircraft have been
used extensively — and
highly successfully — as part of the Bosnia peacekeeping operation.