EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 2016 Navy Force Structure Assessment (FSA) 14 DECEMBER 2016 INTRODUCTION: Navy’s Force Structure Assessment (FSA) was developed in an effort to determine the right balance of existing forces, the ships we currently have under construction and the future procurement plans needed to address the ever-evolving and increasingly complex threats the Navy is required to counter in the global maritime commons. This FSA assumes that the future plans for our Navy, in ship types and numbers of ships, continues to replace the ships we have today with ships of similar capability and in similar numbers as we transition to the future Navy – it does not address potential options that may come out of the ongoing review of the potential Future Fleet Architecture studies that were directed by Congress and completed in October 2016. As we evaluate the options presented in these studies and move to include them in our plans for tomorrow’s Navy, this FSA will need to be updated to reflect those changes that are determined to be most beneficial to meeting the Navy’s missions of the future. The number and mix of ships in the objective force, identified by this FSA, reflects an indepth assessment of the Navy’s force structure requirements – it also includes a level of operational risk that we are willing to assume based on the resource limitations under which the Navy must operate. While the force levels articulated in this FSA are adjudged to be successful in the scenarios defined for Navy combat, that success will likely also include additional loss of forces, and longer timelines to achieve desired objectives, in each of the combat scenarios against which we plan to use these forces. It should not be assumed that this force level is the “desired” force size the Navy would pursue if resources were not a constraint – rather, this is the level that balances an acceptable level of warfighting risk to our equipment and personnel against available resources and achieves a force size that can reasonably achieve success. SUMMARY OF FINDINGS: Since the last full FSA was conducted in 2012, and updated in 2014, the global security environment changed significantly, with our potential adversaries developing capabilities that undermine our traditional military strengths and erode our technological advantage. Within this new security environment, defense planning guidance directed that the capacity and capability of the Joint Force must be sufficient to defeat one adversary while denying the objectives of a second adversary. PROCESS: The 2016 FSA started with a request to the Combatant Commanders (CCDRs) to provide their unconstrained desire for Navy forces in their respective theaters consistent with meeting the demands of the Defense Planning Scenarios as reflected in their FY17 Global Force Management (GFM) submissions. To fully resource these platform-specific demands with very little risk in any theater while supporting enduring missions, ongoing 1 operations and setting the theater for prompt warfighting response, Navy would require a 653-ship force. A force of this size would fundamentally require Navy to double its current annual budget, which is essentially unrealistic in both current and expected future fiscal environments. Therefore, this demand signal had to be balanced against likely future resource levels and risk assessments to provide an achievable force level to which Navy could aspire. Our first step in bringing this force down to a size that we could defend required us to engage with the Navy Component Commanders (NCC) in each theater of operations to understand the reasoning behind their requested force levels. In some cases, we identified instances where forces were being requested for redundant missions that could be covered by consolidating force requirements within that theater. In addition, there were instances where the missions, for which forces were being requested, were transitory in nature and did not require enduring force levels to be assigned to that NCC. While this reduced the force demand somewhat, it still significantly exceeded the Navy’s ability to resource. The next filters we applied injected presence risk by not meeting CCDR demands for steady state forces to conduct ongoing operations (i.e. – Theater Security Operations, Counter Terrorism and Counter Illicit Trafficking efforts) and to “set the theater”. These actions ultimately resulted in a 459-ship force that complied with approved combinations of challenges for force sizing and shaping. This force also far exceeds the Navy’s ability to resource, and while it is the force needed to achieve Navy’s missions with reasonable expectations of success without incurring significant losses, it was unrealistic for Navy to assume we would have the resources to aspire to a force of this size with this mix of ships. Therefore, we had to look at additional areas where we could take risk in mission success or look at new ways to accomplish the missions we have been assigned – this was the objective of the Future Fleet Architecture studies and they will, likely, change the calculus on both the way we fight our fleet, and what force structure is best suited to these new ways of accomplishing the same missions. Pending the outcome of the assessment of the ideas surfaced in these studies, we had to look at warfighting risks that would be necessary to bring the FSA force levels down to a point where they could be better aligned to the resources available. WARFIGHTING RISK AND THE FORCE STRUCTURE OBJECTIVE: In order to assess warfighting risk and identify where margins existed that could be reduced, we did an in-depth review and analysis of “what it takes to win”, on what timeline, and in which theater, for each major ship class. The goal of this phase of the analysis was to determine the minimum force structure that: § complies with defense planning guidance directed combinations of challenges for force sizing and shaping; § meets approved Day 0 and warfighting response timelines; 2 § delivers future steady state and warfighting requirements, determined by Navy’s analytic process, with an acceptable degree of risk (e.g. – does not jeopardize joint force campaign success). The following table shows the results of the 2016 FSA – an objective force of 355 ships – and the changes from the 2014 FSA update. Type / Class 2014 2016 Aircraft Carriers 11 12 Large Surface Combatants 88 104 Small Surface Combatants 52 52 Amphibious Warfare Ships 34 38 Attack Submarines 48 66 Guided Missile Submarines 0 0 Ballistic Missile Submarines 12 12 Combat Logistics Force 29 32 Expeditionary Fast Transport/High Speed Transport 10 10 Expeditionary Support Base 3 6 Command and Support 21 23 Total 308 355 In executing this assessment, we were careful to ensure each of what amounted to 11 separate “ship class level” FSAs did not cause the accumulated risk to the force to pass into a realm where we were uncertain we could still “win”. In each “ship class level” effort, the most stressing requirements from each set of integrated scenarios were used to identify the minimum force structure required to comply with strategic guidance. § A minimum of 12 Aircraft Carriers are required to meet the increased warfighting response requirements of the Defense Planning Guidance Defeat/Deny force sizing direction. § 104 Large Surface Combatants deliver increased air defense and expeditionary BMD capacity and provide escorts for the additional Aircraft Carrier. § 52 Small Surface Combatants are required to meet Defeat/Deny challenges and support ongoing Counter Terrorism, Counter Illicit Trafficking, and Theater Security Cooperation/Building Partnerships efforts. 3 § 66 Attack Submarines provide the global presence required to support national tasking and prompt warfighting response. § The additional logistic ships support the additional Aircraft Carrier and Large Surface Combatants. § Six Expeditionary Support Bases provide persistent and flexible capabilities for Counter Terrorism and Counter Illicit Trafficking efforts. § The Command and Support inventory is mostly driven by platform specific studies of presence and warfighting requirements for the unique missions of these ships. The rise to 23 represents two additional surveillance ships. 4