The United States Navy

FROM STRATEGY TO PROGRAM DECISIONS

Deciding what the Navy needs, why it needs it, when it must enter service, and how to get the most out of available defense resources is the goal of the Department of Defense's Planning, Programming, and Budgeting System (PPBS). To ensure that the needed operational capabilities are sustained, during the past six years the Navy and Marine Corps have realigned their organizational structures and program assessment and planning processes to be congruent with the Defense Department's and Joint Chiefs of Staff's assessment and decision-making architectures. At the same time, the Navy-Marine Corps Team has continued to sharpen its strategic and doctrinal focus to set the stage for subsequent assessments and sound decision-making.

NAVAL DOCTRINE DEVELOPMENT &
WARFARE INNOVATION

In achieving the strategic vision implicit in …From the Sea, Forward…From the Sea, Operational Maneuver from the Sea, and the Navy Operational Concept, as well as the Joint Chiefs of Staff Joint Vision 2010 operational concepts, the Navy and Marine Corps continue to reshape and restructure their forces for 21st-century roles, missions, and tasks. The primary challenge is to continue the realignment of the nation's naval expeditionary forces for regional contingencies and both conventional and unconventional/asymmetric threats. Likewise, the Naval Services' littoral warfare capabilities must be enhanced, while simultaneously preserving their ability to conduct sustained blue-water operations, in a way that complements and takes advantage of unique capabilities of other services and those of our allies and friends. "Doctrine" — fundamental principles that guide the actions of military forces in support of national objectives — is a key element in meeting these challenges, as is the need continually to address innovation in naval warfare.

As an early element of this complex process, in 1993 the Navy established the Naval Doctrine Command (NDC) to provide the doctrinal foundation for naval forces to contribute fully and effectively in joint and combined operations. NDC worked very closely with the Joint Staff and other doctrine centers to ensure consistency between naval and joint doctrine. NDC also published a series of "capstone" Naval Doctrine Publications and other critical materials to increase fleet awareness and understanding and to standardize the Armed Services' thinking about naval operations. Indeed, NDC was the central point of contact for several critical initiatives:

In light of compelling needs to address innovation and doctrinal development across all naval warfare areas, as well as to streamline the Navy's warfare innovation process, however, the Navy last year dramatically expanded the mission of the Naval War College. This reorganization, scheduled for completion in May of this year, will increasingly be a catalyst for innovation in naval warfighting as we move into the 21st century. The reorganized Naval War College, which will remain in Newport, Rhode Island, is now commanded by a Navy three-star admiral reporting directly to the Chief of Naval Operations.

As part of the reorganization, NDC was disestablished and the new Navy Warfare Development Command (NWDC) created as part of the reinvigorated Naval War College. A Navy rear admiral is the Commander of the NWDC and is responsible for doctrine development, Fleet Battle Experiments, and concept development. When fully linked to other centers of excellence in doctrinal and strategic concept development in both the Navy and the Marine Corps, as well as the other U.S. Armed Services and those of our allies and friends, the Naval War College will develop Navy warfare concepts, identify and test new operational capabilities, and deliver timely doctrine and operational concepts to the Fleet, while continuing to provide graduate-level professional military education to military leaders.

The restructuring has already had a broad, synergistic effect, linking Navy-wide innovation and experimentation to strategic vision and doctrinal development, and thus helping the service stay its course to the future. The new organization has placed operational concept development, experimentation, and doctrine within the architecture of the Navy strategic vision and enduring operational concepts. It has also enabled the Navy to capitalize on the success of the Fleet Battle Lab Experiment program, and to harness the superior talent already at the Naval War College — the Strategic Studies Group, the faculty, the wargaming and research capabilities, and the students. This new organization brings together all key Navy players in one place, enabling the Navy to get the most from our innovation process and to ensure effective collaboration with other Navy activities — especially the Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Plans, Policy, and Operations (N3/N5); the Chief of Naval Operations Executive Panel (N00K); and the Naval Postgraduate School — as well as similar Marine Corps, Coast Guard, Air Force, and Army organizations. It is one of the Navy's key focal points of forward-thinking and experimentation that will ensure the Navy's leaders and warriors will have the strategic, doctrinal, and operational foundations for success across the spectrum of America's engagement in the 21st century.

NAVY PROGRAM PLANNING

Change and innovation have also characterized Navy program planning. In 1998, the Navy put in place a far-reaching reorientation to the planning phase of Navy's PPBS process. This process is designed to improve overall Navy program planning by establishing a single organization to develop comprehensive roadmaps comprising end-to-end analyses of warfare capabilities. These capability roadmaps are called Integrated Warfare Architectures (IWARs). The new planning process is designed to ensure program synchronization, balance, and integration across warfare areas. The reengineering of the Navy's planning processes — determination of requirements, allocation of scarce resources, and responsive decision-making — enables more flexible and timely responses in support of warfighting Commanders-in-Chief (CinCs) and the Naval Services' input to the Defense Department's Program Objective Memorandum.

OPNAV Organization

The Office of the Chief of Naval Operations (OPNAV), the Navy headquarters staff, is headed by the Chief and Vice Chief of Naval Operations (CNO/VCNO). The OPNAV staff comprises the Assistant Vice Chief of Naval Operations, four Deputy Chiefs of Naval Operations (DCNOs), nine major staff office directors, and seven special assistants, as illustrated in Figure 7 [use "back" key to return here]. The DCNOs and major staff office directors are supported by several division directors. As a result of the 1992 OPNAV reorganization, it now mirrors the structure and functions of the Joint Staff, an important consideration in an era of joint warfare assessments, planning, and programming.

The single "Navy voice" for program direction is the DCNO for Resources, Warfare Requirements, and Assessments (N8), which includes the Navy's three major warfare resource sponsors — Surface (N86), Submarine (N87), and Air (N88). (Figure 8 [use "back" key to return here] shows the N8 organization.) Within N8, the Expeditionary Warfare Division (N85), led by a Marine major general, ensures that the Navy Department program assessment and budgetary processes address unique aspects of naval expeditionary, mine warfare, and amphibious operations. Likewise, the Anti-Submarine Warfare Division (N84) provides senior-level oversight of a highly complex and difficult warfare area that extends across all Navy "platform" communities and is a critical element in both littoral and open-ocean warfighting. The Commanders-in-Chief Liaison Division (N83), headed by a Navy rear admiral, ensures that Navy CinCs participate in key decisions involving the Navy requirements and assessment process.

Centralization of Navy programming in N8 ensures a streamlined assessment process — premised on eliminating barriers between individual naval warfare communities — that takes advantage of expertise from all Navy and Marine Corps platforms and warfare disciplines to reach the best overall decision from both the Naval Services' and joint service viewpoints. This assessment process assigns specific roles to many offices within OPNAV and requires embracing a broad perspective in reviewing naval capabilities in joint and combined warfare contexts. By eliminating traditional barriers among warfare communities and the services, Navy programs are scrutinized and then evaluated on their specific contributions to Navy-Marine Corps, joint, and allied/multi-national coalition warfighting.

The Director of Naval Reserve (N095) is also an active participant in the Navy assessment, programming, and budgeting process. As an assessment sponsor for all reserve programs, N095 works closely with all OPNAV resource sponsors to ensure we have balanced and executable Reserve programs responsive to Fleet peacetime and war-time requirements. In fact, the Naval Reserve's funding is tied to real-world mission requirements. One critical area we are addressing is the fundamental decision process in allocating missions and resources to the Reserve Component. Reservists come with an inherent cost-saving feature because most work for the Navy part-time. A noteworthy statistic is that the Naval Reserve represents approximately 20% of our military personnel and hardware, yet is assigned less than 4% of the Navy's total obligation authority. That apparent advantage, however, presents some challenges. The Navy's sustained forward presence requirement presents difficulties in employing Reservists in every area. The decision process used to assign mission areas to the Naval Reserve takes into account the temporary nature of the support individual reservists can provide. At the same time, naval reservists are employed to the maximum extent to meet the Navy's requirement for sustained forward presence and combat capability.

Further addressing this subject, the Chief of Naval Operations has commissioned a Total Force Flag Steering Group (TFFSG), chaired by the Director, Strategy and Policy (N51), to ensure continued progress in integration of active and reserve forces that is responsive to the demands of the Fleet. In addition, the TFFSG is developing a proposal for the CNO on how the Navy will use, fund, and modernize the Reserve Force in the future. An update to the FY 1994 Naval Reserve Roles and Missions Study is forthcoming.

Navy Integrated Warfare Architectures Assessment & Planning Process

Prior to the 1992 OPNAV reorganization, the Navy's Total Obligational Authority (TOA) — all funds available to the Department of the Navy — was divided among Navy warfare areas, major platform sponsors, and Marine Corps sponsors, who allotted resources and developed programs according to priorities within their communities. This structure exacerbated the potential for inconsistencies and redundancies across the Naval Services, and created a Navy and Marine Corps whose total effectiveness could be significantly less than the sum of its parts.

The Navy-Marine Corps Team changed this approach by going back to basics — to the fundamentals used to build naval expeditionary forces. The Naval Services have thus discarded the "platform domination" approach that generated competition among ships, aircraft, and submarines. The tough decisions come first, then the services allocate funding based on a program's relevance and contribution to the …From the Sea and Forward…From the Sea strategic concept, thereby avoiding unbalanced and unresponsive programs. Likewise, novel operational concepts — the Marine Corps' Operational Maneuver from the Sea and the Navy's Operating Forward…From the Sea concepts — are addressed across all warfare "boundaries" to ensure the most unbiased assessments and allocations possible.

A primary objective of the planning process is to develop a thorough understanding of how naval forces contribute to the nation's joint force capabilities. …From the Sea outlined four key operational capabilities required to execute new direction: Command, Control, and Surveillance; Battlespace Dominance; Power Projection; and Force Sustainment. To review these capabilities from a programmatic perspective, the planning process relies upon analysis and assessment. The process thoroughly examines the Naval Services' contributions to joint warfighting, and incorporates naval doctrine and warfare innovation proposals. Naval forces will continue to conduct fundamental naval warfare tasks such as strike, air, surface, and submarine warfare. But naval warfare doctrine, operational art, terminology, tactics, techniques, and procedures common to all services are essential to the effectiveness of joint operations.

Starting in 1998 the vehicle for this determination is a broad-based analysis process involving 12 Integrated Warfare Architectures (IWARs), which reflect the complexity of naval warfare requirements and the need to integrate them fully with careful allocations of scarce resources. (See Figure 9 [use "back" key to return here].) Both existing and candidate systems, platforms, and programs are assessed against their appropriateness in the joint service environment, ensuring balance and maximum value in future force structure decisions. The 12 IWARs are:
  • Power Projection
  • Information Superiority/Sensors
  • Infrastructure
  • Training & Education
  • Sea Dominance
  • Deterrence
  • Manpower & Personnel
  • Technology
  • Air Dominance
  • Sustainment
  • Readiness
  • Force Structure

IWARs and CNO Program Analysis Memoranda (CPAMs) provide an across-the-board, capability-based view of the Navy program in five warfare and seven support areas. The IWAR/CPAM process provides early programming guidance in conjunction with Secretary of the Navy Planning Guidance. A key feature of this planning process is frequent review by, and direction from, four-star leadership. The in-depth assessments generated by IWAR development guide CPAMs to provide analysis that directly feeds Program Objective Memorandum/Program Review (POM/PR) development. Using IWARs as a baseline, CPAM analysis recommends necessary tradeoffs within, between, and among warfare and support areas to produce a balanced program supportive of Navy Department goals. The Assessment Division is responsible for developing IWARs and CPAMs, however active support and input from Resource Sponsors, Fleets, System Commands, and Headquarters Marine Corps through Integrated Process Teams (IPTs) are critical to the effectiveness of the process.

Information Superiority/Sensors

Information Superiority and Sensors (ISS) is concerned with those capabilities which enable commanders at all levels to control and shape the pace, phasing, and space of battle by rapidly integrating and synchronizing dispersed forces to apply appropriate effects at the right place and time. ISS includes:

Sea Dominance

Sea Dominance includes naval warfighting capabilities that help to establish and sustain superiority on and below the surface of the world's oceans. Sea dominance includes the employment of naval mines in offensive and defensive operations, offensive and defensive mine countermeasures, surface warfare superiority, and anti-submarine warfare superiority.

Sea mining and offensive/defensive mine countermeasures include those capabilities used to employ mines against an adversary's forces or to neutralize an enemy's efforts to use mines against U.S. or allied forces. These capabilities are essential to joint-force operations in both choke points and littoral regions worldwide. Surface warfare superiority involves those actions necessary to neutralize an adversary's efforts to utilize his surface combatants against friendly forces. Anti-submarine warfare superiority includes capabilities that neutralize an adversary's efforts to employ submarines against friendly forces.

Acting either independently or as a joint force component, naval forces provide capabilities that are critical to ensuring freedom of maneuver and power projection from the sea.

Air Dominance

Air Dominance includes those naval warfighting capabilities that establish and maintain overwhelming control of theater air space, in both the open ocean and the littorals. By providing a protective umbrella over U.S. and friendly forces through Theater Missile Defense (TMD) and air superiority, Air Dominance is a key enabler of the Navy's role in power projection and is an essential core mission required for protection of Naval, joint, and allied forces.

Theater Missile Defense, which includes both Cruise Missile Defense (CMD) and Theater Ballistic Missile Defense, employs aircraft, air warfare-capable surface warships, and self-defense capable surface units to defend against enemy cruise and ballistic missiles. Included in Theater Missile Defense is the capability to engage enemy missiles through both hardkill and softkill measures, and to conduct attack operations against missile launch systems.

Air Superiority provides the capability to ensure full use of theater airspace by U.S. and allied forces through offensive and defensive operations. Offensive options involve attacking the enemy's warfighting capabilities with Offensive Counter-Air (OCA) operations that include attack operations, Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses (SEAD), Electronic Warfare (EW), and fighter escort and sweep. Defensive Counter-Air (DCA) operations focus on maintaining air superiority with the capability to detect, identify, intercept, and destroy enemy air forces with aircraft or air warfare-capable surface warships before they attack or penetrate the friendly air environment.

Power Projection

Power Projection includes naval fires and amphibious warfare. There are three types of Naval fire: long-range strike, interdiction, and tactical fires. The joint task force commander has a variety of naval weapons to choose from, including smart munitions delivered from aircraft or sophisticated cruise missiles launched from surface warships and submarines. The essence of this capability is aircraft carriers equipped with F/A-18 Hornets and F-14 Tomcats, and surface warships and submarines capable of launching Tomahawk Land-Attack Missiles.

By generating a large number of Tomahawk and aircraft strike missions on demand, and by massing the effects of naval strikes and fires without the need to mass forces on or close off shore, naval expeditionary forces provide the United States with the ability to vary the intensity as well as focus, direction, and duration of attack. They can make the scale of a naval or joint strike sufficient to shock adversaries into submission or to paralyze their ability to react; and they can sustain the strikes long enough to weaken an aggressor's resolve.

Amphibious warfare includes the ability to mass overwhelming joint and/or allied military force and deliver it ashore to influence, deter, contain, or defeat an aggressor. Amphibious forces along with naval fire support, Marine Corps divisions and air wings, mine warfare forces, Naval Construction forces (Seabees), and Special Operations Forces provide the joint task force with the ability to conduct military operations in an area of control extending from the open ocean, to the shore, and to those inland areas that can be attacked, supported, and defended directly from the sea.

Navy-Marine Corps forces — acting independently, jointly with the Army and Air Force, or combined with allied forces — can project devastating power at any place and any time. The Navy and Marine Corps' capabilities in the littoral environment provide the backbone of America's ability to project credible and effective military power throughout the world, quickly and effectively.

Deterrence

Deterrence connotes the ability to influence the decision-making and actions of a nation's leadership based on a perceived credible military capability. It is the use of a clear, convincing, and precisely tailored military capability to hold potential opponents' most-valued assets at risk so that they will reassess the cost of aggression or escalation and conclude that their best option is to remain at, or return to, peace.

Conventional deterrence rests on credible capability and willingness to deny an aggressor his objectives or make him suffer unacceptable consequences for his actions. The critical element of conventional deterrence is a full-spectrum warfighting capability enhanced by the positional advantage of forward-deployed forces.

Deterrence focused on countering Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) includes activities that ensure U.S. forces and interests are protected from WMD by countering their effective use. This can be accomplished by counterforce measures taken to destroy these weapons or their means of delivery before they can be launched, active defense measures taken to intercept these weapons after their launch but prior to their delivery, and passive defense measures.

Nuclear deterrence involves maintaining a survivable, responsive, secure, and credible strike force creating a perception that the cost for the use of nuclear weapons against the United States or its allies would far exceed any gain and that actions hostile to U.S. interests would not be successful.

Thus, deterrence is applied to the entire spectrum of aggression — including WMD use — and is accomplished through Navy's conventional ability to shape and respond and through the threatened use or actual use of U.S. nuclear and conventional weapons. The United States' strategic nuclear forces — strategic ballistic missile submarines, land-based long-range bombers, and land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles — have deterred direct nuclear attack on the United States as well as large-scale conventional aggression against our most vital interests and allies for more than four decades. In addition, the Navy's theater nuclear forces, currently embodied in the capability to redeploy its nuclear-armed Tomahawk missiles (TLAM-N) on board nuclear-powered attack submarines, provide a proportional and discriminate deterrent against threats from regional powers as well as a critical link between our conventional forces and our strategic nuclear forces.

Nuclear-capable naval forces and conventional-strike capabilities remain essential in supporting America's deterrent posture and our ability to hold at risk an adversary's key centers of gravity.

Sustainment

Sustainment — the specific naval surface and air logistics functions enabling the movement and sustainment of U.S. combat forces and other friendly forces afloat and ashore — remains an area of intense interest. During Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm, sealift transported some 95% of all supplies and equipment. This mission area also includes the Combat Logistics Force (CLF), hospital ships, the fleet hospital program, Maritime Prepositioning Force ships, Ready Reserve Force strategic sealift assets, and ordnance.

Marine Corps Assault Echelon and Assault Follow-On Echelon operations are supported by prepositioned ships and surge sealift. Sealift also carries Navy sustainment and ammunition from storage sites to forward logistics bases where CLF shuttle ships pick up and deliver this material to combatant forces at sea. Likewise, sealift is vital to Army and Air Force regional operations, as the nation's land-based services are almost totally dependent upon the "steel bridge" of sealift ships to deliver everything a modern fighting force requires to accomplish its missions. The sustainment IWAR also addresses ordnance requirements.

Sealift and the protection of in-transit ships by naval expeditionary forces allow joint and allied forces to deploy and sustain operations. The Navy and Marine Corps are thus committed to Defense Department strategic mobility and logistics requirements to ensure the Naval Services' ability to support forces ashore.

Infrastructure

This IWAR includes the capability to provide shore facilities and services to support operational units. It includes the capability to provide waterfront and air operations; community support, including housing, medical, MWR, and child care services; readiness support, including shipyards and Naval Aviation Depots (NADEPs); ranges; and shore force protection. As Navy sails into the 21st century, our challenge will be to find ways to support our infrastructure using a smaller percentage of Navy resources while maintaining acceptable quality of life and operational standards.

Manpower & Personnel

This IWAR includes the manpower capability (active/reserve/civilian) to provide sufficient operational forces, as well as shore support, to sustain a force structure that provides credible naval combat power. It ensures critical naval capabilities to support national strategic requirements for sustained deployed presence, deterrence, prompt and assured crisis response, and warfighting. It also includes the capabilities provided by the personnel system for the acquisition, development, retention and management of the civilian and military workforce; including programs for recruiting, community management and the distribution of personnel.

Readiness


The Navy is changing the way it does business - finding innovative and less costly methods while supporting the critical training, supply, and maintenance programs that are essential to readiness. This IWAR team evaluates these future methods and reviews current readiness indicators to ensure that readiness is maintained. Included in the readiness area are Navy operating funds, force operations, flying hour/steaming day programs, all levels of maintenance, spares, and safety and survivability.

Training & Education

Training and education capabilities are provided in four major functional categories: accessions, skill, professional development, and unit/force training. Programs include the staff, facilities, equipment, and services required to train. The objective of naval training and education programs is to cost effectively deliver the appropriate level of quality training and education as part of a career-long continuum supporting Navy operational readiness and personal excellence.

Technology

One of the foundations of U.S. military strategy is technological superiority over potential adversaries. For Navy, maintaining this technological edge has become more challenging as the size of the fleet declines and high technology weapons become readily available to potential adversaries on the world market. Research, development, test and evaluation (RDT&E) funds must be spent as efficiently and effectively as possible. This IWAR will analyze Navy RDT&E to effectively channel Navy technology investments.

Force Structure

Naval force capabilities are most visibly manifest in ships, submarines, and aircraft. This IWAR is focused on assisting Navy leadership in best matching available resources with desired capabilities in the near, mid, and far terms. Evolving threats, desired capabilities, developing technologies, and fiscal realities all play a role in shaping resource allocation decisions leading to the naval forces the United States actually deploys.

The force structure IWAR team analyses the resources required to recapitalize and/or modernize the force, develops alternative force structure paths, and frames relevant issues via integrated decision timelines.

CPAM Outbriefs

The Summary CPAM identifies new programs to meet current and emerging warfare requirements, cost-saving initiatives, monetary offsets and recommendations for program modification or cancellation. Relying on guidance from Navy senior leaders through a process approved by CNO, the Director, Assessment Division, develops an annual CPAM based on IWAR analysis conducted throughout the year. The CPAM is refined based on inputs received from the Secretariat, Resource Sponsors, System Commands, Fleet Commanders, and Headquarters Marine Corps throughout the course of its development and subsequent briefings. The CPAM is reported to a senior executive board chaired by DCNO for Resources, Warfare Requirements, and Assessments and Marine Corps Deputy Chief of Staff for Programs and Resources (DC/S P&R). It is then briefed to the Navy four-star leadership for final comments, which are reflected in the final product that goes forward to CNO, CMC, and the Secretary of the Navy (SecNav). This planning process ensures the Navy program addresses warfighting requirements, service and claimant concerns, is properly funded, and is responsibly balanced.

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