The Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA) today released The Challenge of Maritime Transformation: Is Bigger Better?, a study of US naval transformation by Bob Work. Mr. Work is a senior analyst at CSBA and a retired Marine Corps officer with a distinguished 27-year career.

The report outlines the basic arguments for a capabilities-sized force based on an analysis of the future security environment and recommended changes to Navy and Marine organizations and programs.

“The current and emerging fleet capabilities make this naval force the most powerful ever put to sea,” Mr. Work declared. “In fact,” he continued, “the fleet is so different and more formidable than its predecessors, that naval leaders should consider new organizations and operational patterns to better exploit them.”

The Challenge of Maritime Transformation argues that determining naval force capacity by gross ship counts underestimates today’s highly capable naval forces.

At the close of the Cold War in 1989, only 39 percent of the capital ships and large surface combatants in the 552-fleet were capable of delivering missile strikes against the shore. By comparison, the FY2001 fleet is 95 percent land strike capable. Moreover, the 24 fewer large combatant ships in the FY2001 force carry 784 more missiles than its 1989 counterpart.

Understanding the capability versus size distinction is important. “The ongoing debate about how to measure the force will shape the way the future fleet is built,” Mr. Work stated. “In the current and future battle environment, the real transformational question for Navy and Marine Corps should be ‘What power can be projected into the littoral?’ and not ‘How many ships do I have?’”

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Please click here to order a copy of the report.

The Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA) is an independent policy research institute established to promote innovative thinking about defense planning and investment strategies for the 21^st Century. See our website at http://www.csbaonline.org.