An oldie but a goodie.
My support for a "big honkin' ship" for the RCN goes a long way back
Vincent J. Curtis 24
May 2011
Of the three services, the navy is the hardest one to
develop a future operational concept for.
What follows is not the elaboration of a program, or even a
recommendation. It is thinking out loud.
The earlier two perspectives in this series, on the future
of air power and the army of tomorrow, relied upon a concept of the future of expeditionary
conflict that was sketched by outgoing US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. In Gates’s view, the Air Force and the Navy,
operating jointly, will provide most of the force projected by the United
States in Africa and Asia. Large,
mechanized armies, “boots on the ground” in those places, are not something a
future Secretary of Defense should recommend without “having his head read,” in
Gates’ view.
So the question then, to be answered, is what can Canada’s
navy contribute to a joint air-naval enterprise? At the moment, HMCS Charlottetown is in the Mediterranean Sea in support of NATO
operations over Libya. At the risk of
offending the sailors, what, other than signifying Canada’s political
commitment to the NATO operations against the Gadhafi regime, is the Charlottetown able to do? The ship lacks the missiles and guns to bring
effective fire against Gadhafi forces on the ground. Lacking a navy to oppose her, the Charlottetown has nothing afloat to
attack or to defend against. Neither the
Charlottetown, nor anything else in
Canada’s navy, nuclear submarines included, has the means of making the Gadhafi
regime feel directly the wroth of NATO and Canada.
In EdC Vol 16.9, the future of the naval shipbuilding in
Canada was broadly reviewed. The tenor
of the policy of shipbuilding at that time seemed to be to find employment for
Canada’s shipyards for a prolonged period of time. They would construct
numerous small vessels suitable for minor naval operations. In fact, the dominant aim seemed to be
construction per se, and operational naval requirements would be found for the
vessels. So starved is the navy for
vessels and so numerous are the potential tasks that this order of priority,
‘find uses for what we can make’, is not completely without merit. And many nations, particularly the United
States and Great Britain, have used the government spending power simply to
keep strategic industries in being.
But a really fundamental review of naval acquisitions should
ask and answer fundamental questions.
One important question that should be asked and answered is what is the
navy able to do that would enable it to operate jointly with Canada’s air and
land power? Sure, the navy can
contribute vessels to a US or NATO fleet, and can undertake tasks such as
anti-submarine warfare and minesweeping.
Yes, it can undertake anti-piracy and contraband interdiction patrols. But what can it do to strike a blow the
government of Canada wants delivered?
A Canadian flagged Aegis class missile cruiser in the
Persian Gulf, for example, might make an Ahmadinejad think twice about
abducting, raping, and murdering a Canadian citizen. A vessel bearing guns which can hurl 2,000
pounds of steel 40,000 yards down range - 70 year old technology - is still a
force to be reckoned with on land. But,
I digress.
An anchor which can tether this blue-sky thinking to reality
is money. Naval units, even small ones,
are extremely expensive. And herein lies
the problem. Economy has to be balanced
against strategic purpose.
The acquisition of a few capital ships would consume all the
money and would not keep Canada’s shipyards humming, if they could even build
them. On the other hand, large numbers
of small vessels keeps the shipyards humming, but provides the navy with
nothing in the way of strategic punch. Does
something in between risk falling between two stools?
Littoral type vessels, such as those being developed at
Lockheed-Martin, would enable the navy to operate jointly with land or special
operations forces. Perhaps these are
part of a mix of vessels the navy might acquire; the component that offers the
strategic punch albeit as part of an amphibious force.
Great strategic benefit often comes by the taking of
risks. The safe solution is to craft a
navy which is strategically harmless, consisting of small vessels that perform
small, needful, politically defensible tasks, and built by Canadian shipyards
as a kind of workfare project.
But are there strategic thinkers in the navy and in
government who are prepared to take a risk and demand for Canada a capital ship
as well as all the other ships the navy needs to be a navy? And find the money and provide the vision
too?
-
XXX –
No comments:
Post a Comment