Future Navies-Present Issues

• Author: Jane G. Dalton
• Position: Professor of International Law at the United States Naval War College
• Pages: 297-319

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Future Navies—Present Issues

Jane G. Dalton*

TheUS Navy is transforming to deal with awider range of missions than the

traditional blue-water, major combat operations which it has traditionally

been equipped to handle. 1That emerging transformation has resulted in anumber

ofnew programs, technologies, and strategies that raise interesting, and sometimes

complex, legal issues. Lawyers advising the Navy's leadership through this

transformational process are analyzing these legal issues now, in the present, to en-

sure that the future US Navy is properly, and legally, organized, trained and

equipped. This article will address five topics ofinterest for naval planners and legal

advisors who are building the Navy of tomorrow.

Civilian Mariners and Sea Basing

The US Navy currently maintains aforce of approximately 550,000 full-time per-

sonnel, about 35% ofwhom are civilians. At any given time, 130-plus ofthe Navy's

283 ships are underway. That constitutes about 45% ofthe total ship inventory.2In

2004, former Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) Admiral Vern Clark directed the

*Charles H. Stockton Professor of International Law at the United States Naval War College.

The views expressed in this article are those of Professor Dalton and are not necessarily those of

the Naval War College, the United States Navy, or the Department of Defense. This article was

previously published in the Naval War College Review, Volume 59, No. 1(Winter 2006) at page

79. ©2006 by Jane G. Dalton.

Future Navies—Present Issues

Navy to maximize capabilities, minimize payroll, improve productivity and elimi-

nate unnecessary billets.3One way to meet those goals is to remove sailors from bil-

lets that have little to do with warfighting, and replace them with civilians. At sea,

sailors cut hair, serve meals, maintain the engineering plant, chip paint—all tasks

that civilians are equally capable of performing, and do perform, at commands

ashore. Placing civilians on warships to perform those tasks is alogical extension of

the CNO's guidance and would free sailors to engage in combat-related activities.

The Navy's answer to the CNO's challenge is an experimental program to place

federal civil service mariners onboard warships. These civilian mariners perform

tasks sailors have traditionally performed onboard warships, but that civilian mari-

ners have performed onboard auxiliary vessels for decades and onboard merchant

vessels for centuries—navigation, engineering, and deck seamanship. For example,

in early 2005, USS Mount Whitney (LCC/JCC-20) deployed to the European the-

ater as the new US Sixth Fleet and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)

command ship—one of the most sophisticated Command, Control, Communica-

tions, Computer, and Intelligence (C4I) ships ever commissioned.4Mount Whitney

is manned by ahybrid crew consisting of 157 US Navy sailors and 143 civilian mar-

iners employed by the Military Sealift Command. These 300 personnel represent a

reduction of 276 people from the previous all active-duty Navy crew. "By supple-

menting the .crew with civilian mariners," the Sixth Fleet Public Affairs Office re-

ports, "the Navy is operating the command ship at areduced cost and employing

captured uniformed personnel billets on forward combatant vessels."5Mount

Whitney will be engaged in NATO exercises and Standing Naval Forces Mediterra-

nean maritime operations and will be available as acommand and control ship for

future combat operations if required.

In addition to placing civilian mariners on warships performing functions active-

duty sailors have performed in the past, the Navy is simultaneously pursuing the

concept of "sea basing" as atransformational initiative. Sea basing is the Navy's an-

swer to the concern that access to bases in foreign territory will be less predictable

and more ad hoc than in the past. This concern is not an idle or speculative one, as

evidenced by Turkey's refusal during Operation Iraqi Freedom to permit the 4th

Infantry Division to cross Turkish territory into Northern Iraq.

The sea base is envisioned as asystem ofsystems—aflotilla of ships that serves as

astaging and sustainment area for ground forces to launch attacks ashore in anon-

permissive environment—sometimes referred to as "forcible entry operations."

Though no one knows exactly what the sea base will look like in any detail, it will

probably consist of a"network of ships providing offshore artillery fire, air sup-

port, supplies and asecure home for troops fighting on land."6The primary com-

ponents of the sea base could include the Maritime Prepositioning Force Future

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