Naval transformation gets boost from war on terror.

• Author: Kennedy, Harold

Efforts by the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps to transform into organizations better prepared to fight wars of the 21st century may have gotten a badly needed push from the war on terrorism.

Before 9/11, transformation had been widely discussed in general terms. But the conflict in Afghanistan helped turn transformation from rhetoric to reality.

In landlocked Afghanistan, Navy and Marine units were forced to fight far from the sea, often under harsh, primitive conditions. They adapted quickly, developing creative strategies and combining space-age technologies with ancient tactics in innovative ways to defeat the enemy, according to officials from the two services.

Meanwhile, Congress approved an increase in defense spending by $37.5 billion to $355.1 billion for fiscal year 2003, the largest hike since the Cold War.

The appropriation includes significant plus ups for development of advanced ships, aircraft and other equipment that "present impressive technological leaps in warfighting capability" for the Navy and Marines, according to Chief of Naval Operations Vein Clark. Among its provisions are:

* $733 million for the Navy's next-generation surface combatant, DD(X), and its related family of ships.

* $404 million to continue conversion of four Cold War-em Trident submarines to enable them to fire conventional cruise missiles, rather than nuclear ballistics.

* $3.5 billion for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, which includes Navy and Marine Corps variants that can operate from aircraft carriers or can take and land vertically, like helicopters.

* $1.6 billion for the MV-22 tiltrotor Osprey, which is designed to take off and land like a helicopter and fly like a fixed-wing transport.

* $42 million to accelerate development of development of a Navy variant of the Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicle.

The drive to transform the military services began to pick up momentum during the past presidential election campaign, when Bush promised "to challenge the status quo and envision a new architecture of American defense for decades to come."

Change is needed, he said in words that seem now eerily prophetic, because "we may not have months to transport massive divisions to waiting bases or build new infrastructure on site. Our forces in the next century must be agile, lethal, readily deployable and require a minimum of logistical support. We must be able to project our power over long distances, in days or weeks rather than months."

After the election, however, change came slowly, despite a great deal of talk, noted Gen. Michael J. Williams, assistant commandant of the Marine...