Navy faces expanded mission portfolio, declining resources.

• Author: Jean, Grace
• Position: OVER MURKY WATERS

In preparation for future shifts in military priorities and resources, Navy officials have gone to great lengths to spell out their vision for the service's roles in protecting U.S. interests and bolstering global security.

Only a few months ago, the primary message was the Navy's relevance in the U.S. war on terrorism, homeland defense and maritime security, as well as preparing for a possible war in the Pacific.

But naval contributions to relief efforts following major natural disasters during the past year--the Asian tsunami, Hurricane Katrina and a devastating earthquake in Pakistan--have prompted a rethinking of naval roles and missions, noted Adm. John B. Nathman, commander of U.S. Fleet Forces Command. Recent relief and humanitarian assistance operations "imply significant changes to the Navy," Nathman said in a keynote speech to the U.S. Naval Institute symposium, in Virginia Beach, Va.

One significant lesson from these events is that the Navy must remain resilient in its ability to rapidly transition from combat to humanitarian efforts.

Underpinning the Navy's efforts to be more "agile" in shifting from one mission to another is the Fleet Response Plan, which was introduced in 2003 but continues to be fine-tuned. Under the Fleet Response Plan, the Navy does not conduct regularly scheduled deployments, but rather "surges" when called upon to intervene in global hotspots or domestic crises.

"We're ready now, and because of the Fleet Response Plan, we're ready sooner, and we're ready longer," said Nathman. "You see a Navy that can be steadily scalable for major operations. And that's how we've been behaving recently," he added.

At the peak of hurricane relief operations, the rotary wing fleet comprised 384 Defense Department helicopters, exclusive of what the Coast Guard brought, said Rear Adm. Joseph F. Kilkenny, commander of Carrier Strike Group 10.

"That's a pretty sizeable effort," he told USNI conference attendees. Officials noted that, for Katrina alone, the Defense Department deployed a force almost equal to the size of the United Kingdom's armed services.

Kilkenny, who served as joint force maritime component commander for Joint Task Force Katrina and Rita, noted that his ship, the USS Truman, was able to return to sea for the second half of a training deployment that was interrupted by the hurricane operations.

"So now we go from search and rescue, humanitarian assistance, back to switching my hat around to combat capability...