Shifting seas: greater demand for 'soft power' reveals shortfalls in the Navy.

• Author: Jean, Grace V.
• Position: Navy

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Military leaders who oversee major commands around the world are asking the Navy for help. But they are not requesting big aircraft carriers or tomahawk missiles. More often than not, they seek naval expertise in nontraditional missions such as training foreign navies to protect their coastlines.

The rising demand for naval capabilities is good news for a service that has struggled to define its role in post 9/11 military operations and has in recent years rewritten its strategic blueprints to adjust to the new environment. But the service also is becoming a victim of its own success because it does not have enough ships to send everywhere the Navy is needed, officials said at a recent conference of the Surface Navy Association.

"To say we're globally persistent is a misnomer because we are not everywhere we need to be," said Vice Adm. Bernard J. McCullough III, deputy chief of naval operations for integration of capabilities and resources.

"To provide these new capabilities, we need the budget," said Adm. Jonathan Greenert, commander of U.S. Fleet Forces Command.

He pointed out that the Navy's recent successes with soft power missions, such as the USNS Comfort and USNS Mercy hospital ships' cruises in Southeast Asia and Latin America, required the scraping of funds from various accounts, including emergency appropriations.

Beginning in 2010, the Navy plans to establish a $250 million account solely for humanitarian and other nontraditional operations, he added.

"The capacity of our fleet, the numbers of ships that we have, matters greatly today, and I believe will matter even more in the future," said Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead. The Navy is seeking to build a fleet of at least 313 ships, but currently has 283.

At the heart of the Navy's plans to expand the fleet is the littoral combat ship, which is designed to ply near-shore waters. Despite escalating costs on the first two ships, the Navy remains "firmly committed" to the program and intends to build 55, McCullough said.

The first skip, USS Freedom, was commissioned late last year and is being tested by the fleet. It will deploy in 2012.

Originally envisioned as a $220 million ship, the LCS was expected to attract overseas buyers. But because the lead vessels from both builders, General Dynamics Corp. and Lockheed Martin Corp., are coming in at more than double the touted price tag, potential buyers are looking at other options.

"Great ship," said...