U.S. Navy plans to redefine warfare needs: long-term budget planning to focus on precision strike, land attack capabilities.

• Author: Tiron, Roxana
• Position: Naval Systems

Naval warfare will change in the years ahead, as new capabilities enter the fleet. But, for the most part, the battle space of the future will be made up primarily of the systems and the platforms that are out there today, officials said.

"We will put sensors, networks, weapons, modify them, change them, adapt them, hot the network centric warfare challenge would be modifying today's weapons into the battle space of the future," said Rear Adm. Charles Johnston, the vice commander of the Naval Air Systems Command.

The problem, however, is that a lot of people are not aligned to the network centric view of the world outside the Department of the Navy, said Rear Arm. Mark Fitzgerald, the director of the Navy's Air Warfare Division. "For instance, OSD [Office of the Secretary of Defense] is still aligned around platforms as is the joint staff and as is the Hill," he said.

"You still have people trying to judge programs [based] on die platforms, and not on the weapons, sensors and networks. It is absolutely clear to anyone who looks at the problem that you can use a 747 as a fighter airplane these days if you have the right missiles on it and the right radars."

At the core of the Navy's war-fighting strategy is the overarching concept known as Sea Power 21. The elements of Sea Power 21 are "sea-shield," "sea-strike" and "sea-basing," glued together by ForceNet, which is the networking capability.

Sea-shield refers to the power to dominate the seas and ensure access to coastal areas for the U.S. military services and allies. Sea-strike is about providing long-range, sustained firepower ashore. Sea-basing means the ability to launch operations from die sea, without having to secure a beachhead.

In the program requirements for fiscal year 2005, Fitzgerald said the Navy conducted a midlevel analysis of how the capabilities within the Department of the Navy match up with the joint world, Fitzgerald said. The Navy will have to sift core programs from non-core programs, according to him.

"The real goal here is to identify gaps in capability and to balance our investment across the three billets of strike, shield and basing, and, of course, ForceNet," Fitzgerald said at a conference sponsored by the Office of Naval Research. "Then, [we have] to prioritize the science and technology investment based on those capabilities. I think we did that partially in '05, and I think we are getting a lot deeper in '06."

Nevertheless, a series of gaps cropped up for...