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On 19 September, Vice Admiral Evan "Marty" Chanick, USN, spoke at a Council event. Admiral Chanick is
Commander, U.S. Second Fleet, and Director, Combined Joint Operations from the Sea Center of Excellence. His
topic was the Naval Operations Concept and how the principles set forth in that document are used and supported in
Second Fleet. In so doing, Admiral Chanick sought to give greater insight into why we have a Navy/Marine Corps
Team.
In 2006, the Navy and the Marine Corps issued a document entitled "Naval Operations Concept 2006" signed by both then-
Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Michael Mullen and then-Commandant of the Marine Corps General Michael W. Hagee.
Its stated purpose was to present "our unified vision for the future and describe how, when and where the Navy and Marine
Corps will contribute to the national defense and maritime security strategies. It is intended as an intellectual stimulus for
evolving our maritime strategy and refining the Navy-Marine Corps team in order to meet the challenges of the 21st Century."
At the outset, Admiral Chanick emphasized: "That word naval is important because it is not just about the Navy, it is about
the Navy and the Marine Corps. I think everyone understands that our number one joint partner is the Marine Corps. The
Navy and the Marine Corps have worked together since the birth of our nation and continue to do so."
"The Naval Operations Concept is a document that helped set the stage for the maritime strategy that Admiral [John G.]
Morgan [Jr.] is working on now [See The Log, Spring 2007, at 11]. The Operations Concept says these are the things that we
need to do. How do we do it is the strategy that Admiral Morgan is talking about. I think the Naval Operations Concept is
really a building block for that maritime strategy that Admiral Morgan is working on. What you will see come out of that
[process] will reflect very closely the Naval Operations Concept."
The Security Environment
The Naval Operations Concept begins by briefly describing the current security environment as "characterized by a
combination of traditional, irregular, catastrophic and disruptive challenges." These challenges include such things as
conventional wars, terrorism, natural catastrophes, failed states, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and technological
attacks on the social and military infrastructures.
The United States has four strategic objectives in responding to these challenges:
Secure the United States from direct attack by actively confronting, early and at safe distances, those who would
threaten us - - especially those who would do so with catastrophic means.
Secure strategic access and retain global freedom of action by ensuring that key regions, lines of communication
and the global commons remain available to all.
Strengthen existing and emerging alliances and partnerships to address common challenges.
Establish favorable security conditions by countering aggression or coercion targeted at our partners or interests.
It goes on: "The United States will seek to accomplish those objectives through more widely distributed forward forces
that can assure allies and friends, dissuade potential adversaries, deter aggression and counter coercion regionally, yet possess
the agility to rapidly re-position and merge with reinforcements deploying as part of a global response to cries. When
necessary, that global response will include defeating adversaries."
To Admiral Chanick, these objectives go to the heart of why the United States has a military. "We have a military for
homeland defense. That's why when we wrote the Constitution, we put the military in that constitution so we would have the
capability to provide for homeland defense."
Naval Missions
The Naval Operations Concept then says "the Navy and Marine Corps will size, shape and globally posture our forces to
conduct a series of ten "missions" in support of the national strategy.
The first of these is Forward Naval Presence. The Navy-Marine Corps Team will deploy to, or station in, focused
areas overseas to demonstrate national resolve, strengthen alliances, deter, and dissuade potential adversaries, and
enhance our ability to respond quickly to crises.
"We want to do homeland defense as far away from the homeland as we can." Admiral Chanick explained. "We do
forward naval presence for that reason and also to bring stability to different regions of the world. So, you always have ships of
your Navy forward. Out of 280 ships that we have about now, you are going to have about a third of those ships that are
forward deployed across the seas of the world."
Crisis Response is the second listed mission. The Navy-Marine Corps team will continue to provide a timely,
worldwide response to unforeseen and rapidly unfolding natural disasters and man-made crises.
Admiral Chanick noted how the second mission is facilitated by the first. "If we are there we can respond to a crisis a lot
quicker and hopefully keep that crisis down to as a small level."
Expeditionary Power Projection.. Enabled by sea basing, the Navy-Marine Corps team provides the joint
commander with global reach and access in order to take the fight to the enemy and help win our nation's wars.
Generally, when the Navy sends assets overseas, they are grouped around two "packages," Admiral Chanick noted.
There is the carrier strike group consisting of an "aircraft carrier; five surface combatants - - cruisers, destroyers, frigates; a
submarine; typically and some support ships and that is what we go forward with in terms of presence, ready to respond in
times of crisis." In addition, there is the perhaps less familiar expeditionary strike groups built around "ships with our Marines
aboard. The same concept - - they are forward, ready to respond, and provide what we call expeditionary power. That is
power through the Marines going ashore, the aircraft doing strikes, there could be Tomahawk missiles, there could be a number
of things."
Maritime Security Operations. This is policing the maritime commons. "You read about it - - off the coast of Somalia,
in the Straits of Malucca, there are things like piracy that occur everyday." Admiral Chanick commented. "How do you get rid
of that? You have maritime security operations where you have U.S. forces and other nations' forces. You've heard the Chief
of Naval Operations talk about a '1,000 Ship Navy' - - that's not a thousand U.S. ships, it is U.S. ships coupled with other
nations' ships, out there patrolling the seas to make sure that sea lanes are secure, to make sure that commerce can occur.
Ninety percent of the transportation of assets in commerce occurs on the sea. So, maritime security is an extremely important
thing to do."
Along the same lines, Sea Control remains critical to our ability to operate in future environments. U.S. Naval
forces will maintain the capability to destroy enemy naval forces, suppress enemy sea commerce, protect vital sea-
lanes, and establish maritime superiority in support of a joint or combined operations.
Quite simply, Admiral Chanick added, "we want to be out there making sure that folks do not do things that they ought not
to do."
Deterrence. U.S. Naval forces will deter and dissuade potential adversaries from acts of aggression by imposing
the credible risk of conventional, unconventional, and nuclear consequences.
"Deterrence is what we like to do primarily, if not exclusively. Because we have the military, we deter other folks from
doing things they ought not to do. If we are successful at that, then we really don't need to do the rest of that. Reality says that
we need to do the rest too."
The next five missions listed in the Naval Operations Concept "are all missions that naval assets, Navy and Marines, can
do and do throughout the world on a daily basis," Admiral Chanick pointed out. (Endnote 1).
Air and Missile Defense is becoming increasingly significant. According to the Naval Operations Concept: Forward
deployed U.S. Naval forces contribute to joint air and missile defense by providing the capability to detect and destroy
enemy aircraft and missiles in flight.
"Last summer when North Korea fired a couple of missiles, folks were very concerned that they have the ability right now
to reach to the continental United States. One of our primary assets to counter that is our ships at sea with the ability to detect
and engage the missiles."
Finally, Information Operations requires U.S. Naval forces [to] use and protect information to influence
adversaries, advance friendly objectives, and shape the operating environment to our advantage.
"We want to make sure that both [foreign governments and civilians] understand why the U.S. is there - - that the U.S. is
there to help stability in their regions of the world," Admiral Chanick commented.
Guiding Principles
The Naval Operations Concept also sets forth a number of guiding principles according to which U.S. naval operations will be
planned and executed. (Endnote 2).
Agility. Within a strategic environment characterized by uncertainty, U.S. Naval forces must possess the ability to
quickly adapt to meet new and diverse operational requirements and thereby foreclose opportunities to irregular or
conventional forces.
Admiral Chanick elaborated: "We want to make sure we are active, that we can respond very rapidly and we can shape
our force to address the situation at hand. We want to have a very active [military] force [that can also do] humanitarian
assistance operations - - things that you saw a couple of years ago with the tsunami in Southeast Asia, the earthquake in
Pakistan, Hurricane Katrina on our own coast. We want to have the agility to be able to respond and shape our forces to do
that."
Coordinated Global Influence. In addition to the impact U.S. Naval operations have regionally, consideration
must be given to the effects generated globally as an element of U.S. strategic communications.
"If we are doing something over in Southwest Asia, we want to coordinate that with the things we are doing in Southeast
Asia and with operations in the Pacific. Part of that is so folks recognize that we have a global capability and that that global
capability is there to push drugs out of the world."
Interoperability. U.S. Naval forces must maximize the ability to integrate with the joint force, as well as our inter-
agency and multi-national partners, to achieve integrated and independent operations.
"We want to work with our other joint partners out there. So, today we work very closely with all of the services, in
particular with the Air Force and the Army, to make sure that if they need something from us or vice versa we can provide
that. We all recognize that each service cannot do everything, that each service has certain capabilities that the other services
do not have. The idea, the challenge, is to make sure that we complement each other and part of that is being interoperable."
"Admiral Mullen said it best in his testimony [before Congress]. Somebody asked him: 'what keeps you awake at night?'
And he said: 'The Army does.' The reason he said that is because we are a joint service, we do complement each other and
the Army is under significant strain now. In the Army, it is deployed for a year, come back for a year, hopefully, and then gone
again. We don't see that as much in the Navy. Some folks are boots on the ground - - Seabees, SEALs, Corpsmen, some
other of our ratings are seeing that kind of strain but the Navy at large is not seeing it as much. Consequently, we are helping
the Army out by having people on the ground and doing those types of things."
Persistent Presence. To gain cultural awareness and positive regional influence, U.S. Naval forces must be
capable of sustaining forward operations both afloat from forward sea bases and ashore for extended periods.
"It does not do much good to go to a region of the world, do some good things and leave and not come back for a year or
two years because if that region of the world is unstable it will go back to [what it was]."
Speed. To seize initiative and achieve desired effects, U.S. Naval forces must be sized, shaped and postured to
minimize response time and rapidly execute assigned missions inside our adversaries' decision cycle.
"Obviously, you want to have speed so we can get to where we need to go and get there in time."
Unpredictability for our Adversaries and Reliability for Our Friends. Our operations must deny our
adversaries the ability to exploit familiar deployment and employment patterns; yet assure our friends of our continued
persistent commitment to our common interests. Admiral Chanick noted that, as a fleet commander, this principle comes
into play often in scheduling joint exercises and in inviting friendly nations to participate in those exercises.
Methods
The Naval Operations Concept also lists the methods that will be used in accomplishing the Naval forces strategic missions.
(Endnote 3)
Globally Networked Operations. Establishing a scalable open access/open architecture information system to
enhance organizational flexibility and global awareness.
"In other words, we have connectivity anywhere in the world and we will work that connectivity so if we are doing
something in one half of the world, the other half of the naval forces know about it and we can compliment if that seems the
right path."
Distributed Operations. Increasing our ability for independent, unified action by geographically separated, yet
globally, regionally, or tactically integrated, networked forces.
"Distributed operations says that we have the agility to take a force and pare it down in size, move it forward and do that
from several different locations. In other words, you want to be able to move a force in and then affect a number of different
areas in the local region with that same force. You want to adjust that force so that it is the right force, at the right time, in the
right place and it can accomplish whatever that mission happens to be."
Cultural Awareness. Enhancing our ability to understand how social, political, economic, ethnic and religious
factors impact the operational environment.
"We recognize that when we go out in the world, our Sailors visit other countries, operate with other countries, and that
each Sailor has an impact on that particular country. So, we have been stressing and emphasizing an education for all our
Sailors so that they have that cultural awareness."
The Naval Operations Concept states: The naval missions, principles, foundations and methods described in this concept
are intended to achieve a positive end state comprised of the objectives articulated in our national strategy.
In short, Admiral Chanick summarized, the desired outcomes and effects are: "if we have wars, it is to win those wars; to
establish favorable security conditions so hopefully we don't have those wars; to make sure that we have global freedom of
action because commerce depends upon that; and obviously to strengthen alliances and partnerships."
Second Fleet
Admiral Chanick then turned to how Second Fleet implements The Naval Operations Concept.
"Second Fleet is on the East Coast of the United States and the Gulf Coast of the United States. It is all the ships and
aircraft in the Navy that happen to be located here. The primary mission for us is to exercise command and control for over all
those assets and to command them on any mission that we happen to have off the coast of the United States and in the Gulf of
Mexico area. Since those ships and aircraft deploy and go overseas to the Mediterranean, to the Indian Ocean, or to the
Pacific, our other primary mission is to train them up so that when they go they are ready to do any of those missions that they
might encounter."
"We train them to be able to work in an aggregate or in a disaggregate [configuration]. Aggregate means that we put
together a substantial force. [For example, taking] a carrier strike group - - about six or seven ships and an expeditionary strike
group - - another five or six ships, and putting them together in a package of a dozen or more ships to do a mission out in the
world. When you put it all together, we call it an aggregated group. Command and control is very complicated, trying to get all
those assets to work together. That's one thing we are training for, simulating what they may encounter in Central Asia or what
they could encounter out in Southeast Asia."
"The next thing we are training for is disaggregated operations. The reality is today that when we send forces overseas and
deploy them, they will typically go overseas and arrive in let's take the Arabian Gulf and then they will disperse - - they will
disaggregate and do individual missions and act with individual countries out there. A little bit of an easier mission but this is
where that cultural awareness really comes in. We work with other nations and this is all part of building security in the local
regions. So, we train the folks to be able to go together, disperse and then be able to come back together if the world situation
so dictates [and perform] the higher order, more difficult missions."
"How do we train 10,000 or 20,000 folks to be able to accomplish these missions? We do that through a couple of
exercises. Actually, they are very similar exercises and we do probably four of those a year for four different groups."
"A joint task force exercise is an exercise where we get together not only Navy and Marine Corps assets but we use Air
Force assets and Army assets. We put them together in a scenario that is meant to replicate what could occur in the world and
then we put a group of assessors - - graders if you will - - to go out there and monitor the operations and grade the
performance. If they don't like what they see, it is corrected right then so [our people] are trained to do it right and thus when
they do deploy, they will know what to do."
"A large number of folk are involved in it, typically on the order of a dozen to 20 ships involved, thousands of people
involved, typically about two weeks and it occurs off the East Coast of the United States. In fact, we also bring in coalition
forces. This last one, we had the ILLUSTRIOUS, a British aircraft carrier involved as a large part of this group. We are doing
that more and more often."
Such international operations are not merely theoretical exercises. "When the HARRY S. TRUMAN strike group
deploys, they are going to sail with one British ship and one Canadian ship that will be a part of that group and stay with them
the entire six months. We are doing the same thing early next year. We are taking one of our destroyers and sailing with the
ILLUSTRIOUS. The ILLUSTRIOUS is going to be a British strike group and it is going to have one American ship attached
to it and sail with them the entire six months."
In the joint task force exercises, "we work off the coast of the United States. To help create a degree of difficulty, we
have put some islands off the coast that are notional islands in order to take away some of their freedom of maneuver so the
ships have to operate in more constrained space just like they might have to do out in the real world."
"We divide the United States up into different countries - - the country of Garnet, the country of Amberland etc. Then we
build a scenario where perhaps Amber is a country that is very antagonistic toward its neighbors. Maybe it is attacking a
neighboring land, and the United States and coalition countries have a concern about that. You could equate it perhaps to
Kuwait and Iraq at one point in time. We might have another country down here that is a very ungoverned country and has
issues with terror. It could be something like Somalia, it could be something like Afghanistan. So, we build this notional world,
and [the participants in the exercise] have to read all the background information, understand what these countries have for
assets, and understand the countries' political ambitions etc. Then, we give them a situation where they have to go in and do
some diplomacy. That diplomacy, can be everything from being a force of presence to creating security to combat operations.
Typically, over two-weeks time the situation will ratchet up from one where we are to get there and try and keep it stable to
combat operations because we want to train them for everything that they could possibly encounter in the real world."
"So, that is what we'll do four times a year in Second Fleet to train your assets to head overseas and operate all the time.
It is a very, very big effort here. Lots of time and money involved but it is well-spent because when those folks do deploy they
are ready to answer the bell no matter what it might be."
"Another exercise that we just did in Second Fleet is an exercise down in Panama. We had 30 ships, 19 different
countries involved, so this was a very large coalition exercise. The purpose of this exercise was to build the relationships with
those South American countries and Central American countries so that if the Panama Canal ever had to be defended we
would (1) have the relationship established with them and (2) the training done to do that. But, more importantly, it is to help
those countries grow and become more stable and contribute to global maritime security."
Thus, Second Fleet implements The Naval Operations Concept "mostly from the training aspect, in terms of supporting the
training of those assets to make sure they are capable of doing what they need out there. That's really where we have our
input. [However,] the other thing we see is Second Fleet has become more of an operational headquarters too, in terms of
being capable of being a joint task force headquarters and also capable of working maritime homeland defense missions."
Thoughts on the Navy Today and Tomorrow
How is the Navy today? There are “about 340,000 people in the Navy. Again, on any given day about 35 percent of your
ships are overseas, so one third of that 270, about 90 ships are overseas. Ten percent are at sea training, so today 45 percent
of your Navy is at sea. About 61,000 Sailors are deployed in different areas of the world. Right now, for the Navy, believe it
or not, we have about 12,000 Sailors on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan supporting the Army and Marine Corps. So that
is something above and beyond what we would normally be doing out there."
"My view is that in the years to come the requirement for naval forces won't go down, it will go up. I think the reason for
that is because we can provide access. We do not impact another country by taking up their space. We can sit off the coast
and have the influence they want. I think in the future, a lot more countries will want us in the area but they won't necessarily
want us on their land. I think the strength of the Naval forces is can [they can meet this desire] by being in the vicinity [at sea]."
In Admiral Chanick's view, the aircraft carrier will remain a key naval asset. "They allow us to be persistent you have to
be there to be really persistent. [With modern technology] we can fly airplanes around the world. We can fly 30 hour missions
but you are only there 20 minutes and then you are going back. So, you are not really there. Whereas an aircraft carrier can
be off the coast and do 24 hour operations and actually be over a particular portion of the world, a country, whatever, and
have visible presence. Aircraft carriers have evolved over the years they have been around and we think they will continue to
do so. When we spend $8 billion to build [one of the next class of] aircraft carriers, it is going to last 50 years. So, the return
on investment on these is pretty high. I don't foresee in the next 30 years that we will walk away from aircraft carriers. As time
moves on, who knows? But, for everything that we project right now, at least for the next 30 years, we still see a very strong
reason to continue with aircraft carriers because they give us agility, they give us flexibility, they give us persistence, and they
give us a lot of options that we can't have with other assets. And they give us access because from the sea you can reach about
75 percent of the world's population."
Today, the nation's military is heavily committed in Iraq. As noted earlier, this is placing substantial strain on the Army.
"The Marine Corps is under a pretty good strain too," Chanick noted. “Still, we haven't seen any problems with recruiting
retention and quite frankly all of the services have been doing pretty darn good. The question becomes, can we maintain that if
this same situation stays like it is for the next few years and that is always a concern. But, today, all the services have done well
with recruiting and retention."
Is it time to leave Iraq? "Who has the best view of the world? It is the folks with the boots on the ground and they can tell
what is going on with that." However, "we work for our civilian leaders and we'll obviously do what the civilian leaders
decide." As a result, whether the United States will continue with the current process "is over to politics and the will of the
nation. The issue is if we pull out wholesale and rapidly, we are going to leave a very unstable part of the world and what is
going to happen after that."
Even with the world's focus primarily on Iraq, Afghanistan and other terrorist hotspots, the Navy is aware that other
countries are building their naval forces. "The Russians are doing a lot more military activity. Most of that activity, however, has
occurred in their home waters and home airspace. They haven't really ventured out very far. Second Fleet, we go out about
half way through the Atlantic and then Sixth Fleet takes over the other half. So, if we get to the point where we have to
respond, observe or watch things, we will see a little more at Sixth Fleet than we will at Second Fleet. I think the relationships,
publicly, the President and Mr. Putin have had show friction, I guess we will call it, but the countries I still think are working
hard to work together. In fact, the Russian CNO just visited three weeks ago. He had a great visit down in D.C. and down in
Norfolk, we took him aboard a couple of ships. So, we are working very hard to continue building relationships with them.
Obviously, as they get more active, we will watch that and monitor it."
"The Chinese are very active. They are a large part of our global economy now. There is some good news in that. I think
as they get militarily active in other parts of the world, we'll certainly watch that too. If the desire on their part is to create more
stability, that is a good thing. If it is another issue, then obviously, we would want to talk to that too. So, I think that if they get
active militarily in other continents then we would probably respond in kind. Quite frankly, most of their military activity today
is in their home waters."
Endnotes
1. The five missions are: Security Cooperation. While forward deployed, our Sailors and Marines will be critical members of
the joint and inter-agency team that interacts with an expanding set of international partners to build defense relationships,
develop friendly capabilities for self-defense and multinational operations, promote cultural awareness and regional
understanding, and enhance strategic access.
Civil-Military Operations. Forward deployed U.S. Naval forces, in conjunction with our joint and inter-agency partners, will
establish relationships with local, regional and national governments, private organizations, and civilian populaces in friendly,
neutral, or hostile areas in order to advance U.S. objectives.
Counterinsurgency. Forward deployed U.S. Naval forces will conduct and/or support military, paramilitary, political, economic,
psychological, and civic actions to defeat insurgencies.
Counterterrorism. The Navy-Marine Corps team, partnered with other agencies, will locate, interdict, and eliminate terrorists
and the networks that support their activities.
Counter-proliferation. U.S. Naval forces will be employed to detect, monitor, and defeat the threat and/or use of weapons of
mass destruction against the United States, our military forces, friends, and allies."
2. Due to time limitations, Admiral Chanick was not able to go over all of the principles outlined in the Naval Operations
Concept. The ones not specificly addressed were:
Deployability and Employability. To meet specific operational requirements U.S. Naval forces must be right-sized and shaped,
necessitating that all personnel and resources are readily available to operate forward.
Adaptive Force Packaging. To maximize the desired effect, operations will be resourced from a global menu of interdependent
joint and naval capabilities.
Precision. Appropriate naval capabilities must be matched to designated tasks in order to achieve the overarching purpose.
3. Also due to time limitations, Admiral Chanick was not able to describe all of the methods set forth in the Naval Operations
Concept. The other methods are: Adaptive Force Packaging: Right Force, Right Time, Right Place; Aggregate, Disaggregate,
Re-aggregate; Cross Fleet Standardization; Task Focused Training; Sea Basing; and Building Partner Capacity.
Commander, U.S. Second Fleet, and Director, Combined Joint Operations from the Sea Center of Excellence. His
topic was the Naval Operations Concept and how the principles set forth in that document are used and supported in
Second Fleet. In so doing, Admiral Chanick sought to give greater insight into why we have a Navy/Marine Corps
Team.
In 2006, the Navy and the Marine Corps issued a document entitled "Naval Operations Concept 2006" signed by both then-
Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Michael Mullen and then-Commandant of the Marine Corps General Michael W. Hagee.
Its stated purpose was to present "our unified vision for the future and describe how, when and where the Navy and Marine
Corps will contribute to the national defense and maritime security strategies. It is intended as an intellectual stimulus for
evolving our maritime strategy and refining the Navy-Marine Corps team in order to meet the challenges of the 21st Century."
At the outset, Admiral Chanick emphasized: "That word naval is important because it is not just about the Navy, it is about
the Navy and the Marine Corps. I think everyone understands that our number one joint partner is the Marine Corps. The
Navy and the Marine Corps have worked together since the birth of our nation and continue to do so."
"The Naval Operations Concept is a document that helped set the stage for the maritime strategy that Admiral [John G.]
Morgan [Jr.] is working on now [See The Log, Spring 2007, at 11]. The Operations Concept says these are the things that we
need to do. How do we do it is the strategy that Admiral Morgan is talking about. I think the Naval Operations Concept is
really a building block for that maritime strategy that Admiral Morgan is working on. What you will see come out of that
[process] will reflect very closely the Naval Operations Concept."
The Security Environment
The Naval Operations Concept begins by briefly describing the current security environment as "characterized by a
combination of traditional, irregular, catastrophic and disruptive challenges." These challenges include such things as
conventional wars, terrorism, natural catastrophes, failed states, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and technological
attacks on the social and military infrastructures.
The United States has four strategic objectives in responding to these challenges:
Secure the United States from direct attack by actively confronting, early and at safe distances, those who would
threaten us - - especially those who would do so with catastrophic means.
Secure strategic access and retain global freedom of action by ensuring that key regions, lines of communication
and the global commons remain available to all.
Strengthen existing and emerging alliances and partnerships to address common challenges.
Establish favorable security conditions by countering aggression or coercion targeted at our partners or interests.
It goes on: "The United States will seek to accomplish those objectives through more widely distributed forward forces
that can assure allies and friends, dissuade potential adversaries, deter aggression and counter coercion regionally, yet possess
the agility to rapidly re-position and merge with reinforcements deploying as part of a global response to cries. When
necessary, that global response will include defeating adversaries."
To Admiral Chanick, these objectives go to the heart of why the United States has a military. "We have a military for
homeland defense. That's why when we wrote the Constitution, we put the military in that constitution so we would have the
capability to provide for homeland defense."
Naval Missions
The Naval Operations Concept then says "the Navy and Marine Corps will size, shape and globally posture our forces to
conduct a series of ten "missions" in support of the national strategy.
The first of these is Forward Naval Presence. The Navy-Marine Corps Team will deploy to, or station in, focused
areas overseas to demonstrate national resolve, strengthen alliances, deter, and dissuade potential adversaries, and
enhance our ability to respond quickly to crises.
"We want to do homeland defense as far away from the homeland as we can." Admiral Chanick explained. "We do
forward naval presence for that reason and also to bring stability to different regions of the world. So, you always have ships of
your Navy forward. Out of 280 ships that we have about now, you are going to have about a third of those ships that are
forward deployed across the seas of the world."
Crisis Response is the second listed mission. The Navy-Marine Corps team will continue to provide a timely,
worldwide response to unforeseen and rapidly unfolding natural disasters and man-made crises.
Admiral Chanick noted how the second mission is facilitated by the first. "If we are there we can respond to a crisis a lot
quicker and hopefully keep that crisis down to as a small level."
Expeditionary Power Projection.. Enabled by sea basing, the Navy-Marine Corps team provides the joint
commander with global reach and access in order to take the fight to the enemy and help win our nation's wars.
Generally, when the Navy sends assets overseas, they are grouped around two "packages," Admiral Chanick noted.
There is the carrier strike group consisting of an "aircraft carrier; five surface combatants - - cruisers, destroyers, frigates; a
submarine; typically and some support ships and that is what we go forward with in terms of presence, ready to respond in
times of crisis." In addition, there is the perhaps less familiar expeditionary strike groups built around "ships with our Marines
aboard. The same concept - - they are forward, ready to respond, and provide what we call expeditionary power. That is
power through the Marines going ashore, the aircraft doing strikes, there could be Tomahawk missiles, there could be a number
of things."
Maritime Security Operations. This is policing the maritime commons. "You read about it - - off the coast of Somalia,
in the Straits of Malucca, there are things like piracy that occur everyday." Admiral Chanick commented. "How do you get rid
of that? You have maritime security operations where you have U.S. forces and other nations' forces. You've heard the Chief
of Naval Operations talk about a '1,000 Ship Navy' - - that's not a thousand U.S. ships, it is U.S. ships coupled with other
nations' ships, out there patrolling the seas to make sure that sea lanes are secure, to make sure that commerce can occur.
Ninety percent of the transportation of assets in commerce occurs on the sea. So, maritime security is an extremely important
thing to do."
Along the same lines, Sea Control remains critical to our ability to operate in future environments. U.S. Naval
forces will maintain the capability to destroy enemy naval forces, suppress enemy sea commerce, protect vital sea-
lanes, and establish maritime superiority in support of a joint or combined operations.
Quite simply, Admiral Chanick added, "we want to be out there making sure that folks do not do things that they ought not
to do."
Deterrence. U.S. Naval forces will deter and dissuade potential adversaries from acts of aggression by imposing
the credible risk of conventional, unconventional, and nuclear consequences.
"Deterrence is what we like to do primarily, if not exclusively. Because we have the military, we deter other folks from
doing things they ought not to do. If we are successful at that, then we really don't need to do the rest of that. Reality says that
we need to do the rest too."
The next five missions listed in the Naval Operations Concept "are all missions that naval assets, Navy and Marines, can
do and do throughout the world on a daily basis," Admiral Chanick pointed out. (Endnote 1).
Air and Missile Defense is becoming increasingly significant. According to the Naval Operations Concept: Forward
deployed U.S. Naval forces contribute to joint air and missile defense by providing the capability to detect and destroy
enemy aircraft and missiles in flight.
"Last summer when North Korea fired a couple of missiles, folks were very concerned that they have the ability right now
to reach to the continental United States. One of our primary assets to counter that is our ships at sea with the ability to detect
and engage the missiles."
Finally, Information Operations requires U.S. Naval forces [to] use and protect information to influence
adversaries, advance friendly objectives, and shape the operating environment to our advantage.
"We want to make sure that both [foreign governments and civilians] understand why the U.S. is there - - that the U.S. is
there to help stability in their regions of the world," Admiral Chanick commented.
Guiding Principles
The Naval Operations Concept also sets forth a number of guiding principles according to which U.S. naval operations will be
planned and executed. (Endnote 2).
Agility. Within a strategic environment characterized by uncertainty, U.S. Naval forces must possess the ability to
quickly adapt to meet new and diverse operational requirements and thereby foreclose opportunities to irregular or
conventional forces.
Admiral Chanick elaborated: "We want to make sure we are active, that we can respond very rapidly and we can shape
our force to address the situation at hand. We want to have a very active [military] force [that can also do] humanitarian
assistance operations - - things that you saw a couple of years ago with the tsunami in Southeast Asia, the earthquake in
Pakistan, Hurricane Katrina on our own coast. We want to have the agility to be able to respond and shape our forces to do
that."
Coordinated Global Influence. In addition to the impact U.S. Naval operations have regionally, consideration
must be given to the effects generated globally as an element of U.S. strategic communications.
"If we are doing something over in Southwest Asia, we want to coordinate that with the things we are doing in Southeast
Asia and with operations in the Pacific. Part of that is so folks recognize that we have a global capability and that that global
capability is there to push drugs out of the world."
Interoperability. U.S. Naval forces must maximize the ability to integrate with the joint force, as well as our inter-
agency and multi-national partners, to achieve integrated and independent operations.
"We want to work with our other joint partners out there. So, today we work very closely with all of the services, in
particular with the Air Force and the Army, to make sure that if they need something from us or vice versa we can provide
that. We all recognize that each service cannot do everything, that each service has certain capabilities that the other services
do not have. The idea, the challenge, is to make sure that we complement each other and part of that is being interoperable."
"Admiral Mullen said it best in his testimony [before Congress]. Somebody asked him: 'what keeps you awake at night?'
And he said: 'The Army does.' The reason he said that is because we are a joint service, we do complement each other and
the Army is under significant strain now. In the Army, it is deployed for a year, come back for a year, hopefully, and then gone
again. We don't see that as much in the Navy. Some folks are boots on the ground - - Seabees, SEALs, Corpsmen, some
other of our ratings are seeing that kind of strain but the Navy at large is not seeing it as much. Consequently, we are helping
the Army out by having people on the ground and doing those types of things."
Persistent Presence. To gain cultural awareness and positive regional influence, U.S. Naval forces must be
capable of sustaining forward operations both afloat from forward sea bases and ashore for extended periods.
"It does not do much good to go to a region of the world, do some good things and leave and not come back for a year or
two years because if that region of the world is unstable it will go back to [what it was]."
Speed. To seize initiative and achieve desired effects, U.S. Naval forces must be sized, shaped and postured to
minimize response time and rapidly execute assigned missions inside our adversaries' decision cycle.
"Obviously, you want to have speed so we can get to where we need to go and get there in time."
Unpredictability for our Adversaries and Reliability for Our Friends. Our operations must deny our
adversaries the ability to exploit familiar deployment and employment patterns; yet assure our friends of our continued
persistent commitment to our common interests. Admiral Chanick noted that, as a fleet commander, this principle comes
into play often in scheduling joint exercises and in inviting friendly nations to participate in those exercises.
Methods
The Naval Operations Concept also lists the methods that will be used in accomplishing the Naval forces strategic missions.
(Endnote 3)
Globally Networked Operations. Establishing a scalable open access/open architecture information system to
enhance organizational flexibility and global awareness.
"In other words, we have connectivity anywhere in the world and we will work that connectivity so if we are doing
something in one half of the world, the other half of the naval forces know about it and we can compliment if that seems the
right path."
Distributed Operations. Increasing our ability for independent, unified action by geographically separated, yet
globally, regionally, or tactically integrated, networked forces.
"Distributed operations says that we have the agility to take a force and pare it down in size, move it forward and do that
from several different locations. In other words, you want to be able to move a force in and then affect a number of different
areas in the local region with that same force. You want to adjust that force so that it is the right force, at the right time, in the
right place and it can accomplish whatever that mission happens to be."
Cultural Awareness. Enhancing our ability to understand how social, political, economic, ethnic and religious
factors impact the operational environment.
"We recognize that when we go out in the world, our Sailors visit other countries, operate with other countries, and that
each Sailor has an impact on that particular country. So, we have been stressing and emphasizing an education for all our
Sailors so that they have that cultural awareness."
The Naval Operations Concept states: The naval missions, principles, foundations and methods described in this concept
are intended to achieve a positive end state comprised of the objectives articulated in our national strategy.
In short, Admiral Chanick summarized, the desired outcomes and effects are: "if we have wars, it is to win those wars; to
establish favorable security conditions so hopefully we don't have those wars; to make sure that we have global freedom of
action because commerce depends upon that; and obviously to strengthen alliances and partnerships."
Second Fleet
Admiral Chanick then turned to how Second Fleet implements The Naval Operations Concept.
"Second Fleet is on the East Coast of the United States and the Gulf Coast of the United States. It is all the ships and
aircraft in the Navy that happen to be located here. The primary mission for us is to exercise command and control for over all
those assets and to command them on any mission that we happen to have off the coast of the United States and in the Gulf of
Mexico area. Since those ships and aircraft deploy and go overseas to the Mediterranean, to the Indian Ocean, or to the
Pacific, our other primary mission is to train them up so that when they go they are ready to do any of those missions that they
might encounter."
"We train them to be able to work in an aggregate or in a disaggregate [configuration]. Aggregate means that we put
together a substantial force. [For example, taking] a carrier strike group - - about six or seven ships and an expeditionary strike
group - - another five or six ships, and putting them together in a package of a dozen or more ships to do a mission out in the
world. When you put it all together, we call it an aggregated group. Command and control is very complicated, trying to get all
those assets to work together. That's one thing we are training for, simulating what they may encounter in Central Asia or what
they could encounter out in Southeast Asia."
"The next thing we are training for is disaggregated operations. The reality is today that when we send forces overseas and
deploy them, they will typically go overseas and arrive in let's take the Arabian Gulf and then they will disperse - - they will
disaggregate and do individual missions and act with individual countries out there. A little bit of an easier mission but this is
where that cultural awareness really comes in. We work with other nations and this is all part of building security in the local
regions. So, we train the folks to be able to go together, disperse and then be able to come back together if the world situation
so dictates [and perform] the higher order, more difficult missions."
"How do we train 10,000 or 20,000 folks to be able to accomplish these missions? We do that through a couple of
exercises. Actually, they are very similar exercises and we do probably four of those a year for four different groups."
"A joint task force exercise is an exercise where we get together not only Navy and Marine Corps assets but we use Air
Force assets and Army assets. We put them together in a scenario that is meant to replicate what could occur in the world and
then we put a group of assessors - - graders if you will - - to go out there and monitor the operations and grade the
performance. If they don't like what they see, it is corrected right then so [our people] are trained to do it right and thus when
they do deploy, they will know what to do."
"A large number of folk are involved in it, typically on the order of a dozen to 20 ships involved, thousands of people
involved, typically about two weeks and it occurs off the East Coast of the United States. In fact, we also bring in coalition
forces. This last one, we had the ILLUSTRIOUS, a British aircraft carrier involved as a large part of this group. We are doing
that more and more often."
Such international operations are not merely theoretical exercises. "When the HARRY S. TRUMAN strike group
deploys, they are going to sail with one British ship and one Canadian ship that will be a part of that group and stay with them
the entire six months. We are doing the same thing early next year. We are taking one of our destroyers and sailing with the
ILLUSTRIOUS. The ILLUSTRIOUS is going to be a British strike group and it is going to have one American ship attached
to it and sail with them the entire six months."
In the joint task force exercises, "we work off the coast of the United States. To help create a degree of difficulty, we
have put some islands off the coast that are notional islands in order to take away some of their freedom of maneuver so the
ships have to operate in more constrained space just like they might have to do out in the real world."
"We divide the United States up into different countries - - the country of Garnet, the country of Amberland etc. Then we
build a scenario where perhaps Amber is a country that is very antagonistic toward its neighbors. Maybe it is attacking a
neighboring land, and the United States and coalition countries have a concern about that. You could equate it perhaps to
Kuwait and Iraq at one point in time. We might have another country down here that is a very ungoverned country and has
issues with terror. It could be something like Somalia, it could be something like Afghanistan. So, we build this notional world,
and [the participants in the exercise] have to read all the background information, understand what these countries have for
assets, and understand the countries' political ambitions etc. Then, we give them a situation where they have to go in and do
some diplomacy. That diplomacy, can be everything from being a force of presence to creating security to combat operations.
Typically, over two-weeks time the situation will ratchet up from one where we are to get there and try and keep it stable to
combat operations because we want to train them for everything that they could possibly encounter in the real world."
"So, that is what we'll do four times a year in Second Fleet to train your assets to head overseas and operate all the time.
It is a very, very big effort here. Lots of time and money involved but it is well-spent because when those folks do deploy they
are ready to answer the bell no matter what it might be."
"Another exercise that we just did in Second Fleet is an exercise down in Panama. We had 30 ships, 19 different
countries involved, so this was a very large coalition exercise. The purpose of this exercise was to build the relationships with
those South American countries and Central American countries so that if the Panama Canal ever had to be defended we
would (1) have the relationship established with them and (2) the training done to do that. But, more importantly, it is to help
those countries grow and become more stable and contribute to global maritime security."
Thus, Second Fleet implements The Naval Operations Concept "mostly from the training aspect, in terms of supporting the
training of those assets to make sure they are capable of doing what they need out there. That's really where we have our
input. [However,] the other thing we see is Second Fleet has become more of an operational headquarters too, in terms of
being capable of being a joint task force headquarters and also capable of working maritime homeland defense missions."
Thoughts on the Navy Today and Tomorrow
How is the Navy today? There are “about 340,000 people in the Navy. Again, on any given day about 35 percent of your
ships are overseas, so one third of that 270, about 90 ships are overseas. Ten percent are at sea training, so today 45 percent
of your Navy is at sea. About 61,000 Sailors are deployed in different areas of the world. Right now, for the Navy, believe it
or not, we have about 12,000 Sailors on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan supporting the Army and Marine Corps. So that
is something above and beyond what we would normally be doing out there."
"My view is that in the years to come the requirement for naval forces won't go down, it will go up. I think the reason for
that is because we can provide access. We do not impact another country by taking up their space. We can sit off the coast
and have the influence they want. I think in the future, a lot more countries will want us in the area but they won't necessarily
want us on their land. I think the strength of the Naval forces is can [they can meet this desire] by being in the vicinity [at sea]."
In Admiral Chanick's view, the aircraft carrier will remain a key naval asset. "They allow us to be persistent you have to
be there to be really persistent. [With modern technology] we can fly airplanes around the world. We can fly 30 hour missions
but you are only there 20 minutes and then you are going back. So, you are not really there. Whereas an aircraft carrier can
be off the coast and do 24 hour operations and actually be over a particular portion of the world, a country, whatever, and
have visible presence. Aircraft carriers have evolved over the years they have been around and we think they will continue to
do so. When we spend $8 billion to build [one of the next class of] aircraft carriers, it is going to last 50 years. So, the return
on investment on these is pretty high. I don't foresee in the next 30 years that we will walk away from aircraft carriers. As time
moves on, who knows? But, for everything that we project right now, at least for the next 30 years, we still see a very strong
reason to continue with aircraft carriers because they give us agility, they give us flexibility, they give us persistence, and they
give us a lot of options that we can't have with other assets. And they give us access because from the sea you can reach about
75 percent of the world's population."
Today, the nation's military is heavily committed in Iraq. As noted earlier, this is placing substantial strain on the Army.
"The Marine Corps is under a pretty good strain too," Chanick noted. “Still, we haven't seen any problems with recruiting
retention and quite frankly all of the services have been doing pretty darn good. The question becomes, can we maintain that if
this same situation stays like it is for the next few years and that is always a concern. But, today, all the services have done well
with recruiting and retention."
Is it time to leave Iraq? "Who has the best view of the world? It is the folks with the boots on the ground and they can tell
what is going on with that." However, "we work for our civilian leaders and we'll obviously do what the civilian leaders
decide." As a result, whether the United States will continue with the current process "is over to politics and the will of the
nation. The issue is if we pull out wholesale and rapidly, we are going to leave a very unstable part of the world and what is
going to happen after that."
Even with the world's focus primarily on Iraq, Afghanistan and other terrorist hotspots, the Navy is aware that other
countries are building their naval forces. "The Russians are doing a lot more military activity. Most of that activity, however, has
occurred in their home waters and home airspace. They haven't really ventured out very far. Second Fleet, we go out about
half way through the Atlantic and then Sixth Fleet takes over the other half. So, if we get to the point where we have to
respond, observe or watch things, we will see a little more at Sixth Fleet than we will at Second Fleet. I think the relationships,
publicly, the President and Mr. Putin have had show friction, I guess we will call it, but the countries I still think are working
hard to work together. In fact, the Russian CNO just visited three weeks ago. He had a great visit down in D.C. and down in
Norfolk, we took him aboard a couple of ships. So, we are working very hard to continue building relationships with them.
Obviously, as they get more active, we will watch that and monitor it."
"The Chinese are very active. They are a large part of our global economy now. There is some good news in that. I think
as they get militarily active in other parts of the world, we'll certainly watch that too. If the desire on their part is to create more
stability, that is a good thing. If it is another issue, then obviously, we would want to talk to that too. So, I think that if they get
active militarily in other continents then we would probably respond in kind. Quite frankly, most of their military activity today
is in their home waters."
Endnotes
1. The five missions are: Security Cooperation. While forward deployed, our Sailors and Marines will be critical members of
the joint and inter-agency team that interacts with an expanding set of international partners to build defense relationships,
develop friendly capabilities for self-defense and multinational operations, promote cultural awareness and regional
understanding, and enhance strategic access.
Civil-Military Operations. Forward deployed U.S. Naval forces, in conjunction with our joint and inter-agency partners, will
establish relationships with local, regional and national governments, private organizations, and civilian populaces in friendly,
neutral, or hostile areas in order to advance U.S. objectives.
Counterinsurgency. Forward deployed U.S. Naval forces will conduct and/or support military, paramilitary, political, economic,
psychological, and civic actions to defeat insurgencies.
Counterterrorism. The Navy-Marine Corps team, partnered with other agencies, will locate, interdict, and eliminate terrorists
and the networks that support their activities.
Counter-proliferation. U.S. Naval forces will be employed to detect, monitor, and defeat the threat and/or use of weapons of
mass destruction against the United States, our military forces, friends, and allies."
2. Due to time limitations, Admiral Chanick was not able to go over all of the principles outlined in the Naval Operations
Concept. The ones not specificly addressed were:
Deployability and Employability. To meet specific operational requirements U.S. Naval forces must be right-sized and shaped,
necessitating that all personnel and resources are readily available to operate forward.
Adaptive Force Packaging. To maximize the desired effect, operations will be resourced from a global menu of interdependent
joint and naval capabilities.
Precision. Appropriate naval capabilities must be matched to designated tasks in order to achieve the overarching purpose.
3. Also due to time limitations, Admiral Chanick was not able to describe all of the methods set forth in the Naval Operations
Concept. The other methods are: Adaptive Force Packaging: Right Force, Right Time, Right Place; Aggregate, Disaggregate,
Re-aggregate; Cross Fleet Standardization; Task Focused Training; Sea Basing; and Building Partner Capacity.
PUTTING THE NAVAL
OPERATIONS
CONCEPT TO WORK
ADMIRAL EVAN CHANICK SPEAKS ABOUT
THE OBJECTIVES, PRINCIPLES AND
METHODS GUIDING U.S. NAVAL FORCES.
Edited by Richard H. Wagner
(Originally published by the Navy League of the United States,
New York Council in The Log, Fall 2007).
OPERATIONS
CONCEPT TO WORK
ADMIRAL EVAN CHANICK SPEAKS ABOUT
THE OBJECTIVES, PRINCIPLES AND
METHODS GUIDING U.S. NAVAL FORCES.
Edited by Richard H. Wagner
(Originally published by the Navy League of the United States,
New York Council in The Log, Fall 2007).
