VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. - The high pace of operations demanded by combatant commanders in the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and on terrorism is taking its toll on the U.S. military, a top commander said May 10.
As budget growth flattens at the Pentagon, the need is becoming stronger to re-examine those demands and, in the meantime, look for ways to dial back on the response.
"There's an insatiable demand for our forces," Adm. John Harvey, head of U.S. Fleet Forces, told a lunchtime audience at a joint war-fighting conference here.
"The requirements are being driven by the fight in Iraq and Afghanistan," he said, without questioning those war-fighting operations. But for other missions, "in my view we haven't really prioritized them."
A mechanism is needed, Harvey said, to "bring these combatant commands together."
All the armed services are charged with meeting the requirements of combatant commanders, the all-important commanders of joint commands such as Central Command, which oversees operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Last May, for example, Gen. David Petraeus, in charge of operations in Afghanistan, asked the Navy to ratchet up operations to maintain two, rather than one, carrier strike groups on station in the Arabian Sea to support combat operations in Afghanistan.
The Navy turned to its Fleet Response Plan (FRP), a post-9/11 effort to make the fleet more responsive to meet operational surges. The Navy found it could not meet Petraeus' 2.0 carrier group requirement, but has been able to sustain a 1.7 level, meaning two groups are on station about 70 percent of the time.
Currently, the Enterprise strike group is supporting Afghan combat operations, with the Ronald Reagan group having just relieved the Carl Vinson group in the region.
Adm. Gary Roughead, chief of naval operations, said earlier this year that the Navy was prepared to sustain those forces in the Central Command region for up to two years.
But the FRP was never meant to be a long-term solution, Harvey said.
"Surge capacity has become routine delivery," he declared. "For almost 10 years the Navy has essentially been operating on a demand-driven model. We have to hit the reset button."
"Over the past 10 years, meeting the demand has generated a price to be paid," Harvey said. "The piper will be paid in his time."
Part of that price has come in missed routine maintenance periods for ships, resulting in reduced service life and measurable increase in the number of failed material readiness inspections, Harvey said.
"Since 2005 an average of 50 ships a year violate our maintenance red lines in order to meet our operational commitment," he noted, adding that the number of ships failing inspections doubled from 2005 to 2009 to about 14 percent.
Harvey and his commands have been striving to reverse the worst of the trends. "We are doing an FRP reset," he said, looking at maintenance and training schedules and manning levels.
"I truly believe we have begun to reverse the most worrisome trends," he said. "We are seeing marked improvements in the material condition of our ships."
But, he said, "we have a long way to go."
"We need to take care of our ships and sailors and Marines and make sure that in the future we have the force wended," Harvey said. "Perhaps that means saying no to things today so we have the wherewithal to have the forces we need tomorrow."
At the heart of the discussion is "the sustainment of our force for the future," he declared. "The answer is a really hard look at the demand signal, how we respond to that signal."
"There has to be a conversation," he pleaded. "It has to take place. My belief is it's pretty much a one-way conversation."
The first step, he said, "is to establish a truly sustainable deployment level."
The problem is affecting all services, Harvey said. "For way too long, we have assumed the services are able now and will continue to be able to provide the same capability and ability as they have in the past," he said, calling that "an increasingly shaky presumption."
"We are each part of the greater whole. The individual components must be strong and whole."
"You cannot separate the performance of the joint force from the unique capabilities each service delivers to the joint force," he said. "At some point you have to have more certainty in terms of deployment, maintenance, training. That's what we are aiming for."
"Making the hard decisions concerning what, when and where we will dial down is a far better path to follow than the past of least resistance and take a percentage cut of what we are trying to do," Harvey said.
As budget growth flattens at the Pentagon, the need is becoming stronger to re-examine those demands and, in the meantime, look for ways to dial back on the response.
"There's an insatiable demand for our forces," Adm. John Harvey, head of U.S. Fleet Forces, told a lunchtime audience at a joint war-fighting conference here.
"The requirements are being driven by the fight in Iraq and Afghanistan," he said, without questioning those war-fighting operations. But for other missions, "in my view we haven't really prioritized them."
A mechanism is needed, Harvey said, to "bring these combatant commands together."
All the armed services are charged with meeting the requirements of combatant commanders, the all-important commanders of joint commands such as Central Command, which oversees operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Last May, for example, Gen. David Petraeus, in charge of operations in Afghanistan, asked the Navy to ratchet up operations to maintain two, rather than one, carrier strike groups on station in the Arabian Sea to support combat operations in Afghanistan.
The Navy turned to its Fleet Response Plan (FRP), a post-9/11 effort to make the fleet more responsive to meet operational surges. The Navy found it could not meet Petraeus' 2.0 carrier group requirement, but has been able to sustain a 1.7 level, meaning two groups are on station about 70 percent of the time.
Currently, the Enterprise strike group is supporting Afghan combat operations, with the Ronald Reagan group having just relieved the Carl Vinson group in the region.
Adm. Gary Roughead, chief of naval operations, said earlier this year that the Navy was prepared to sustain those forces in the Central Command region for up to two years.
But the FRP was never meant to be a long-term solution, Harvey said.
"Surge capacity has become routine delivery," he declared. "For almost 10 years the Navy has essentially been operating on a demand-driven model. We have to hit the reset button."
"Over the past 10 years, meeting the demand has generated a price to be paid," Harvey said. "The piper will be paid in his time."
Part of that price has come in missed routine maintenance periods for ships, resulting in reduced service life and measurable increase in the number of failed material readiness inspections, Harvey said.
"Since 2005 an average of 50 ships a year violate our maintenance red lines in order to meet our operational commitment," he noted, adding that the number of ships failing inspections doubled from 2005 to 2009 to about 14 percent.
Harvey and his commands have been striving to reverse the worst of the trends. "We are doing an FRP reset," he said, looking at maintenance and training schedules and manning levels.
"I truly believe we have begun to reverse the most worrisome trends," he said. "We are seeing marked improvements in the material condition of our ships."
But, he said, "we have a long way to go."
"We need to take care of our ships and sailors and Marines and make sure that in the future we have the force wended," Harvey said. "Perhaps that means saying no to things today so we have the wherewithal to have the forces we need tomorrow."
At the heart of the discussion is "the sustainment of our force for the future," he declared. "The answer is a really hard look at the demand signal, how we respond to that signal."
"There has to be a conversation," he pleaded. "It has to take place. My belief is it's pretty much a one-way conversation."
The first step, he said, "is to establish a truly sustainable deployment level."
The problem is affecting all services, Harvey said. "For way too long, we have assumed the services are able now and will continue to be able to provide the same capability and ability as they have in the past," he said, calling that "an increasingly shaky presumption."
"We are each part of the greater whole. The individual components must be strong and whole."
"You cannot separate the performance of the joint force from the unique capabilities each service delivers to the joint force," he said. "At some point you have to have more certainty in terms of deployment, maintenance, training. That's what we are aiming for."
"Making the hard decisions concerning what, when and where we will dial down is a far better path to follow than the past of least resistance and take a percentage cut of what we are trying to do," Harvey said.
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