ARLINGTON, Va. — The U.S. interests in the Arctic Ocean and its connections to the Atlantic and Pacific oceans might be better served as a dedicated fleet’s area of responsibility, rather that divided between the U.S. 2nd, 3rd and 6th Fleets, a Navy expert on the Arctic said. 

Dr. Walter Berbrick, associate professor at the Naval War College and director of its Arctic Studies Group, was speaking July 16 during a webinar, Arctic East vs West: US Strategy in the Atlantic and Pacific Arctic, sponsored by CNA, a think tank in Arlington. 

Berbrick said the lessened ice coverage of the Arctic Ocean is inviting to nations seeking to reduce maritime transit time between continents, especially considering that maritime commerce is expected to double over the next 20 years. 

The Northern Sea Route along the Russian northern shoreline cuts 40% of the transit distance between Europe and the Far East, a route of considerable interest to China. The Northwest Passage, between the Bering Strait by Alaska and the Davis Strait by Greenland, is less viable, given the shallowness of the water and the narrow straits. More attractive, should the ice melt more, is the Transpolar Route, directly across the geographic North Pole from any direction, so far navigable only by submarines. 

He said the current forecast of when the Transpolar Route might be navigable for surface ships by anywhere between 2035 and 2050 out to 2060.  

He noted that Russia is increasing its military presence in the Arctic region with modernizing old air bases, installing air-defense missile batteries, increasing submarine activity and building polar icebreakers armed with cruise missiles. 

Berbrick said the heart of China’s Arctic strategy is use of the Arctic sea routes and gaining access to ports in northern Europe for maritime commerce. He said China’s increasing naval deployments away from home waters are likely to extend to the Arctic regions eventually, including Chinese subs making transits to the North Pole.   

Regarding U.S. policy toward Arctic presence, Berbrick said the U.S. Coast Guard has done more than any other service to step up and dominate the discussion, but that this also means closer integration between the Coast Guard and U.S. Navy in the Arctic.  

“What capabilities do we need to deter and, if necessary, to respond to any military by any nation or navy?” Berbrick asked rhetorically. “What forces do we need to assure our allies and partners in the region? How do we posture our forces to keep Arctic sea lines of communication free and open? What kind of naval power do we need [in the region] project from the Arctic to potentially gain an advantage in other places like the Pacific and the Atlantic?” 

He noted that the U.S. Navy is designed for high-end fighting in warm waters. 

The Navy also would need days or weeks to respond to a crisis in the Arctic, he said, given the distance from U.S. deep-water ports.  

The 2nd, 3rd and 6th Fleets all have responsibilities in the region, he noted, with the Navy “facing a time/space/force problem in the Arctic,” with too many other challenges around the world. 

“Perhaps we should think outside the box and create a new fleet, an Arctic fleet,” Berbrick said, saying that a total Navy battle fleet sized more toward 400 ships rather than 355 would be needed, which would allow for a fleet “permanently spread out across the Arctic region.” 

He said the supporting shore structure would require reactivating old bases in the Aleutian Islands and Greenland and establishing a port in Nome, Alaska, for example, he said.

ARLINGTON, Va. — The U.S. Navy’s top enlisted leader said the COVID-19 pandemic is teaching the sea service that personnel need as much focus as machines as the Navy works its way to separate processes that work from those that need to be cast aside. 

Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy (MCPON) Russell Smith spoke July 15 during a webinar, NatSec 2020: Coronavirus and Beyond, co-sponsored by the Navy League of the United States, the Association of the United States Army and Government Matters. 

“We knew going in that we were going to find some better practices, some efficiencies with the way we do business,” Smith said. 

He noted that the Navy’s recruit training center at Great Lakes, Illinois, “has had [fewer] cases of pneumonia, severe flu and hospitalizations than we’ve ever had right now, even in COVID, because of the way we’ve handled people and the way we’ve prevented that inter-exchange of colds and things that all happen when so many people from so many different parts of the country all come together and start sharing their germs.” 

“The way we handled things from a hygiene perspective and some other efficiencies that we certainly learned in this process of bringing [recruits] in will probably stick,” he said.  

“That’s the COVID writ large for us as a Navy,” he said. “We’ve absolutely learned some things that we stopped doing because of COVID that we probably won’t start doing again. Some things we’ll have to go right back to doing as soon as we can, but there are some things — by not having to do them for a while — as an efficiency, we probably don’t need to go back to doing [them].”  

“Where there is challenge, there is opportunity,” said Navy League Executive Director Mike Stevens, Smith’s predecessor as MCPON, also speaking in the webinar. “What I’ve seen in both the private sector and in [the Department of Defense] taking the challenge, looking for these new opportunities, and, primarily where we capitalize on these opportunities in the areas of technology, I think those thing are going to stick.” 

“We’ve learned how to work efficiently from places other than our normal places of duty or work,” Stevens said. “We’re much more effective than I thought we would be.”  

Smith pointed out that the Navy is an expeditionary service, “and when we immediately moved to nearly everyone teleworking, we found out how much our basic services lack the agility that they require for us to dis-aggregate and work remotely. We have to be able to do that far better than we do today. A lot of these forced processes made us catch up quickly.”

ARLINGTON, Va. — Firefighters have extinguished all known fires on the amphibious assault USS Bonhomme Richard in San Diego, the Navy announced. 

“Our fire teams are investigating every space to verify the absence of fire,” Rear Adm. Philip E. Sobeck, commander of Expeditionary Strike Group 3, said in a 1 p.m. Pacific time statement. 

“Until every space is checked and there are no active fires we will not be able to commence any official investigations. We did not know the origin of the fire. We do not know the extent of the damage. It is too early to make any predictions or promises of what the future of the ship will be. We cannot make any conclusions, until the investigation is complete.” 

Some reports outside the Navy indicated the fires were the result of an explosion aboard.  

The fires, which started on the morning of July 12, burned for four days and have severely damaged the ship, the sixth ship of the Wasp class. The ship, based in San Diego, was being upgraded to operate F-35B Lightning II strike fighters, among other modernizations. 

Sobeck said that 63 personnel — 40 U.S. Navy Sailors and 23 civilians — were treated for minor injuries such as heat exhaustion and smoke inhalation. None remain hospitalized. 

“What we do know is that brave Sailors from commands all across San Diego worked tirelessly alongside Federal Firefighters to get this fire extinguished and I want to thank them for their efforts,” he said. “This was a Navy team effort. We had support from the air and sea. Three helicopter squadrons conducted more than 1,500 water bucket drops, fighting the fire and cooling the super structure and flight deck enabling fire crews to get onboard to fight the fire. Tugs also provided firefighting support from the waterline, cooling the ship’s hull. 

“The Navy continues to work together with regulators, county and state in protecting our environment and preparing to address the community’s concerns as we move forward to the next phase,” he said. “I’d like to thank our partners from state and county, the U.S. Coast Guard, and all agencies for continued support.” 

ARLINGTON, Va. — The U.S. Navy’s top procurement official said he seeks to maintain the agility and efficiencies garnered by the Navy’s acquisition and repair workforce and procedures long after the COVID-19 pandemic subsides.  

The pandemic is a “really good test of resilience and how dynamic your organization is,” said James F. Geurts, assistant secretary of the Navy for research, development and acquisition, who spoke on July 15 during a webinar, NatSec 2020: Coronavirus and Beyond, co-sponsored by the Navy League of the United States, the Association of the United States Army and Government Matters. 

“What we’ve been working on for the last couple years of decentralizing, differentializing, digitizing the work and developing talent, in hindsight, is very important,” Geurts said in response to questions from the Navy League’s executive director, Mike Stevens. “It gave us a really sound foundation to pivot. I’ve been really impressed how fast we’ve been able to pivot. The Navy, at least in acquisition channels, has been accelerating through the crisis.” 

Geurts said the Navy is about 37% ahead in contract awards this year compared with the same period in 2019 and twice what was done by this time in 2018 — having awarded an additional $30 billion to $35 billion in contracts in motion in the middle of the crisis. He said the effort created stability and freed up bandwidth to deal with things that pop up. 

He said the pandemic has “re-taught us the value of resilience as the core attribute to an organization.” 

The assistant secretary said the Navy had been planning how to surge in the event of a security crisis and, when the pandemic hit, the “art of planning for a crisis allowed us to pivot in a really strong way.” 

He credited “empowering the workforce by massively decentralizing” as a key to success, “showing the workforce that, ‘Hey, we trust you, your decision-making, we’re going to empower you to make decisions.’” 

Geurts said he wants to preserve the momentum developed by his workforce beyond the pandemic. 

“Going back to where we were, as good as that was, is mission failure,” he said. “The fact that we were able to get 37% more efficiency in a crisis, I want to capture that efficiency … so that we’ve got both performance improvement and more resilience as we go forward. … We should get better at leading through disruption.”  

Geurts said no shipyards or repair yards — public or private — have been shut down during the pandemic. 

“To think that we had 100,000-plus shipyard workers continuously operating through the crisis is a pretty remarkable state of leadership,” he said. “We’ve had some delays, some disruption, some loss of productive work hours — which we’re going to have to manage our way through, and we’re working our way through that — but we never got to the point where we had to completely shut down.” 

The Navy recently mobilized 1,600 Reservists to shore up the shipyards during the pandemic. And Geurts noted that the Navy has not slowed down its deployments or overseas presence during the pandemic.

ARLINGTON, Va. — The firefighting efforts to save the amphibious assault ship USS Bonhomme Richard in San Diego carried over into a fifth day on July 16. 

Just after midnight, early in the morning, the work of firefighting teams had to be temporarily halted, the Navy reported. 

“Out of an abundance of caution the pier and ship were cleared of personnel due to an initial shift in the ship’s list,” Naval Surface Force, U.S. Pacific Fleet, said in a release. “Personnel are now pierside. We will continue to monitor as the ship settles.” 

As of 6 a.m. Pacific time, the firefighting teams were continuing operations on board the ship, according to the Navy. The total personnel treated for minor injuries remained 63 — 40 Sailors and 23 civilians. The fires were reportedly caused by an explosion, but the Navy has not officially disclosed a cause. 

ARLINGTON, Va. — The United States needs a larger merchant fleet, including ships available for sealift and tankers to meet the challenges of the new era of “great power competition,” particularly a conflict in the Pacific, said a senior Navy League of the United States official.

Jonathan Kaskin, who spoke July 14 during a webinar, NatSec 2020: Coronavirus and Beyond, co-sponsored by the Navy League, the Association of the United States Army and Government Matters, said the “fleet itself just needs to grow.”

Kaskin, a former Navy logistics official, said “we in the Navy League would like to … advocate for a much larger Merchant Marine in order to support the tenets of the Merchant Marine Act of 1936, which says that we should have a [merchant] fleet large enough to support not only our domestic trade but a portion of our international trade to be able to maintain our commerce at all time in peace and war. I don’t think we have adequate capability in both areas right now.”

Maritime Administrator Mark Buzby, a retired Navy admiral and former commander of Military Sealift Command (MSC), also spoke during the webinar.

“We need more ships,” Buzby said, noting that about 50 more vessels are needed for sealift; 87 U.S.-flag international-trading cargo ships (of which 60 are enrolled in MARAD’s Maritime Security Program, a stipend paid to keep ships available for sealift), available for mobilization for military use; and 99 large Jones Act ships.

Buzby said that the nation’s Merchant Mariner workforce is short about 1,800 personnel for a sustained sealift mission.

He said he prefers to have more commercial ships operating rather than Reserve ships tied up at the pier, because they would be more ready and would have trained mariners already on board and qualified.

Kaskin said that there are two ways to grow the merchant fleet, one being an expansion of the Maritime Security Program. The other is a MARAD proposal to create a Tanker Security Program “to help mitigate a shortfall of tankers required to support a war in the Pacific.”

He said only six U.S-flag international trade tankers are available for use by the military — and three of those are already leased by the Navy to support current operations.

“The requirement that U.S. Transportation Command has shown — and earlier studies have shown — that we need more than 78 tankers. Adding 10 is not going to be sufficient,” he said. “So, what we really need to do is find ways of utilizing the tankers that we have in the domestic fleet — the Jones Act [ships] — to be able to support wartime operations.”

ARLINGTON, Va. — The U.S. Navy and supporting firefighting teams continued to battle blazes on the amphibious assault ship USS Bonhomme Richard for the fourth straight day, a Navy spokesperson said.

“As of 06:00 a.m. Pacific time July 15, firefighting teams continue operations on board USS Bonhomme Richard — 63 personnel, 40 Sailors and 23 civilians have been treated for minor injuries, including heat exhaustion and smoke inhalation,” the public affairs office for commander, Naval Surface Force, U.S. Pacific Fleet said in a July 15 release.

“Currently, there are no personnel hospitalized. Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron 3 [HSC-3] has conducted more than 1,500 helicopter water bucket drops, which is cooling the super structure and flight deck enabling fire crews to get onboard internally to fight the fire,” the release said.

The Navy has not said what caused the fire, though numerous reports attribute it to an explosion aboard.

In a July 14 release the Navy listed the units that have assisted in the firefighting efforts in addition to HSC-3:

• USS Bonhomme Richard (LHD 6)
• USS Cowpens (CG 63)
• USS Fitzgerald (DDG 62)
• USS Decatur (DDG 73)
• USS Tulsa (LCS 16)
• USS Shoup (DDG 86)
• USS Rushmore (LSD 47)
• USS Harpers Ferry (LSD 49)
• USS San Diego (LPD 22)
• USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72)
• USS Stethem (DDG 63)
• USS John P. Murtha (LPD 26)

Federal Fire entities:

• Marine Corps Air Station Miramar
• San Diego
• Ventura County
• Naval Air Facility El Centro

Additional Defense Department firefighting agencies:

• Camp Pendleton Fire Department
• Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center Fire Department

ARLINGTON, Va. — The U.S. Coast Guard’s Atlantic and Pacific area commanders have praised the service’s fleet of Legend-class national security cutters (NSCs) in their role as platforms for drug interdiction. 

Speaking July 14 at a webinar co-sponsored by the organization, NatSec 2020: Coronavirus and Beyond, sponsored by the Navy League of the United States, the Association of the United States Army and Government Matters, were Vice Adm. Linda L. Fagan, commander, Coast Guard Pacific Area, and Vice Adm. Steven D. Poulin, commander, Coast Guard Atlantic Area.  

The NSC “is game-changing for us in countering the narcotics flow in the eastern Pacific,” Fagan said. 

She said the interdiction of drugs at sea is especially advantageous because they are seized in large quantities before the drug supply chain can break the loads into smaller quantities. 

Speaking of the “incredible capability” of the NSCs, Poulin said, “I’ve seen that time and time again. The capacity, the technological edge that those Coast Guard cutters bring to the fight … that is an incredible platform.” 

Poulin said the Coast Guard also is looking forward to accepting delivery of the future offshore patrol cutter, 25 of which will replace the service’s medium-endurance cutters, some of which are more than 60 years old.  

NSCs are built by Huntington Ingalls in Pascagoula, Mississippi. The Coast Guard has accepted delivery of nine, with two more under construction. 

ARLINGTON, Va. — The U.S. Navy and civilian firefighters combatting the blaze on the amphibious assault ship USS Bonhomme Richard in San Diego have isolated the fires to two separate locations, the Navy said. 

In an 11 a.m. Pacific time July 14 news conference streamed on Facebook, Rear Adm. Philip Sobeck, commander of Expeditionary Strike Group 3, said that two fires remained on the ship, one forward and the other aft. 

“We have investigated the four main engineering spaces and found no major damage,” Sobeck said. “There is no threat to the fuel tanks, which [are] well-below any active fires or heat sources. The ship is stable and the structure is safe.” 

He said the firefighters are “combatting from both within and outside the ship from multiple access points.”  

He said that so far 61 personnel — 38 Sailors and 23 civilian firefighters — had been treated for minor injuries and smoke inhalation. None remained hospitalized. 

The admiral praised the MH-60S helicopter crews of Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron 3, who have dropped more than 1,000 large buckets full of water on the fires in the ship’s superstructure, “cooling the superstructure and flight deck, enabling fire crews to get onboard internally to fight the fire.”  

Tugs also continue to provide water streams to assist the firefighters. 

Sobeck thanked “the people of San Diego, National City, Coronado, and all the other communities in San Diego County for their continued support. For more than 48 hours brave Sailors from commands all across San Diego have been working tirelessly alongside Federal Fire San Diego to get this fire under control.” 

“I’d like to also thank our partners from state and county as well as the Coast Guard for monitoring the potential impacts to the environment,” he added. “As we continue to fight the fire, we remain cognizant of environmental concerns regarding the water and air quality.”  

“Going forward, the Navy will do a thorough investigation of the incident to include assessing the cause of the fire and damage to the ship, but right now our focus remains on putting out the fire and keeping people safe,” the admiral said.  

The fire broke out at about 8:30 a.m. Pacific time on July 12 while the Bonhomme Richard was pierside at Naval Base San Diego for a maintenance availability. About 160 Sailors of the crew of about 1,000 were on board at the time, according to the Navy, which has not officially linked the fire to a cause, though several media outlets have reported there was an explosion aboard Bonhomme Richard.

ARLINGTON, Va. — An official of the Navy League of the United States has delineated what the organization considers five key policy points for the sea services going forward in fiscal 2021. 

Sinclair Harris, a retired U.S. Navy rear admiral and current national vice president of military affairs for the Navy League, spoke in a July 13 webinar co-sponsored by the organization, NatSec 2020: Coronavirus and Beyond. It also was sponsored by the Association of the United States Army and Government Matters. 

“The Navy must — I repeat, must — maintain a position of dominance in the undersea domain,” Harris said, underscoring the need for the second Virginia-class attack submarine in fiscal 2021 (the budget only calls for one), the Columbia-class ballistic-missile sub, and other undersea platforms, manned and unmanned. “We can’t drop away from undersea dominance.” 

He said that sealift is critical for the nation’s ability to project power and influence in times of war or peace. “The [Marine Corps] commandant’s guidance is bold, innovative and creative and has to be supported going forward in order to meet the ever-evolving challenges that we see our global strategic environment.”  

Harris also stressed the need for allies and partners as an important part of the National Defense Strategy. 

He also emphasized the need for transparency in future force structure planning.  

“Transparency between the Pentagon and Congress builds trust,” he said. “And between government and industry, that allows industry to make proper plans so the industrial base can respond with what is needed. The industrial base is very fragile right now. 

Harris commented on the issue of the legislated goal of a battle force size of 355 ships.  

“We can see that when you don’t have a sufficient-sized fleet, you run the risk of over-burdening the fleet and the personnel that are operating it,” he added. “I served in the Navy 34 years. I’ve been there.”