The need to return ships to distant friendly ports for rearming and replenishing will take away fighting assets from a fight that America can ill afford to lose.
So bring back the "fleet train" to move the logistics support forward:
Amid the dazzling accomplishments of integrated carrier, submarine, surface ship, and amphibious operations, we often overlook the combined effect of the extremely efficient logistics infrastructure that was created before and during World War II. Yet on this firm foundation, swift and highly lethal naval maneuver warfare was generated and sustained. The overwhelming sea power victory of the Navy during the war was in many ways a product of forward and mobile logistical superiority that enabled highly capable combat forces to unleash unrelenting power on, over, below, or from the sea.
This is a capability that has atrophied in an era of no peer competitor when the fleet was used in a power projection role to fight non-naval powers on land.
But with the rise of China's navy, the possibility of a major sea fight far from our shores must be considered.
We could use the modularized auxiliary cruiser in a logistics variant to support the fleet forward.
Indeed, one early version of this type of vessel that I wanted (prompted by Venezuelan threats to the Dutch) was for logistics purposes in support of allied navies:
What if we could supply the logistics capability for allies without necessarily sending the U. S. Navy along for the ride?
The modular design of our new littoral combat ship (LCS) could provide a model for filling this capabilities gap of our allies that could leverage allied capabilities and bind our allies more closely to us.
Perhaps we could design modules that fit in standard shipping containers that would be available to be secured to civilian ships that could link the ship to our network, add command-and-control facilities and air defense capabilities, support helicopter operations from the deck, and provide for transfering supplies to another ship. The goal would be to basically turn a civilian ship into an instant logistical support ship.
I hoped these could be used to spare America from having to use our own ships for the job. But it is quite possible that we will need new ships quickly brought online to support a Navy in a full sea control fight rather than a Navy supporting smaller land wars.
We can all hope that China and America do not fight but instead work together as much as possible.
But depriving the Navy of the capacity to sustain a fight forward is no way to deter a war.
