A former partner in a top-10 global management consulting firm, Joe Buff is a seasoned risk analyst and professional writer on national security and defense preparedness. Two of his non-fiction articles received annual literary awards from the Naval Submarine League. He is also a national bestselling author of tales of near-future warfare featuring nuclear submariners and special operations forces in action at their bravest and best. Joe holds a master's degree in math from MIT, earned under a National Science Foundation Fellowship. He worked as an intern at the Argonne National Laboratory. Previously a qualified actuary for twenty years, with extensive experience at interpreting policy implications of dire "what if" scenarios, he is now a member of the Society for Risk Analysis, a non-partisan international scholarly body headquartered in McLean, VA.
Joe's father was an enlisted man in the Navy (Seabees in the Pacific Theater) from 1946 through 1951, and his uncle was a merchant mariner on the North Atlantic convoys late in World War II, before being drafted into the U.S. Army to serve in the Occupation of Nazi Germany. Joe is a Life Member of the following Navy-related organizations: U.S. Naval Institute, the Navy League of the United States, the Fellows of the Naval War College, CEC/Seabees Historical Foundation, and the Naval Submarine League. During 2004, after having been a guest luncheon speaker at their Annual National Convention, Joe became a sponsored Life Associate Member of the U.S. Submarine Veterans, Inc. He was recently made an Honorary Life Associate Member of the Navy Seabee Veterans of America, partly in recognition of his pro bono work for Operation Seabees Knowledge.
Joe
Buff Article & Column Archive
Joe Buff Contact Info:
readermail@joebuff.com
http://www.JoeBuff.com
Joe Buff Books:
Seas of Crisis (12/1/05)
Straits
of Power
Tidal
Rip
Crush
Depth
Thunder
in the Deep
Deep
Sound Channel
|
|
|
|
June 28, 2005
[Have an opinion on this column? Sound off in Military.com
at the Frontlines.]
Folks from all walks of life are deeply disturbed that the Naval Submarine Base New London in Groton, Connecticut was ever put on this year's very controversial BRAC closure list. And I don't blame them. Think about this. It's home to some eighteen nuclear subs. The base provides uniquely specialized waterfront support for all these indispensable modern capital ships, along with infrastructure for their parent squadrons' command headquarters. The historic base also hosts many vital installations related to submarine repair, crew training, various submarine/undersea medical research units, and signals intelligence and cyber-security.
The BRAC Report's main justification for closing the New London base is that existing submarine berthing space (piers and docks) on the East Coast is in excess of required capacity. The report also states that the reduction from three to two bases supporting U.S. Navy submarines on the Atlantic seaboard will maintain adequate force dispersal without affecting operational capability. Allow me to pick this "logic" to pieces.
Yes, America's Silent Service is barely half the size it once was. But that means it's badly overstretched, with too many global mission commitments due to hot-spots everywhere and new ones sprouting constantly. Slow submarine acquisition plans in meager current budgets only promise to make the national security problem of undersea surveillance and power projection more severe -- while the world grows ever more volatile and unstable. (Future small robotic probes will enhance but can never replace our full-size, manned nuclear subs.)
The Navy itself has stated that in essence every sub must act as a two-ocean warship, transiting between the Atlantic and Pacific (think China and North Korea) very rapidly in any crisis. The most covert route is also the shortest -- through the Arctic, north of Canada. Nothing can change this accident of geography. So, suppose New London wasn't available, her submarine squadrons moved to two more southerly East Coast bases as the BRAC Report proposed. A round trip from Atlantic to Pacific would be 1,000 miles longer from Norfolk, Virginia, and 2,000 miles longer from Kings Bay, Georgia. The added travel time and wear and tear, over a protracted period of high-tempo ops, become serious crew reenlistment, safety, and cost concerns. In event of a fleet surge in any fast-moving emergency, subs arriving on station a day or two later could turn out to be too late, impairing America's whole way of life. These same distance savings, and broader inescapable strategic issues, hold for trips "up north" to keep an eye on the now not-so-friendly Russian Federation. They hold for rapid deployments to the critical Eastern Med and Persian Gulf regions, too. One wonders whether the Washington bean counters, with all their talk of nimbleness, ever sat down and just looked at a globe.
It's been stated in the context of BRAC that the Amtrak and I-95 bridges over the Thames River, between the base and the Atlantic, make Groton too easily cut off from the sea by a terrorist strike. Yet these bridges have existed for decades. During the Cold War the threat of a Soviet Spetsnaz suicide attack to bring down part of a bridge would have been very real and probably more dangerous than anything 21st century terrorists might achieve. No one during the Cold War seriously suggested closing or relocating the base for this reason. Aside from the fact that Groton submariners are quite familiar with making the challenging navigational passage through the narrow gap in the Amtrak drawbridge, any blockage of the river could quickly be cleared by Navy divers and Seabees. General Dynamics Electric Boat, just downriver of the bridges, and already producing irreplaceable synergies with SUBASE Groton, would give ample backup during hurried recovery work. Furthermore, being well upriver and behind Long Island provides Groton with protection from some forms of assault by sea. In contrast, the heavy merchant-ship traffic into Chesapeake Bay, going right past Norfolk, exposes that other base to weapons of mass destruction (WMD) attack.
|
Even worse, with WMDs in play and continuing to proliferate, the idea of concentrating essential skills and installations in too few places defies common sense. Suppose New London is closed, and later on a terrorist or rogue does succeed in nuking Norfolk or Kings Bay, maybe with a warhead smuggled from those infamous poorly guarded stocks in Russia. Only a single Atlantic Coast submarine base would be left -- badly overtaxed, with some now-post-BRAC one of a kind shore facilities completely lost. How will new sub crews then be trained? How will essential research be performed? Where will subs that survive the attack, or were at sea during the attack, find a nearby port with the scarce special resources and equipment required to adequately support and rearm them? Imagine how exposed they'll be if they only have one possible refuge, rather than the pre-BRAC choice between two. If WMDs and terrorist attacks aren't enough to get your goat up, don't forget the constant potential for natural disasters. A category five hurricane might totally cream Kings Bay's or Norfolk's vital, non-portable shore facilities. An oceanic earthquake might trigger a disastrous tsunami. While we're reeling, a window opens for ruthless and opportunistic enemies to exploit our temporary vulnerability for their own irreversible gain. BRAC's supposed "excess berthing capacity" suddenly doesn't appear so expendable, does it?
Couldn't this last argument be applied equally to every installation on the closing list? Nope! Submarine bases must be on a coast, and aside from the three existing ones on the Atlantic, all the others are on the West Coast or in Hawaii or Guam, much too far away to give sufficient redundancy. As a last resort, military planes can use a civilian airport, and troops can live in tents. Nuclear submarines -- like very expensive high-performance sports cars -- are temperamental, needful beasts and don't possess these sorts of options. They and their crews must have New London.
 Email
this page to friends RSS feed
© 2005 Joe Buff. All opinions expressed
in this article are the author's and do not necessarily reflect
those of Military.com.
|
