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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.
He is also a novelist of tales of near-future
warfare featuring nuclear submariners and
Navy SEALs in action at their bravest and
best. Two of Joe's non-fiction articles on
future submarine technology and tactics, which
appeared in The Submarine Review, received
literary awards from the Naval Submarine League.
His recent novel Crush
Depth made the Military Book Club's
Top 20 Bestseller List after being selected
as a Featured Alternate of the Club in late
2002. Tidal
Rip was released from Wm. Morrow in
hardcover in November, 2003, and quickly made
the Amazon.com Top 100 General Thrillers Bestseller
List (paperback edition due in October, 2004).
Joe's next book, Straits
of Power, is scheduled for hardcover
publication in November, '04.
Joe is a member of the Society for Risk Analysis,
a non-partisan international scholarly body
headquartered in McLean, VA. He is a Life
Member of the following 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. 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. In
August, 2004, Joe was 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:
Straits
of Power
Tidal
Rip
Crush
Depth
Thunder
in the Deep
Deep
Sound Channel
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[Have an opinion on this column? Sound off in Military.com
at the Frontlines.]
Why should we care so much about submarines? Because their ability
to dwell right on station, long-term, silent, submerged -- using
sensors and probes to gather amazingly revealing signals intercepts
and other intell on a potential enemy -- means they vastly outperform
the best spy satellite constellation or swarms of recon drones.
Airborne platforms can't sneak peaks very far into the ocean well,
nor can they eavesdrop as effectively on transmitter antenna side-lobes
that always leak out and naturally duct along the earth's and ocean's
surface. What's more, due to their invisibility, SSNs can launch
torpedoes or cruise missiles with total surprise, even while lurking
far inside an adversary's home waters. Surface ships and aircraft
have trouble making similar claims -- and in war, surprise and stealth
are vital to force-protection and victory.
In a different context, subs working with a supercarrier (CVN)
strike group, staying in constant touch via breakthrough connectivity
methods, represents an impressively mobile and almost unassailable
bastion from which to project armed power for hundreds or thousands
of miles and in three dimensions. The compactness of the CVN's nuclear
propulsion plant, with its lack of appetite for external fuel, gives
the carrier immense tankage space from which to replenish conventionally
powered escorts, and allows gigantic ordnance storage capacity to
sustain an overwhelming offensive and defensive strike-group op
tempo.
But I see compelling reasons why the recent SSN "drought," and
a low projected future building rate, could hurt the Silent Service
and the U.S. Navy at large:
- There's a long lead time required to build one additional nuclear
submarine -- five or seven years from start to finish.
- There's a long lead time required to train in the basics, drill
incessantly, and harden for battle, the captain, other officers,
the chiefs, and other enlisted men, all needed to flesh out a
modern SSN's 120+ man crew.
- There's a short lag time beyond which many vital perishable
skills, in construction techniques and in operational tactics,
will grow rusty and then be irretrievably lost.
- There's a short lag time after which the role models and personal
word-of-mouth, for the inspiring traditions and practical wisdom
of seasoned submariners, will go stale and eventually wither beyond
recall.
These four points are especially important because some Pentagon
officials, and private-sector commentators (including me) believe
it's almost inevitable that the U.S. and our Allies will be forced
to fight another big shooting war sometime in the next twenty or
thirty years -- which if you think about it, is the same timeline
as the career of young people who enter the military today.
It's worth exploring a little further the needs and benefits that
nuclear subs fulfill for our national interests. I wrote some formal
prepared remarks on this topic for the SubVets luncheon. Let me
close by reproducing that same brief text here.
"Ongoing geopolitical events continue to remind us of vital old
lessons: The world is a volatile, dangerous place. Major combat
or controversial insurgencies in one arena can heighten tension
and instability everywhere, worldwide. Power vacuums thus created
will surely be exploited by heartless terrorists and ambitious dictators,
triggering more armed strife. International coalitions ebb and flow
unpredictably, while the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction
raises the stakes of diplomacy to a frightening degree. Permanent
changes are taking place in the threats to America and other countries.
These perilous trends require decisive action. Yet solutions are
impossible without well-trained personnel, proper equipment, and
flexible, forward-looking warfighting doctrine.
"Since their inception, in every era, submarines rank among the
most sophisticated weapons systems, and the most impressive benchmarks
of technology and engineering, achieved by the human race. Stunning
feats of courage by their crews, of sacrifice and endurance, loom
large on the pages of history.
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"The world's oceans are the world's highways for the transport
of goods and the conduct of commerce. The oceans are also barriers
to wholesale invasion by enemy troops, while providing us efficient
routes of access to spy on those enemies and aid our friends. But
those same open waters might also permit hostile infiltration of
our homeland by cells of evil-doers bent on havoc here. Mastery
of undersea warfare is therefore essential, for whoever controls
the ocean's depths controls its surface, and thus protects much
of the world. Seapower, strongly employed, is key to upholding peaceful
societies everywhere. But right now, do we take our free passage
through international waters too much for granted? Advanced submarine
technology is proliferating among countries who have not always
been our friends.
"Complacency, and too narrow a focus on obvious, current perils,
could prove to be fatal weaknesses long-term. For glaring questions
about the broad future of national defense, valid answers will be
critical to preserve democracy and freedom: Which gaps in our security
posture, or blind spots in our thinking, could be exploited in the
years to come by a shrewd, aggressive emerging Evil Empire or Axis
of Conspiracy? From what unexpected quarter might the next bloody
surprise attack fall? What sacrifices and feats of courage will
America and our Allies need to prevail in the almost inevitable,
eventual Next Big War? Perhaps the only certainty is that heroic
submariners will play an indispensable part in deterring that war,
or in winning it."
Happy Fiftieth Birthday, and many more, U.S. Nuclear Navy!
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© 2004 Joe Buff. All opinions expressed
in this article are the author's and do not necessarily reflect
those of Military.com.
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