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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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News item 2: Canada for years debated whether to acquire one or more nuclear submarines, but decided they were simply too expensive for that country's needs. Instead, after negotiation, Canada purchased from the Royal Navy four mothballed diesel subs of the Upholder class -- which Canada redesignated the Victoria class. (The U.K. had decided, for its own strategic reasons, to make its fleet of submarines be all nuclear powered.) Tragically, shortly after the last of the refurbished subs to change hands set sail for home (to Halifax) across the Atlantic Ocean from England, she suffered a serious fire -- some reports say two separate fires. The HMCS Chicoutimi, as she is now called, was badly damaged, and one crewman died from the effects of smoke inhalation. Boards of inquiry are convening between British and Canadian officials. Already questions are being raised in the open media about the physical state upon delivery of the ex-Upholders, said by some news reports to have been troubled by leaks, corrosion, faulty equipment, and even a large dent in one hull. But bigger questions are coming out as well: Should the $900 million Canadian dollars spent to buy the four Victorias have been invested in the Canadian military in some other, better way than acquiring submarines? And if subs were the things to be bought, why weren't more modern, more capable vessels purchased, say, from Germany? Germany exports state-of-the-art diesel subs that include air independent propulsion systems, allowing the sub to run deep and quiet for much longer than a conventional diesel boat like the Upholders ever could. I wonder, was the prospect of a British Commonwealth nation buying what amount to next-generation U-boats somehow culturally unpalatable, given ghosts from two Battles of the Atlantic long past? If this was indeed a factor, should such retro thinking be allowed to cost more lives, or even (conceivably, in a future big shooting war) be permitted to cost a nation its freedom and sovereignty via seapower failures?
News item 3: This one also has to do, coincidentally, with submarines. The U.S. Navy and the Swedish Navy are now in discussions for the U.S. to have a Swedish diesel sub, with air-independent propulsion as mentioned above, home-ported for a while in San Diego. The specific purpose of this arrangement would be to let U.S. nuclear submariners practice and test tactics against a highly-skilled target "terrorist sub." The Swedish Gotland A-19 class boat would intentionally lurk along the American West Coast shore, amid the hectic commercial shipping, islands and shoals, oil and gas drilling platforms, and other sonar and physical clutter for which littoral zones are infamous. (The Swedes have demonstrated superb abilities in such undersea environments, chasing numerous Soviet subs away from their home waters and naval bases during the Cold War.) This arrangement has not yet been approved by either country, but it's already creating political and public relation problems. Sweden right now operates only five submarines in its Navy. As respected naval commentator A. D. Baker III has pointed out, to rent a fifth of your submarine strength to another country, for prolonged use two oceans away, might call into question whether the other four-fifths of your submarine fleet is really needed. The proposal is also raising for the umpteenth time the question of why doesn't the U.S. Navy buy diesel subs instead of nuclear subs, since the diesel boats are cheaper (starting around $300 million, compared to over $1 billion). The short answer is that diesel boats, even with air-independent propulsion, badly lack the cruising range and sustained speed required to protect American strategic interests globally. One indirect proof of this, perhaps, is that the Swedish sub would be transported to San Diego about a heavy-lift surface ship, of the same sort that carried the damaged destroyer USS Cole home from Aden for major repairs, at Ingalls, on Mississippi's Gulf Coast.
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Deciding on a total defense budget, agreeing on how much should go toward buying new equipment and platforms, then splitting that cash between branches of the armed forces, and splitting it again into different types of weapons systems within each branch, is the subject of politics, statecraft, lobbying, military doctrine, and national strategic vision. All of these are controversial matters, to say the least. They're simultaneously top-down and bottom-up, intermingled confusingly. They amount to something of a zero sum game, too, meaning there are winners and losers among different programs -- just like there are winners and losers in war. Guidance can come from computer models and wargame simulations, but these are only as good as the assumptions that users put in and the conclusions that interpreters and referees take out. Ultimately, to get things right may call for the wisdom of Solomon, something I've yet to hear a single participant in the military-industrial budgeting process ever claim to have. That being said, our nation and our navy will have to do the best they can with what they've got, and with what more they can get in the near-term. But asking the right hard questions is a good start.
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© 2004 Joe Buff. All opinions expressed
in this article are the author's and do not necessarily reflect
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