Harry S. Truman Carrier Strike Group in the Atlantic Ocean, April 2019.
WASHINGTON: Navy Secretary Kenneth Braithwaite announced today he wants to establish a new fleet focused on the southwest Pacific and the Indian Ocean. That idea that will come as a surprise to the new Acting Defense Secretary, Christopher Miller, who hasn’t been told of the nascent plan.
A defense official confirmed to Breaking Defense that the idea for the First Fleet is Braithwaite’s, and he had previously discussed it with former Defense Secretary Mark Esper, who was fired by Trump last week. Esper was open to the idea, the official said.
It’s unclear how far along the planning is to actually stand up a new fleet, and Braithwaite acknowledged that his time in the Pentagon is coming to a close when the Biden administration is sworn in on Jan. 20. But he plans to use that time to sell his ideas. “Unfortunately, I don’t get a much longer stint in this seat,” he said, “but I got 60 days to go out now and really grasp the bully pulpit.”
It’s also not clear where the potential fleet might be based.
“We want to put that numbered fleet in the crossroads between the Indian and the Pacific oceans,” Braithwaite told a virtual audience attending a Naval Submarine League conference. “If we’re really gonna have an Indo-Pacom footprint, we can’t just rely on the Seventh Fleet in Japan. We have to look to our other allies and partners like Singapore, like India, and actually put a numbered fleet where it would be extremely relevant if — God forbid — we were ever to get in any kind of a dust up.”
The move would be a direct response to Chinese expansionism in the region and growing Chinese military might, which in many ways is centered around long-range missiles. The presumptive Biden Defense Secretary, Michele Flournoy, has expressed a willingness to meet that challenge head on.
“We have to have enough of an edge, that first and foremost we can deter China from attacking or endangering our vital interests and our allies. That means resolve,” Flournoy told Defense News recently.
More specifically, last October Flournoy said one of the issues the Pentagon needs to weigh going forward is “what capabilities would US naval and air forces need to credibly threaten to sink 300 military vessels, submarines, and merchant ships within 72 hours? Such a capability would certainly pose a fundamental dilemma for any great power contemplating aggression.”
Why cloud modernization is critical to multi-domain operations
JADC2 is a forcing function, driving digital transformation of network infrastructure.
Iran says it shot down Israel’s attack. Here’s what air defense systems it might have used.
Tehran has been increasingly public about its air defense capabilities, including showing off models of systems at a recent international defense expo.
