[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 93 (Thursday, June 8, 1995)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1177-E1179]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


             SUPPORT THE NAVY'S SUBMARINE MODERNIZATION PLAN

                                 ______


                           HON. SAM GEJDENSON

                             of connecticut

                    in the house of representatives

                         Wednesday, June 7, 1995
  Mr. GEJDENSON. Mr. Speaker, I encourage my colleagues to read the 
article below from this month's issue of Sea Power Magazine, which 
underscores the need for Congress to support the Navy's submarine 
modernization plan. The article was written by James Courter, former 
Congressman and chairman of the BRAC Commission, and Loren Thompson, 
executive director of the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution.
  The timing of this article could not be better as Congress debates 
the Navy's plan to complete the third Seawolf and continue design work 
on the follow-on less expensive new attack submarine. I urge all my 
colleagues to read this informative article and to support the Navy's 
submarine plan.
  The article follows:
               The Next Submarine--And the One After That

                 (By James Courter and Loren Thompson)

       In the years since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the future 
     of the Navy's submarine construction program has become 
     somewhat uncertain. The service has taken several steps to 
     adjust to the diminished threat, including scaling back the 
     program to build Seawolf-class nuclear-powered attack 
     submarines (SSNs). In the late 1989s the Navy was planning to 
     build as many as 29 Seawolfs; the program now has been cut 
     back to a mere three boats. Meanwhile, the Navy has initiated 
     the design of a less expensive follow-on attack submarine, 
     and has concentrated its new submarine construction work at 
     the General Dynamics Electric Boat (GD/EB) shipyard in 
     Groton, Conn.
       Despite these efforts, critics in Congress and elsewhere 
     have urged that additional changes are needed. Some favor 
     termination of the third ship of the Seawolf class. Others 
     believe that all construction of nuclear-powered ships, 
     aircraft carriers as well as submarines, should be carried 
     out at one location. And still others argue that the Navy 
     should build at least some diesel-powered submarines rather 
     than the more expensive nuclear boats.
       Despite the critics, a careful examination of recent 
     history, current technological trends, and prospective 
     geopolitical developments builds a compelling case for the 
     continued production of SSNs as a reasonable trade-off 
     between future military requirements, current geopolitical 
     uncertainties, and continuing constraints on resources.


                           back to the future

       Although the United States fought two world wars prior to 
     the full emergence of Soviet military power in the late 
     1940s, many policy-makers apparently believe the earlier 
     threats of this
      century--including the Soviet threat--have no relevance to 
     current or future U.S. security needs. But there is, in 
     fact, a common thread that links all the great military 
     threats of the twentieth century to all of the others, and 
     to the equally imposing challenges that America may face 
     in the foreseeable future.
       That common thread is geopolitical uncertainty. Three times 
     in the twentieth century, anti-democratic coalitions sought 
     to dominate Eurasia. The imperialist threat posed by Germany 
     and Austria Hungary was followed by fascist aggression 
     mounted by Germany and Japan, which gave way to communist-
     sponsored subversion and political upheaval emanating from 
     the USSR and Communist China. These three challenges largely 
     defined U.S. defense policy and spending patterns in the 
     twentieth century.
       Such threats were not unanticipated in the nineteenth 
     century. Geopolitical theorists such as Halford Mackinder and 
     Alfred Thayer Mahan had noted the disproportionate 
     concentration of people and material resources in Eurasia, 
     and correctly concluded that insular powers such as the 
     United States must possess the political, economic, and 
     military strength needed to ensure their access to what 
     Mackinder called the ``world island.'' To allow one power, or 
     a coalition of powers, the theorists argued, to control the 
     Eurasian landmass might set the stage for domination of the 
     whole world. During the Cold War, the strategy of assuring 
     access to Eurasia--and of preventing Soviet and Chinese 
     control of it--was christened ``containment'' by George 
     Kennan. But the basic geopolitical roots of the Cold War 
     containment policy differed little from the strategic 
     considerations that in earlier times had drawn the United 
     States into global conflicts against imperialism and fascism.
       American seapower played a central role in enabling the 
     United States to execute its containment strategy, just as it 
     played an important part in the efforts of U.S. foes--Germany 
     and Japan in World War II and the [[Page E1178]] USSR in the 
     Cold War--to defeat that strategy. Even after the advent of 
     intercontinental aircraft, control of the sea lanes remained 
     essential to U.S. economic prosperity and national security. 
     In
      fact, the relevance of seapower has increased dramatically 
     as the U.S. economy has become increasingly linked to the 
     economies of Europe and Asia--and, not incidentally, also 
     has become more and more dependent on energy resources, 
     such as Middle East oil, and other vital raw materials 
     available only, or primarily, from foreign suppliers. The 
     breakup of the Soviet Union into numerous republics--four 
     of them armed with nuclear weapons--has not significantly 
     altered this reality.
       What it has altered, though, is the sense of urgency among 
     U.S. decision-makers about the need to preserve naval forces 
     adequate to safeguard freedom of the seas and to protect U.S. 
     interests overseas. The United States is currently engaged in 
     its third great demobilization of the twentieth century--and, 
     although this one has been more gradual than those following 
     the world wars, it seems to be based on the same assumption 
     that great-power threats to U.S. national security are a 
     thing of the past. The current U.S. defense posture thus is 
     predicated in large part on the expectation that U.S. forces 
     will face no future military challenge more imposing than 
     regional conflict. The budgetary result has been a massive 
     demobilization and downsizing of the force structure. As an 
     ancillary consequence, the U.S. defense production base, 
     including the shipbuilding and aerospace industries, and 
     their suppliers, also has been seriously weakened.


                      The Relevance of Submarines

       Nowhere is this fact more apparent than in the building of 
     nuclear submarines. Thirty years ago, there were half a dozen 
     public and private shipyards in the United States capable of 
     building submarines. Today, there are two--and soon there may 
     only be one. The Navy's current submarine construction plan 
     calls for building a single nuclear-powered attack submarine 
     at General Dynamics Electric Boat every other year into the 
     next decade.
       This minimal production rate, combined with the accelerated 
     retirement of boats now in the active fleet, will, by the 
     turn of the century, reduce the Navy's SSN fleet to a force 
     of only 45 to 55 ships. (The Clinton administration's Nuclear 
     Posture Review also has recommended retention of 14 Trident 
     ballistic missile submarines (SSBN's) to serve as the core of 
     the nation's nuclear deterrent.)
       Many defense analysts have pointed out that the presently 
     contemplated rate of submarine construction is not sufficient 
     to sustain even the much-reduced operational now force 
     planned. Assuming a service life of 30 years for each boat, a 
     build rate of one new submarine every other year would 
     eventually produce a fleet of only 15 submarines. However, 
     because the current inventory of operational SSNs exceeds the 
     established requirement, the Navy does not plan to address 
     the production-rate issue until early in the next century. 
     For the time being, its main concern is simply to ensure that 
     a submarine design and production base is preserved. And 
     concern is warranted: If even one submarine is dropped from 
     the current minimal-construction plan for replacement SSNs, 
     the production base for nuclear-powered submarines may indeed 
     collapse.
       The relevance of attack submarines to future U.S. national 
     security requirements is based primarily on the continuing 
     requirement to guarantee U.S. access to Eurasia, and recent 
     history suggests that major new threats to the stability of 
     the world island could emerge in the relatively near future--
     initially, perhaps, in the form of regional aggression. The 
     question that arises in that context concerns the future role 
     of nuclear-powered attack submarines.


                      instability and persistence

       The most obvious such role revolves around the traditional 
     mission of maintaining control of the world's sea lanes. By 
     countering enemy submarines and surface combatants, attack 
     submarines assure the safe ocean transit of U.S. and allied 
     naval and merchant vessels. Because of the general decline in 
     Russian military power, that mission may seem to be perhaps 
     less critical in the mid-1900s than it was during the Cold 
     War. But U.S. naval intelligence officials have warned that 
     ``the bear still swims''--and have backed up that statement 
     with hard evidence. The Russians continue to build several 
     new submarines per year, and they have made significant 
     progress in matching--in some cases surpassing--the 
     stealthiness of U.S. submarines, even while they cut back 
     drastically on many other components of their military power. 
     The present instability of the Russian regime, and the 
     persistence of anti-Western, anti-democratic political 
     attitudes in Russia, both strongly suggest that the United 
     States should not allow itself to fall behind Russia's 
     technological achievements in the underwater arena.
       A related and potentially more ominous development to which 
     the
      Russians--and several U.S. allies--have contributed is the 
     rapid proliferation of non-nuclear submarine technologies 
     to developing countries. There are now over 600 submarines 
     deployed around the world, operational in the navies of 
     more than 40 countries. Not all of those submarines pose a 
     direct threat to U.S. use of the sea lanes, but a growing 
     number do. In recent years, Russia and various Western 
     nations have agreed to sell diesel-electric submarines to, 
     among other countries--not all of them friendly to the 
     United States--China, Egypt, India, Iran, Pakistan, and 
     Syria. In addition, several of the more developed nations 
     of the Third World have begun or are beginning to develop 
     an indigenous capacity to produce diesel-electric or even 
     nuclear-powered submarines.
       The problem posed by the proliferation of submarine 
     technology is today more embryonic than urgent, but the pace 
     of proliferation, combined with the strategic location of 
     several recent purchasers of modern submarines, is worrisome. 
     It would require only a few submarines to close the Straits 
     of Gibraltar or the Straits of Hormuz--which would be likely 
     targets of Libya and Iran, respectively, in the event of 
     future conflict. Continued U.S. access to Middle East oil, 
     and to Asian and European markets, demands that the U.S. Navy 
     be prepared to deter or counter major new submarine threats. 
     The current U.S. submarine program is for that reason aimed 
     primarily at developing and building the submarine platforms, 
     sensors, and weapons needed to track and destroy submarines 
     that in the future will be faster, more lethal, and, above 
     all, increasingly stealthy.


                            land-attack ssns

       A second key role that attack submarines will in all 
     likelihood be assigned in the future is the delivery of 
     precision firepower against land targets ashore. The 
     precedent for this mission is well-established in the fleet 
     of SSBNs, which have for so long been the most survivable 
     ``leg'' of the U.S. strategic nuclear triad, and which have 
     as their primary if not exclusive mission the destruction of 
     enemy ICBM (intercontinental ballistic missile) silos, air 
     bases, and other strategic land targets. In the future, 
     though, the parallel capability of SSNs to launch 
     conventional cruise missiles against land targets may play a 
     greater role in U.S. naval strategy and tactics. Because of 
     the loss of U.S. bases overseas and the need in recent years, 
     as a result of budget cuts, to ``gap'' forward-deployed Navy 
     battle groups in
      waters adjacent to areas of potential crisis, it may become 
     increasingly necessary for the Navy to rely on submarines 
     to compensate for the absence of surface combatants and 
     tactical naval aviation.
       The vulnerability of surface ships to the increasingly 
     sophisticated cruise missiles, land-based as well as sea-
     based, possessed by so many Third World nations and regional 
     powers also will require submarines to play a growing role in 
     the land-attack mission. A recent war game at the U.S. Naval 
     War College in Newport, R.I., demonstrated that a U.S. 
     surface fleet could suffer severe losses to land-based cruise 
     missiles.
       There is nothing hypothetical about this threat; it is 
     already a very real and increasingly difficult problem. A 
     long-time U.S. ally, France, currently is developing a 
     stealthy, long-range cruise missile called the Apache that 
     will be able to use a direct link to reconnaissance 
     satellites for guidance. While the French have no plans to 
     export the new missile, it is clearly only a matter of time 
     before all of the key technologies--stealth, cruise missiles, 
     realtime satellite reconnaissance--are available to other 
     industrialized countries and, probably, to some lesser-
     developed nations as well.
       Such trends in the capabilities of weapons will require 
     parallel changes in the operating tactics and battle 
     doctrines of all the world's navies. As it becomes 
     increasingly necessary for major surface combantants and 
     auxiliaries to remain further offshore, the ability of 
     submarines to elude detection will enhance their usefulness 
     in the land-attack role. Indeed, some observers already 
     believe that the capacity of submarines to remain stealthy 
     will make the attack submarine the true capital ship of the 
     next century.
       Submarines probably also will retain the various ancillary 
     missions, such as reconnaissance and the insertion of 
     special-operations forces, that they assumed--or that were 
     thrust upon them--during the Cold War. While such roles may 
     not in themselves justify spending a billion dollars or more 
     for a nuclear-powered attack submarine, they are a useful 
     complement to the submarine's primary mission and thus, by 
     helping to amortize the SSN's operating as well as initial-
     construction costs, would be a key factor in the overall 
     cost/benefit equation.


                     Maintaining an Adequate Force

       Despite recurrent reports throughout the Cold War that new 
     technology was about to render the oceans transparent, U.S. 
     submarines have remained
      exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, for adversaries to 
     track and target, thanks primarily to the Navy's long-term 
     and continuing effort to improve the stealthiness of its 
     submarines. Although the sensitivity and signal-processing 
     capabilities of potential adversaries' sonar systems have 
     improved significantly, they have not managed to match the 
     pace of ``quieting'' U.S. submarines. Experts are nearly 
     unanimous in believing that American submarines can remain 
     ahead in the survivability race--but only for as long as 
     the Navy continues a reasonably vigorous technology 
     program to maintain--or, preferably, enhance--the stealth 
     of its own submarines.
       Unfortunately, the survivability of U.S. submarines is only 
     half of the combat equation. The other half is the 
     survivability of enemy submarines, a matter about which the 
     U.S. Navy has good reason to be worried. The newest Russian 
     submarines have actually [[Page E1179]] surpassed the 
     quietness of the most advanced, quietest, and most survivable 
     boats--the Los Angeles-class SSNs--now in the U.S. active 
     fleet. The threat posed by Russia's stealthy Akula-class SSNs 
     imposes new and unprecedented demands on U.S. sensors and 
     weapons. Thus, despite its temporary surplus of nuclear-
     powered attack submarines, the United States has two 
     compelling reasons to build new and even more advanced SSNs: 
     (a) it must preserve the stealthiness of its own submarines; 
     and (b) it must overcome the stealthiness of the most 
     advanced foreign-built submarines.
       The Seawolf SSN program, and the follow-on new attack 
     submarine (NSSN)--scheduled to begin construction in 1998--
     are intended to meet both of these needs. The NSSN will 
     incorporate the advanced quieting, sensor, and weapons 
     technology of the Seawolf in a less expensive hull that is 
     more compatible with anticipated future budgetary 
     limitations. Although it will cost considerably less than the 
     Seawolf, it will be able to accomplish all of the post-Cold 
     War missions, including the land-attack mission, envisioned 
     for U.S. attack submarines.
       The pace of development for the NSSN will not allow 
     construction of the first of the class to begin any earlier 
     than 1998, however. The Navy already has committed $900 
     million to the construction of a third Seawolf submarine, and 
     in the fiscal year 1996 defense budget is seeking the 
     remaining $1.5 billion needed to complete it. That common-
     sense economic rationale is not, of course, the only reason 
     the Navy wants to complete construction:
      The third Seawolf will contribute significantly to future 
     seapower capabilities, and will help satisfy a Joint 
     Chiefs of Staff requirement for at least 10 to 12 
     submarines with Seawolf-quality stealthiness by 2012.


                      the budgetary/risk tradeoff

       A recent study of the U.S. submarine production base by the 
     Rand Corporation concluded that little money would be saved 
     by allowing a production gap to develop in the construction 
     of new submarines. The risks, though, would be considerable. 
     The third Seawolf illustrates this finding clearly. The cost 
     of the boat will be $2.4 billion, of which $900 million is 
     already obligated. Since it will cost at least that much more 
     to terminate contracts and shut down production of the third 
     boat, the Navy faces the choice of spending: (a) nearly $2 
     billion, with nothing to show for it; or (b) $2.4 billion, to 
     get a very capable submarine.
       Its decision to embrace the latter option is driven, 
     though, not only by the budgetary arithmetic, but also by the 
     urgent need to preserve the nation's ability to build 
     submarines. Consolidation of all nuclear-ship production at 
     Newport News Shipbuilding--builder of the Navy's nuclear-
     powered carriers and other surface combatants, as well as 
     more than three dozen SSNs and SSBNs--would not only reduce 
     the U.S. nuclear shipbuilding industrial base to one yard, 
     but also would deprive the nation of the pre-eminent 
     submarine integration facility at Electric Boat, and of a 
     highly skilled work force as well.
       It might at some future date be considered necessary, for 
     strictly budgetary reasons, to consolidate all nuclear 
     construction at one yard--but to do so would mean a loss of 
     flexibility and of surge capacity, and would entail some 
     serious national security risks as well.
       Fortunately, that decision does not have to be made this 
     year. The overwhelming case for completing the SSN-23 gives 
     the Navy, and Congress, the time needed for a detailed and 
     much more comprehensive study of the cost/benefit tradeoffs 
     involved in making what would be an irreversible change in 
     the long-term U.S. submarine construction program. For at 
     least the time being, though, the Navy itself apparently has 
     concluded that it makes more sense to keep nuclear submarine 
     production at its preferred source, Electric boat, while 
     maintaining the construction of nuclear-powered surface ships 
     at Newport News Ship-building.
       The near-term costs of such an approach are outweighed, the 
     Navy says, by the overriding national security need to ensure 
     the preservation of an adequate industrial base. The Navy's 
     industrial plans for submarines are in that respect similar 
     to its military plans. Both focus on the long term, because 
     it is assumed that the long term is when major new threats to 
     national security may arise. A long-term approach may, of 
     course, create certain near-term budgetary pressures, but 
     those pressures reflect the service's unwillingness to 
     sacrifice its enduring requirements in order to address the 
     more transitory concerns of the moment. Considering the 
     evidence of the recent past and the global trends evident 
     today in technology and politics, it is hard to argue with 
     such an approach.
     

                          ____________________