“If you want to learn something new,” a mentor once told me, “read a new book.”
Or see an old movie – in this case, it might be titled, “Brownwater Navy: Back to the Future Part IV”
“It’s our job to close the seam that insurgents and other irreconcilables have been using to get men, supplies and weapons to Baghdad,” said Cmdr. Glen Leverette, who oversees a boat squad based at Haditha Dam and squads that go to the Euphrates from bases at Qaim and Taqaddum.
“We want them to know that the water is no longer a safe haven.”
In a throwback to the days of Swift boats in Vietnam, the Navy has a dozen patrol boats prowling the Euphrates and this immense reservoir dotted with small islands and fishing villages along the shore.
On one end of the mission stick we’re running an advertising campaign as an international humanitarian rescue and assistance force. Opposite that end a Mahanian fleet-in-being trembles at the leash, looking for an adversary worthy of its firepower. Smack in the middle we’ve made a significant financial, personnel and cultural investment in close quarters combat power of the Navy Expeditionary Combat Command.
Depending upon your point of view, I guess you could call that a balanced and adaptive force capable of responding appropriately across the full spectrum of operations from presence, through peacekeeping to proportionate application of kinetic fires small, medium and massive. Alternatively you could see in this a service gone looking for a mission.
Either way you look at it, it looks expensive.
Gen. Krulak’s Three-block war; except this block’s under water. When we’ve decided to swallow a capabilities-based system that desires the full spectrum at our beck and call, you have to be able to do (and pay for) anyting. Anything? Aaaanyting, baby.
I can certainly see the need for the riverene force in Iraq right now. Iraq has several large lakes that need patroling, as well as the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.
But, what will we use them for after we stand up Iraq’s river patrol force, or when they’re no longer needed in Iraq? I guess we can use them for port security and Naval base security stateside… but it just seems like an awfuly specialized force with limited usefulness.
Jim C
This is what the USCG is good at and trains for. Much of the brown water “Navy” was actually USCG. My son is qualified as a tactical coxswain and getting ready to take more tactical boat work training. He is qualified on a 33 ft boat that has 3 – 275hp Yamaha outboards (plus several others).
People forget that many of the landing craft were crewed by USCG in WWII. And the bigger flag on Iwo came from a USCG landing craft.
USCG needs more money and people but they still know small boat operations and tactics.
Riverene warfare is one arm of litorial warfare. Facing an asymetrical threat composed of Boghammer attacks on shipping, mine warefare, and the use of coastal and river waters as military highways, is what the Navy is more likely to confront than fleet action or power priojection to a hostile state. As noted here before the Brown Water Navy gets reinvented at regular intervals-now would it not make more sense to keep such a force in place andd not have the other services have to gin up expedients when the need is found? BTW I don’t know much about the current conflict but the USCG did not have a presence in the Riverene warfare environment in Viet-Nam. They operated in a coastal interdiction environment. And Capt. Lex,ya need the birdfarms too, nuttin like calling in a F4 strike for close support! Just another sailor from Ben Keo.
It’s just a small shoe box in the middle of the road in comparison to the cost of an F-18, much less a squadron of that lot and less than nothing in comparison to a strike group of any flavor.
Cost is relative.
Didn’t Corbett mention the importance of full-spectrum naval operations about 100 years ago?
OFS,
You make some really good points. It seems to me that we should be re-evaluating what ships will make up the navy of the future.
Certainly we will need the types of ships we have now, but maybe in different ratios. For instance, should we add more LHD’s to allow for the expected use of the VSTOL JSF by the Marines. Should we add more Carriers to allow for increased use of airpower? Should we expand our special forces insertion capability given the likelyhood of seeing them used more in the types of wars we’re likely to be fighting.
At the same time, it seems to me it would be foolish to degrade our “big war” capability. I feel (and there are a lot smarter people than me that agree) that sooner or later we will face a war with a China or North Korea. To not have the capability to fight a big power war would be disasterous in such a situation.
Jim C
#6 Mike – Corbett also said that “men live upon the land and not upon the sea,” meaning that warfare on the latter was less important and less decisive than the former.
Our current period of tight budgets, military overextension, slowing GDP, and uncertain and undefined future threats and adversaries dictate both a reduced and a selected, rather than a “full spectrum” of naval operations, regardless of perceived need. The finite and growingly scarce appropriations will by necessity, mostly go elsewhere.
I know a young officer that was in charge of the 2nd Navy riverine boat crew into Iraq. You are right Lex in that it is a service gone looking for a mission but, it sure seems that they are doing it well. Prior to the Navy dealing with brown water in this current conflict, the Marines and even the Army were fielding crews. It just seems natural to me that Navy should carry the ball on this.
According to the young man I know, nothing was spared in training and equip for the Navy crews. That is how it should be.
His crew was up by Haditha Dam. They all went in and all came back after their tour. The parents, our friends, breathed a sigh of relief…
GO NAVY!!!
As for the comment that the USCG might be better able to handle this type of surveillence and interdiction, I would very much like to see our “Coast Guard” guard our coast… You might be right that they are better able at small boat handling, however I think they have a lot on their plate right here along our shore. The Coast Guard is our last defense against our homeland via the waterways and I would really appreciate it if their expertise were used at home. In addition, there is no “grey area” regarding the deployment of the Coast Guard in our soverign waters as opposed to using the Navy in soverign waters or the Army on our soil.
This is the first time I have commented with the “shot clock” running… It makes me a little nervous!
(Frantically re-reading, having never learned how to spell check a comment, hoping time doesn’t run out and the buzzer sounds… No good, loser NEEEEE)
For just one account of USCG operating in a river environment see this article by Admiral Yost from Naval Institute PROCEEDINGS http://www.military.com/NewContent/0,13190,NI_1004_Boat-P1,00.html the title of which is Swift Boats: Hard Day on the Bo De.
As for current operations I believe that currently there are 6 – 110 ft cutters operating in the Gulf plus other resources.
I agree that the USCG needs more just to do the job it already has to do.
Larry – I couldn’t agree with you more. I recently read something about the fact that our Coast Guard is fielding the oldest fleet in the world??? Maybe I’m wrong but, if it is true, it is a disgrace.
“As for current operations I believe that currently there are 6 – 110 ft cutters operating in the Gulf plus other resources.”
My wish is that the Coast Guard would come home and leave foreign battles to the Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force. We need the Coast Guard on our shores protecting our waters from attack. I am reminded of just prior to 9-11 there was a lot of talk about closing down Coast Guard stations around NYC. The thinking was that the Coast Guard station in central New Jersey could respond to an emergency. Looking back on that discussion, I think any reasonable citizen would conclude that it was terribly foolish talk…
I would argue that Riverine Warfare is one of the USN’s historical core missions…
I wonder why the Marines have never suggested that they take over the Riverine Patrol mission – it actually sounds like it would be up their alley.
I wonder why the Marines have never suggested that they take over the Riverine Patrol mission
They did in Colombia. Thats where the SURC came from.
The truth of the matter is that these top notch sailors are being traing by Coasties at the Coast Guard Special Missions Training Center. Perhaps, that in and of itself is fairly indicative of here this mission belongs. Couple that with the “cop on the beat” nature of the majority of these “presence” patrols and I wonder if most folks realize just how perishable a skill this missionreally is. eventually those motivated JO”s and PO’s are going to have to return to the blue water fold possibly to never use these specialized skills again. Whereas a Coasty could use them and and maintain proficiency their entire career.