Adm. Caudle, chief of naval operations, outlines ‘hedge’ strategy to maintain U.S. dominance

by · The Washington Times

The U.S. is currently incapable of building ships faster than China, so the head of the U.S. Navy is pushing a next-generation doctrine of smarter force packaging and autonomous system integration to sustain American naval dominance globally.

U.S. Navy Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Daryl Caudle says beating Beijing on the shipbuilding front may not be feasible in the near term, because it would require production “at a higher rate than we have previously done.”

“I can’t outbuild, certainly China, I can’t outbuild the rest of the Navy’s problems,” Adm. Caudle said in an exclusive video interview with The Washington Times’ Threat Status platform.

“That’s just not a strategy that I think is even a viable one,” he said in the Threat Status Influencers video published on Thursday.

While China has in recent years surpassed the U.S. in total ship numbers, with an estimated 370 Chinese naval ships compared to the roughly 295 American ships, the U.S. Navy maintains considerably superior power projection. The American force is bolstered by a fleet of larger, more advanced aircraft carriers and other dominant world-traversing vessels.

However, concerns are great in U.S. national security circles about the Pentagon’s ability to maintain global naval dominance in the face of China’s thriving shipbuilding capacity and Beijing’s outspoken goal of developing a “world-class” navy by 2050.

SPECIAL COVERAGE: Threat Status Influencers Videos

Adm. Caudle outlined his proposed naval strategy in this year’s U.S. Navy Fighting Instructions, released in February. The document details strategic guidance aimed at enhancing lethality and adaptability against future rivals.

One of the core principles is what Adm. Caudle called the “hedge” strategy, which includes heavy investment in diverse technologies such as unmanned and electronic warfare systems to offset possible advantages rival nations have in building traditional ships.

Advertisement Advertisement

“I have about 300 ships and I’ve got a lot of problems — I’m oversubscribed in my problem set for my navy size,” Adm. Caudle said, arguing the solution is to ask, “Is there a way to go optimize what I have in a more sophisticated way than basically just carrier strike groups?”

Adm. Caudle pointed to nuclear-armed submarines as an example of how a relatively small slice of the U.S. Navy can deliver strategic benefits disproportionate to its size. Roughly 8%, 14 submarines, carry the entire sea-based nuclear deterrence mission for the U.S.

Special Operations Task Forces, elite military units designed for time-sensitive and high-risk missions, were also cited by Adm. Caudle as examples of the kind of U.S. military using a mix of highly mobile assets to stay ahead of a threat.

But perhaps most important for Adm. Caudle is the mass adoption of autonomous systems for use in future battlefields, especially in highly sensitive areas like the Strait of Hormuz or the Taiwan Strait.

Adm. Caudle argued for a “tailored set of unmanned forces” that could be deployed to those areas in massive numbers, in the event of an enemy offensive, that would cause the maximum amount of damage while giving U.S. and allied forces time to position traditional ships.

Advertisement Advertisement

“A Taiwan scenario is not the only place where that type of capability would be needed. You might think of that in any choke point. That may be a capability I’d want in the [strait] there at the end of the Red Sea or in the Strait of Hormuz or anywhere else,” he said. “While the use case started with perhaps thinking about the Taiwan problem, you can see how we have generalized that now.”

To make that strategy effective, however, the U.S. military needs to increase its efforts to standardize the language of command across an increasingly mixed force of unmanned and manned systems, Amd. Caudle said.

He said the concept of “mission command” is being inconsistently misunderstood across the joint force, and a tiered structure of delegated autonomy under an Enhanced Mission Command Framework could reduce the mental stack for leaders. The framework would distribute authority through clearly defined roles and responsibilities.

“So if I want to go program an unmanned system, I can give it a delegated autonomy level as well. So now I’ve got an approach, by these tier autonomy levels. And I can talk about how I’m delegating to a smart bomb all the way up to talking about how I delegate to a strike group and get everybody on the same page from the lexicon,” Adm. Caudle said.

Advertisement Advertisement

But the U.S. capacity to surge, or build capable ships at scale, is not where it needs to be, Amd. Caudle said, which is a severe issue even if a diverse and tailored approach were effective.

Amd. Caudle praised President Trump’s efforts to revitalize U.S. shipbuilding with the “Restoring America’s Maritime Domination” executive order signed in February. The 42-page document outlines the administration’s desires to expand U.S. shipbuilding to more than 1% of global ship construction that can support military and commercial enterprises.

“I think the president is rightly recognizing that we need a renaissance and a resurgence in shipbuilding in our country,” he said. “Not only commercial ships, but combat ships as well, auxiliaries and unmanned. All of that needs to be built at a higher rate than we have previously done. That’s going to require a lot of change to get that done correctly.”

• Vaughn Cockayne can be reached at vcockayne@washingtontimes.com.

• Guy Taylor can be reached at gtaylor@washingtontimes.com.

Story Topics