The Navy is nearing the end of a triplet of Future Fleet Architecture studies – conducted by MITRE Corporation, Center for Strategic and Budgetary Analysis (CSBA) and the Navy – to look at how new technologies and concepts may change the size and composition of the Navy in the mid-term. While the Navy has not yet released the details of the three studies, the general consensus is that the future fleet will have to be larger than today’s.

If the effort lines up with the how the Navy plots its ship and aviation needs “this is a good idea,” Bryan Clark, a naval analyst at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments and former aide to retired former Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jonathan Greenert, told USNI News on Wednesday…

As 2016 draws to a close, Navy Leadership is in possession of a great deal of Blue-ribbon thinking about fleet architecture and force structure, the result of Congressional direction contained in the 2016 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) and elsewhere.  Specifically, the Rand Corporation has submitted a study of the future of Aircraft carriers, and three separate  organizations (The Mitre Corporation, the Navy Staff (N81), and the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA) have submitted views of appropriate future fleet architectures. 

Bryan Clark, a naval analyst at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments told USNI News earlier this year that it's likely the Zumwalt-class ships will be called on for different missions than Burke-class destroyers.

Bryan Clark, a naval analyst at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, said Sunday's event was "very significant."

So far, so good. The U.S. military has a long history of absorbing new technology, but struggles to adapt its organizational constructs for the best application of that technology. One of the areas Deputy Secretary Work discussed at the Air Force Association was the military’s lack of focus on electromagnetic warfare.