An influential think-tank has unveiled a vision of a future US Navy strike group composed of two aircraft carriers and supporting ships with 110 aircraft, including new requirements for a stealthy attack unmanned air system (UAS) and a manned fighter optimized for the air-to-air mission. The report released on 28 February by the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments received the endorsement of Senator John McCain, the powerful chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, as the Trump administration and Republican leaders in Congress plot the shape of a new military build-up.

Bryan Clark, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, suggests, however, that more naval power could give Trump flexibility to operate in international waters, a move far less provocative (and one that requires much less infrastructure) than sending in U.S. ground forces.

If, for instance, the United States deployed Navy battleships to the Baltic Sea, Moscow would undoubtedly balk at the U.S. presence off its coast, but there is very little they could or would do about it, says Clark, who recently completed a study on the needs for a future naval feet. A deployment of ground troops to the region, meanwhile, would be seen as a provocation and a more permanent presence, he says. 

“Part of the discussion might be that the president may want a better negotiating position,” Clark says. “Having more military force at his disposal gives us more strength when bargaining with the Russians.”

McCain praised the conclusion of both the CSBA and MITRE studies that the Navy should halt procurement of Littoral Combat Ships and future frigates as soon as possible, and instead move toward a more powerful small surface combatant design. McCain has been a frequent critic of the LCS program. McCain was particularly impressed by the "comprehensiveness" of the CSBA study, according to his statement. He said CSBA's study should be the "starting point for the new administration's review of naval forces." President Trump campaigned on a goal of building the Navy from its current size of about 270 ships up to 350 vessels. "It proposes necessary new strategic, operational, basing, and force structure recommendations that deserve immediate consideration by Navy leaders," McCain said. The CSBA study makes a host of recommendations, perhaps most notably moving away from the Navy's current basing strategy and instead creating a forward deployed set of "deterrence forces" to be augmented with a "maneuver force" in the event of a crisis.

Another alternative structure, developed by Bryan Clark at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, proposes a fleet architecture “to provide the United States an advantage in great power competition with China and Russia or against capable and strategically located regional powers such as Iran.”…

The root of the CSBA study was based on how the U.S. would face armed conflict with China or Russia, which are “probably going to be the defining characteristics of the Navy of the future,” lead author Bryan Clark told USNI News on Friday. The study plays up the speed to which expeditionary forces can arrive in conflict areas and spreads out the Navy’s offensive power away from a few heavily armed carrier strike groups. The plan includes light carriers paired with amphibious ready groups and full-sized air defense-capable multi-mission frigates and introduces a new small anti-ship guided-missile corvette to give the enemy more targets to handle in a major conflict. For example, the corvette, which could resemble the small Visby-class used in the Swedish Navy, would field a limited air defense capability like the Enhanced SeaSparrow Missile and four to eight anti-ship missiles.

With advanced targeting, missiles and other advanced tools at the disposal of rising and resurging adversaries, the U.S. Navy must rethink the way it structures its carrier fleet with an emphasis on legacy full-scale aircraft carriers and a new breed of smaller carriers. With advanced targeting, missiles and other advanced tools at the disposal of rising and resurging adversaries, the U.S. Navy must rethink the way it structures its carrier fleet with an emphasis on legacy full-scale aircraft carriers and a new breed of smaller carriers, the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessment (CSBA) says in a recent report.