Congressional Research Service { The Library of Congress
CRS Report for Congress
Received through the CRS Web
Order Code RS20851
Updated January 17, 2006
Naval Transformation: Background and
Issues for Congress
Ronald O’Rourke
Specialist in National Defense
Foreign Affairs, Defense, and Trade Division
Summary
The Department of the Navy (DON) has several efforts underway to transform U.S.
naval forces to prepare them for future military challenges. The Navy has organized
these efforts under a conceptual framework called Sea Power 21. Key elements of naval
transformation include a focus on operating in littoral waters, network-centric
operations, use of unmanned vehicles, reducing personnel requirements, directly
launching and supporting expeditionary operations ashore from sea bases, new kinds of
naval formations, new ship-deployment approaches, and streamlined and reformed
business practices. Naval transformation poses several potential issues for the 2
nd
session of the 109
th
Congress. This report will be updated as events warrant.
Background
This report focuses on the transformation of U.S. naval forces — the Navy and the
Marine Corps, which are both contained in the Department of the Navy (DON). For an
overview of defense transformation in general, as well as references to CRS products on
other specific aspects of defense transformation, see CRS Report RL32238, Defense
Transformation: Background and Oversight Issues for Congress, by Ronald O'Rourke.
What Is Defense Transformation? Defense transformation can be defined as
large-scale, discontinuous, and possibly disruptive changes in military weapons,
organization, and concepts of operations (i.e., approaches to warfighting) that are
prompted by significant changes in technology or the emergence of new and different
international security challenges. In contrast to incremental or evolutionary military
change brought about by normal modernization efforts, defense transformation is more
likely to feature discontinuous or disruptive forms of change. Some military analysts
believe that defense transformation is made possible by new technologies, such as
advanced information technologies (IT) for networked operations, distributed sensors,
unmanned vehicles, and precision-guided munitions. They also believe that defense
transformation is necessary if U.S. military forces are to be adequately prepared for 21
st
-
Century military challenges, particularly so-called asymmetric challenges, in which
adversaries avoid competing head-on against current U.S. military strengths.
