Foreign Relations of the United States, 1977–1980, Volume IV, National Security Policy

57. Memorandum From Secretary of Defense Brown to President Carter¹

Washington, March 20, 1978

Attached is the five-year ship construction program that I plan to send forward to the Congressional authorizing and appropriations committees. When we eliminated such a table from my defense posture statement, I told them in my testimony that they would have it by the end of March. You will recall your conversations along these lines in January with Senator Stennis and Congressman Price.²

There is also enclosed a point paper that explains the basis for the five-year ship building program. With one exception, it is the same as I showed Zbig and Jim McIntyre and to which they agreed. The exception is the substitution in the out years of two LSD–41s (Amphibious Assault Ships) for some auxiliary ships and conversions. This preserves, without irrevocably committing us to, amphibious lift at the level of 115% of a one division Marine Amphibious Force (which, given ship outages for repair, corresponds to an effective capability of one MAF). I think we may want to reexamine this one during the course of the year, but omitting it now from the program would cause unnecessary opposition in what will already be a contentious debate.

Zbig has some concerns about the rate of Trident construction as do I. He believes that the lowering of the rate from three every two years to one every year will raise some SALT issues. My view is that the corresponding decline in SLBMs, which bottoms in the 1990s, needs to be addressed, but that the best way to do so is to find a way of reducing the cost per SLBM, rather than simply to build more Tridents. This is a course of action that we should prepare in advance rather than surfacing it now.

I would not include the material in the point paper in what I send to Congress, reserving it instead for testimony. If, as a result of Congressional actions, the FY 79 program changes, corresponding alterations by us in both directions in the out years will maintain a properly balanced program.

In accord with our conversation of last Friday,³ I think it would be useful if you, Zbig and I (and perhaps Graham Claytor) could meet for 20 or 30 minutes later this week to discuss any questions you may have before I send forward the five-year program. Such a meeting would give you the opportunity to call Senator Stennis to communicate your views on the ship building program. You could suggest to him that I meet with him, Mr. Price and Mr. Mahon together or separately to explain the program before I send it up at the end of the month.

Harold Brown

Attachment 1

Chart Prepared in the Department of Defense⁴

Washington, undated

FY 1979–FY 1983 SHIPBUILDING PLAN
(Number of Ships/Millions of Then-Year Dollars)

	FY 79	FY 80	FY 81	FY 82	FY 83	Total
Trident (Ballistic Missile Submarine)	1/ 1186.7	1/ 998.4	1/ 1323.7	1/ 1386.6	1/ 1626.7	5/ 6522.1
SSN–688 (Attack Submarine)	1/ 433.0	1/ 482.3	1/ 488.0	1/ 525.0	1/ 550.0	5/ 2478.3
CVV (Mid-Sized Carrier)	—	1/ 1535.0	—	—	—	1/ 1535.0
Carrier Service Life Extension Program	32.2	44.0	1/ 479.8	34.0	1/ 530.0	2/ 1120.0
CGN–42 (Nuclear Aegis Ship)	—	—	—	209.0	1/ 1111.0	1/ 1320.0
DDG–47 (Conventional Aegis Ship)	—	1/ 766.7	2/ 1480.4	2/ 1537.3	2/ 1586.3	7/ 5370.7
DDG–2(C) (Guided Missile Ship Upgrading)	151.0	1/ 348.4	2/ 369.5	5/ 789.8	3/ 319.1	11/ 1977.8
FFG–7 (Guided Missile Frigate)	8/ 1533.1	5/ 1002.9	5/ 1088.6	5/ 1138.6	3/ 728.9	26/ 5492.1
LSD–41 (Amphibious Assault Ship)	—	—	1/ 359.0	—	1/ 332.0	2/ 691.0
AD (Destroyer Tender)	1/ 318.0	—	—	—	—	1/ 318.0
MCM (Mine Countermeasures Ship)	—	1/ 117.9	—	2/ 229.0	2/ 210.0	5/ 556.9
T–AO (Oiler)	—	—	—	1/ 200.0	—	1/ 200.0
TATU (Tug)	—	—	—	2/ 60.0	—	2/ 60.0
TAGOS (SURTASS Towed Sonar Ship)	3/ 98.0	5/ 151.0	4/ 126.0	—	—	12/ 375.0
TARC (SOSUS Cable Layer)	1/ 191.0	—	—	—	—	1/ 191.0
	FY 79	FY 80	FY 81	FY 82	FY 83	Total
TAK(C) (Trident Missile Cargo Ship)	—	5.4	1/ 44.7	—	—	1/ 50.1
Service Craft	27.1	27.6	24.0	22.0	35.0	-/ 135.7
Landing Craft	5.6	15.8	10.0	104.7	15.0	-/ 151.1
Outfitting & Post-Delivery Costs	101.2	191.5	225.7	242.7	201.5	-/ 962.6
Cost Growth & Escalation Provision	635.5	—	—	—	—	-/ 635.5
TOTAL	15/ 4712.4	16/ 5686.9	18/ 6019.4	19/ 6478.7	15/ 7245.5	83/30142.9
(Service Life Extension of Existing Carriers)			(1 SLEP)		(1 SLEP)	2 SLEP
(Conversions of DDG–2s and TAK)		(1 CONV)	(3 CONV)	(5 CONV)	(3 CONV)	12 CONV
						69 New

Attachment 2

Point Paper Prepared in the Department of Defense⁵

Washington, undated

RATIONALE FOR THE SIZE OF THE SHIPBUILDING PROGRAM

• Two balances to consider:

• Total Navy vs. rest of DoD

• Even with planned Army add-ons, Navy gets 26% more than Army over 5 years

• Navy gets 16% more than Air Force over 5 years

• Diverting even more from Army or Air Force to Navy would interfere with or prohibit our highest priority task in General Purpose Forces—to improve the ability of NATO to withstand a blitzkrieg attack.

• Thus, cannot divert more funding to Navy.

• If we increase the defense budget above what is now contained in the fiscal guidance, expansion of the Navy budget will compete with expansion of other capabilities. Such options should be considered during the budget review later this year, but not now.

• Within Navy, near-term vs. long-term objectives

• Shipbuilding needed to assure long-term forces

• But, excessive shipbuilding funding can jeopardize near-term capability

• Must operate current forces

• Reduction of carrier force would cut o’seas deployments with serious effect on perceptions of continuing US commitment, either in Far East or in Med

• Must maintain current forces

• Backlog of ships awaiting o’haul excessive now—degrades readiness, causes reenlistment problems.

• Must support current forces

• In recent past, haven’t had enough funding to buy more than about half the tactical aircraft required to support the force structure properly on a long-term basis; in FY79, won’t be able to buy enough to offset peacetime accidents.

• Thus, desire to build for future cannot be considered in isolation of pressing current needs.

• Believe that this SCN program is the biggest we can responsibly propose

• Predicated on rough average of percentage allocation of Navy budget to SCN during the post-Vietnam-War period, BUT

• That high an SCN allocation hasn’t allowed us to properly maintain the ships, buy enough aircraft, etc.

• Predicated on a 3% real Growth in the budget, BUT

• That is higher than we’ve had in the past.

• Predicted on no rise in real terms of the unit cost of ships, BUT

• Real unit costs have risen in the past

• Predicated on ability of shipbuilding industry to deliver, BUT

• We’ve run into serious problems, particularly in the case of Tridents, SSNs, CGNs, LHAs, etc.

• Thus, we feel that this program, though smaller than we’d like to see, seems to be at the upper limit of affordability, given fiscal constraints.

• The total for the 5-year period, FY79–FY83, is $30 billion. It provides 83 ships: 69 new, 12 conversions, and 2 SLEP (Service Life Extension Program)

RATIONALE FOR THE MIX OF SHIPS

• The lead times in shipbuilding (4 to perhaps 10 years for combatants) and service lives of ships (roughly 30 years) are so long that nobody can be absolutely sure what tasks the ships we fund today will face in the future.

• Therefore, we must strive for flexibility in the fleet

• The missions we assumed in developing this plan are substantially the same as the Navy has carried out in the recent past:

• Maintain forward deployments in peacetime

• The new CVV, and the SLEPs for existing carriers will allow us to continue to keep 4 carriers deployed o’seas

• Protect the Sea Lines of Communication

• SSNs, FFG–7s, T–AGOSs, and T–ARC will improve our ASW capability, and CGN–42, DDG–47s, and DDG–2 conversions will improve our AAW capability.

• Maintain our capability to respond to crises

• This program will result in more than 500 active ships through the early 1990s when the last ships in this SCN plan will have been delivered.

• By holding the SCN program to this level, we will improve our ability to maintain and operate the existing and newly finished ships.

• The allocation of funds within the $30 billion total is, in order of magnitude:

• Roughly $8½ billion for AAW forces, including:

• 8 Aegis-equipped ships

• 11 conversions, upgrading the existing DDG–2 class guided missile ships

• A roughly similar funding for ASW forces, including:

• 26 FFG–7s

• 5 SSN-688s (at 1/year, in view of shipyard problems)

• 12 TAGOS ships to tow SURTASS sonar arrays, greatly improving our ability to detect and track enemy submarines

• A TARC cable layer to support our vital SOSUS system

• Roughly $6½ billion for strategic forces, including:

• 5 Trident submarines (at 1/year, also in view of shipyard problems). This will require us to extend Poseidon submarine life-times to avoid substantial decrease in SLBM numbers in the late 1980’s and 1990’s.

• A TAK conversion to transport Trident missiles.

• Roughly $2½ billion for aircraft carriers, including:

• One new CVV in FY80—to be followed by a second in the out-years

• The first 2 SLEPs of existing carriers.

• The remaining $3½ billion covers

• Other ships (5 Mine Countermeasures Ships, 2 Amphibious Assault Ships, 2 Tugs, an oiler, and a destroyer tender)

• Craft (Service craft and landing craft)

• Provisions for outfitting and post-delivery charges, and for cost growth and escalation.

• The construction rates of both SSBNs (for strategic purposes) and SSNs are lower than we would like. But the way to improve that situation is to reduce their unit cost by reducing some of the expensive requirements, and then build more of them within the amounts shown.

THE NEED TO REDUCE UNIT SHIP COSTS

• The cost of 3 ships alone—one Trident submarine, one Nimitz carrier, and one CGN–42 class guided missile cruiser—is almost exactly equal to the entire proposed FY79 shipbuilding budget.

• It is clear that we cannot continue to build such expensive ships on the one hand, and hope for higher force levels on the other.

• This is not a new development—the trend to extremely expensive ships has been going on for more than a decade.

• The issue is the balance between the capability of individual ships and the size of the Navy.

• In our judgment, the current balance is much too far in favor of high unit capability and small forces.

• There are actions we can take to improve that balance:

• Instead of Trident, build something similar to the SSBN–640 (Poseidon)

• Instead of SSN–688s, build something similar to the SSN–637

• Instead of CGN–42, build more DDG–47s

• The capability of the substitute ships is individually less than the ships they would replace, but the capability of the force built and operated for the same cost, we believe, is higher.

SUMMARY

• We believe that this SCN program:

• Is the largest we can propose within the fiscal guidance.

• If the Defense Budget is increased over the present guidance, other forces should compete with naval forces for the increase.

• Strikes a proper balance between near-term and long-term needs.

• Will help preserve enough funds to meet current commitments and keep our forces maintained and ready, while

• Providing an increase in the number, and an even bigger increase in the capability, of our ships for the future.

1. Source: Carter Library, National Security Affairs, Brzezinski Material, Agency File, Box 11, Navy Department: 6/77–12/79. Secret.
2. See Document 47.
3. March 17. Carter and Brown participated in a tour and military exercise aboard the U.S.S. Eisenhower. (Carter Library, Presidential Materials, President’s Daily Diary)
4. Confidential.
5. Secret.