Within the president's defense-budget plan is funding for an
intriguing new item: a floating drone base that also could be used as a
launching pad for commandos.
The vessel—called an "afloat forward staging
base"—would be a platform that could be configured to carry and refuel
small patrol boats, helicopters or pilotless aircraft.
It would also give the U.S. military the ability to stage a
small strike force offshore—without obtaining a permission slip from another
country for access to a land base.
Details are still emerging, but the project offers insight
into how the Obama administration envisions a military that in some ways is
more lethal even as it contracts.
Plans for the specialized vessel fit neatly with the Obama
administration's plans to grow special-operations forces, while slimming down
conventional forces such as the Army and Marine Corps.
Senior officials want to provide military commanders with affordable
sea-base options without necessarily sending a big-deck aircraft carrier and a
full complement of escort ships.
A defense official said the floating staging base was more
like a freighter that would be outfitted for different kinds of missions, from
countering mines to launching remotely piloted aircraft. It also could be used
as a platform for launching commando operations.
The official said one option for the ship is a version of
the Mobile Landing Platform, a logistics ship that is being built by General
Dynamics NASSCO, a San Diego-based shipyard owned by General Dynamics Corp.
General Dynamics didn't respond immediately to requests for comment.
Earlier this week, a Navy SEAL team staged a dramatic rescue
of hostages held in Somalia. The military hasn't disclosed where the SEALs
launched their operation from, but the raid represented the kind of operation
that the administration wants at the center of its counterterrorism strategy:
one that requires a minimal involvement of conventional forces.
It isn't clear what kinds of drones might operate from the
ship. Special-operations forces in the Middle East have used the Fire Scout, a
robotic helicopter, for surveillance operations in the Middle East.
The Navy disclosed last year that two Fire Scouts had
operated from a guided-missile frigate as part of an international task force
fighting Somali pirates.
The unmanned craft also has operated in Afghanistan, and a
Fire Scout drone crashed last year during a reconnaissance mission over Libya.
The sea base described in the Pentagon's budget rollout has
some historical antecedents.
During U.S. military operations to protect Kuwaiti oil
tankers from Iranian attacks in the late 1980s, the U.S. repurposed two oil
platform construction barges, the Hercules and the Wimbrown VII, as bases for
countering Tehran in the Persian Gulf.
James Jay Carafano, a national-security expert at the
conservative Heritage Foundation, said the floating base "sounds like the
same concept" as the converted barges.
"It's a small platform that you can use to launch quick
operations from," he said. "So it's ideal for littoral operations
where you want to do special operations or ISR [intelligence-surveillance-reconnaissance]."
Mr. Carafano added, however, that this kind of capability
was "not a silver bullet," because such vessels would still have to
be sustained and protected by conventional forces.
"It's a very limited capability," he said, adding:
"Normally, when we do stuff like this, they wouldn't want to advertise it.
It does seem to be a PR campaign for a smaller, leaner, more flexible
military."
