Strategic Mobility Innovation: Options and Oversight Issues (CRS Report for Congress)
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| Release Date |
April 29, 2005 |
| Report Number |
RL32887 |
| Report Type |
Report |
| Authors |
Jon D. Klaus, Foreign Affairs, Defense, and Trade Division |
| Source Agency |
Congressional Research Service |
Summary:
Since the George W. Bush Administration announced its proposal to reduce the U.S. military
overseas basing posture, strategic mobility has been the topic of many policy discussions. The
Administration's identification of transformation as a major goal for the Department of
Defense
(DOD), technological advances, the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) deployment goals, and
anti-access issues also have relevance with regard to the topic of strategic mobility. The issue for
the 109th Congress is to determine which investments should be pursued today to develop strategic
mobility platforms to meet tomorrow's National Security Strategy requirements.
Several studies pertain to strategic mobility innovation. These studies include the
DOD's
Mobility Requirements Study for 2005, the Department of Army's Advanced Mobility
Concepts
Study (AMCS), the Institute of Defense Analyses' Assessment of the AMCS, a Defense
Science
Board (DSB) Mobility Study, and the DOD's Transformation Planning Guidance. These
studies,
along with current U.S. strategic mobility inventories and strategic mobility funding trends, all
pertain to the discussion. They examine issues such as DOD's million-ton-mile per day
requirement,
future mobility concepts and feasibilities, the importance of decreasing the Services'
deployment
footprint, transformation roadmaps, the DOD's current strategic mobility inventories, and
airlift/sealift future funding trends.
Research identifies at least 11 potential strategic mobility platforms, which include four sealift
vehicles and seven airlift vehicles. The four sealift vehicles assessed in this report are the
Shallow-Draft High Speed Sealift, the Fast Sealift-Monohull, the Navy Vision Trimaran High Speed
Sealift, and the Navy Vision Surface Effect Ship High Speed Sealift. The seven airlift vehicles
assessed are the Global Range Transport, the Super-Short, Take-off and Landing Aircraft, spiral
development of the C-17 - Payload/Range Expansion Program, the Ultra-Large Airlifter, unmanned
aerial vehicles, the Wing-in-Ground Effect Aircraft, and Seaplanes.
Strategic mobility innovation raises potential oversight questions for Congress in the following
areas: (1) Does Congress have sufficient information about the DOD's plans for lift and
potential
lift platforms to adequately assess investment options? (2) To what degree, if any, should
government funding be used to develop new lift platforms? (3) What mix of lift platforms might be
appropriate to both meet future U.S. commercial lift needs and potentially assist in meeting future
military strategic lift requirements? (4) Should any of these lift platforms be developed and procured
in part to support the defense industrial base? (5) Should procurement of airlift/sealift be expanded
beyond current DOD plans, and if so, by how much, and with what platforms?
