Future roles for U.S. Navy discussed

Friday, June 9, 2006

Click here to enlarge this photo Staff Photo by Paul C. Leibe Rear Adm. Tim Heely discusses the Navy’s role in the war on terrorism during this week’s program, ‘‘Future Roles of the U.S. Navy,” at St. Mary’s College of Maryland. E-Mail This Article | Print This Story

The program was jointly organized by the college’s Center for the Study of Democracy and the Center for Strategic Analysis, a division of The Patuxent Partnership.

Several speakers joined in a Tuesday morning discussion, including Rear Adm. Tim Heely, NAVAIR’s program executive officer for strike weapons and unmanned aviation, who discussed the Navy’s role in the post-Iraq global war on terrorism.

‘‘The least important asset in our inventory today,” said Heely, ‘‘is our aircraft.” He later said the comment referred to the more traditional plane-against-plane combat role aviators once played. With advances in technology, he said, the roles of aviators are rapidly changing.

Regarding the global war on terrorism, Heely said, ‘‘I think it’s going to take a long time. Just winning is not the hard part. Winning over the people is so much harder.

‘‘Historically,” he said, ‘‘it took Korea almost 50 years to rebuild after the Japanese occupation in World War II. ‘‘He said he hopes to see Iraqis running their own government within nine years. ‘‘We’re going to stay in place,” Heely said, ‘‘and give them a fighting chance to move forward.”

Theodore Caplow, professor emeritus at the University of Virginia, discussed nuclear weapons. ‘‘I see the future of the Navy as being very bright,” said Caplow during his discussion, ‘‘and the Army’s as being quite dim. ... Since 1945, there have been hundreds of authoritative suggestions for the use of nuclear weapons, including Churchill and McArthur. But thankfully it never got beyond suggestions, because [these weapons] are too powerful to live with, or to die with. ... The role of the Navy is more important than ever,” he said, as a way to display a show of force with conventional weapons.

Capt. Thomas Huff, the chief engineer of the Navy’s F⁄A-18 program and incoming commanding officer of the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School at Pax River, discussed the need to reexamine the way forces are used in post-Iron Curtain conflicts.

In 2001 Huff, an F-18 pilot, was part of a seven-man panel at the Navy War College in Newport, Rhode Island. The year-long project was to evaluate how effectively forces are utilized today, using the same strategies used prior to the fall of the USSR.

At the time of the study, Huff said, joint operations between service branches ‘‘was a joke. We used the word, but it hadn’t really materialized. We are moving toward that today. ... Intelligence has become more important,” he said. ‘‘We are shrinking our assets and we are increasing our work with our allies. We need to be flexible and efficient ... we need to enhance our capabilities.”

‘‘I think [the Patuxent Summer Institute] is a great idea,” said Del. John L. Bohanan Jr. (D-St. Mary’s), ‘‘to bring together the best and brightest minds to collaborate” and discuss issues. ‘‘I’m very excited about this. I believe we’re creating greater bonds for greater synergy.”