Naval Aviation Enterprise Strategic Plan 2012 2017

"This document is a partner piece to 'The Vision for Naval Aviation 2025,' and together they are the roadmap to ensuring Naval Aviation possesses the readiness, capabilities and capacity to deliver on the five essential functions outlined in the maritime strategy, 'A Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower.' The essential functions -- All Domain Access, Deterrence, Sea Control, Power Projection and Maritime Security -- are missions that depend upon Naval Aviation to guarantee their success. It is essential that our vision fully supports and aligns to this cooperative strategy. We are undeniably the best maritime aviation fighting force in the world. That said, near-peer nations and non-state actors pose credible threats to our security. The vision outlined in this document acknowledges our fiscal realities and illustrates that Naval Aviation has the readiness, capability and capacity to prevail. It is consistent with Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus' declaration that we as a sea service "get there sooner, stay there longer, bring everything we need with us and we don't have to ask anyone's permission. We provide our nation's leaders with options in times of crisis.

Naval Aviation is a warfighting force. Its capabilities and capacity have been sharply honed and are fundamental to achieving the goals of the Defense Strategic Guidance, Sustaining U.S. Global Leadership: Priorities for 21st-Century Defense. The fiscal landscape and emerging security environment are unstable and uncertain; balancing budgetary challenges and the need for national defense demand that Naval Aviation fulfill more global commitments while operating within tighter budget limitations. This document, guided by and aligned to The Vision for Naval Aviation 2025 and its pillars of capability superiority, wholeness, and maintaining capacity, provides our unified view of how Naval Aviation intends to meet the challenges ahead. We will do it through revolutionary changes in capabilities, retaining our aggregate and operational capacity, and by safely, effectively, and affordably executing our job of organizing, manning, training, and equipping fleet combat forces. Naval Aviation is a warfighting enterprise that continues to be the preeminent forward-deployed force ready to fulfill any mission assigned. Our aircraft carriers, amphibious assault ships, carrier air wings, aviation combat elements, and maritime patrol and reconnaissance forces maintain a combat-ready posture as an instrument of our nation's will. For the past century, Naval Aviation has been at the forefront of operational and tactical innovation. Consistent with The Vision for Naval Aviation 2025, we remain focused on systematically establishing an enduring, affordable, lethal, and adaptable approach to meet and shape strategic objectives. We will continue to operate forward with revolutionary Integrated and Interoperable capabilities designed to face future threats in an increasingly-contested operating environment. Our nation's demand for access, commerce, and maneuver will require us to continue to evolve capabilities and capacities to assure our nation's and Navy's global leadership from the sea. Naval Aviation is a major stakeholder in these operations, and will continue to play key roles in the rebalancing of our nation's global posture and presence to an emphasis on the Pacific and sustaining support for our partners in the Middle East. This vision for Naval Aviation aspires to ensure an affordable, powerful Navy that maintains our core competencies across the spectrum of military operations. Our Sailors and Marines embrace the privilege of this awesome responsibility with pride, determination, and enthusiasm.

Today, alongside its all-important operations in direct support of the Global War on Terrorism, naval aviation also continues its now 60-year commitment to shaping the maritime and littoral environment through persistent forward presence. In the longer term, naval aviation is also adapting to a series of geopolitical revolutions which will dramatically increase the future demand for a secure sea base capable of projecting dominant power ashore in wartime against the full spectrum of possible opponents. It is adapting to these demands by exploiting technologies and operational practices developed in the last decade that will greatly increase its ability to surge and concentrate forces rapidly; protect the sea base from new air, surface, and undersea threats; and find, identify, locate, track, and strike mobile as well as fixed targets ashore, under all weather conditions, and in timely enough fashion to produce the desired effects. This report discusses the following topics: (1) Formal Alliances Provide Predictable Access, Informal Coalitions Do Not; (2) Distributed Ground Forces Require Persistent, Distributed Air Support; (3) The Sea Shield Must Be Dominant If the Sea Base Is to Be Effective; (4) Adapting; (5) The Spectrum from Presence to Major Combat; (6) Technology and the Spectrum of Threat; (7) The Value of Robust Airborne Early Warning (AEW) Aircraft; (8) No Substitute for Range in Carrier Aviation; (9) The Need for Airborne Electronic Attack (AEA) is Not Going Away; (10) Land-Based Maritime Patrol Aircraft; (11) Multimission Helicopters; (12) New Capabilities and Challenges; (13) Eliminating the Weather Sanctuary for Mobile Targets; (14) Providing a Dominant Defense of the Sea Base; (15) Shoot Archers Not Arrows; (16) Make Opposing Submarines Pay for Their Inevitable Indiscretions; (17) Get Back in the Counter-Surveillance Business; and (18) The Force of the Future.

Naval Aviation forces are forward, engaged and ready-every day. Expeditionary forces, amphibious forces, nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, air wings, manned and unmanned platforms, rotary- and fixed-wing aircraft are on station, valued and in increasingly higher demand. No other service or community can deliver the capabilities Naval Aviation brings in support of our national interests. It is a national priority to sustain, resource and ultimately expand these capabilities to ensure that when called, Naval Aviation is at the hold short, takeoff checks complete... Ready to Go. This publication is part of the roadmap to ensuring Naval Aviation possesses the readiness, capabilities and capacity to deliver on the five essential functions outlined in the maritime strategy-All Domain Access, Deterrence, Sea Control, Power Projection and Maritime Security-are missions that depend upon Naval Aviation to guarantee their success. It is essential that our vision fully supports and aligns to this cooperative strategy.

The Department of Defense is developing the means to transform the nation's armed forces to meet future military challenges. For the Navy and Marine Corps, this vision is encompassed in Naval Power 21. Many new war-fighting concepts will be needed to implement this vision, and the ONR has requested the NRC to identify new science and technology opportunities for new naval aviation capabilities to support those concepts. This report presents an assessment of what they imply for naval aviation, an analysis of some capabilities that, if developed, would make a significant contribution to realizing those concepts, and an identification of key technologies in which ONR could invest to achieve those capabilities. In particular, the report focuses on seven key capabilities: multispectral defense, unmanned air operations, hypersonic weapons delivery, fast-kill weapons, heavy-lift air transport, intelligent combat information management, and omniscient intelligence.