On paper, the United States has 90 military sealift ships, capable of delivering weapons, equipment, and material to an adversary’s shores in a matter of weeks.1 However, a tour of these ships, strategically tucked away throughout the nation’s waterways, reveals a sobering reality. After 18 years of conflict in the Middle East and decades focused on asymmetrical, global, antiterror warfare, the military sealift fleet is showing signs of neglect, obsolescence, and decay.
As the world order evolves, the National Defense Strategy calls for a shift in focus. The United States once again will ensure peace through strength, by modernizing its atrophied military and preventing costly wars by being prepared to win them. “The willingness of rivals to abandon aggression will depend on their perception of U.S. strength,” the strategy notes.2 But any investment in new weapon systems will have been in vain if military sealift assets continue to be ignored. If troops and equipment are unable to be delivered where it matters, when it matters, the value of that investment is severely diminished.
Multiple Owners, Multiple Missions
The military sealift fleet comprises groups of vessels with different funding, levels of readiness, manning, and owners. The Navy’s Military Sealift Command (MSC) owns 26 vessels that make up the military’s maritime preposition forces. These vessels remain in full operating status. Strategically positioned in Saipan and Diego Garcia, they lie in wait, fully manned, loaded with munitions and equipment they can deliver at a moment’s notice. In the event of war, these vessels would be the first to arrive.
The next wave of ships is MSC’s Surge Sealift Fleet and the Maritime Administration’s (MarAd’s) Ready Reserve Fleet. These 61 vessels are kept in a reduced operating status and are manned by skeleton crews who maintain them. Dispersed along the U.S. coastline, they stand ready to receive vehicles and equipment to deliver to the fight.
The remaining ships are in MarAd’s National Defense Reserve Fleet. These vessels are near the end of their service lives but have not yet lost their purpose. They are rafted together in “ghost fleets” moored in key locations. Their boilers are drained and lifeless but ready to be brought back when needed. These vessels represent the military sealift fleet’s last line of defense, but in the event of conflict, the sad state of the U.S. maritime industry almost guarantees their use.
Outdated, Undermanned, Underfunded
The 61 sealift vessels kept in reduced operating status are contractually required to be ready to sail—manned, fueled, and provisioned—in five days. In reality, many would not be able to get under way, let alone achieve mission readiness in time. Between 2010 and 2018, MSC reduced operating status vessels overall achieved just a 70 percent activation success rate.3 As ships age, the resources and money required to maintain them only increase; nevertheless, these 900-foot vessels continue to operate with insufficient budgets and 12–14 crewmembers, who cannot keep up with the growing maintenance and repair requirements. The average ship in the Ready Reserve and Surge Sealift Fleets is 43 and 31 years old, respectively. As a result, many shipboard systems no longer are supported by manufacturers, and spare parts no longer are available.
The average age of the senior officers who man these ships also is increasing, and they are the last of a generation brought up on steam power. After these officers retire, the 26 reduced operating status ships equipped with steam propulsion will remain in service for many more years, but many young officers sailing commercial ships lack experience operating steam plants.4
Safety also is a concern, as most of the sealift fleet comprises outdated, roll-on/roll-off (RO/RO) vessels with open lifeboats. If this description sounds familiar, it is because it matches that of the ill-fated El Faro, a U.S.-flagged commercial vessel that was lost at sea in October 2015.5 In the wake of that tragic event, the U.S. Coast Guard and the American Bureau of Shipping revoked the Certificates of Inspection of many military sealift vessels.
Commercial Shortfalls
In 1953, the United States had 1,249 ships sailing under its flag.6 Today, because of increased regulation and high labor costs, foreign flags of convenience carry the bulk of the nation’s trade. The Unites States has just 82 privately owned merchant vessels operating in international trade.7 These vessels provide a “militarily useful” capacity of 121,000 20-foot equivalent units (TEUs) and are what remains to a nation that has all but lost its shipbuilding capacity and workforce of trained mariners.
Commercial shortfalls have a direct impact on the military sealift fleet. The mariners who work on commercial vessels are the same men and women who would be relied on to man the Surge Sealift Fleet and Ready Reserve Fleet. Without a healthy commercial maritime industry, there are not enough mariners to call on in a time of war or national emergencies. According to current Maritime Administrator Rear Admiral Mark Buzby, the United States would require an additional 1,800 skilled mariners to man and sustain the surge fleet in a full-scale conflict.8
The Army recently began pressing Congress “to act on a looming sealift shortfall that will create unacceptable risk in force projection.”9 A shortfall would put the United States in the precarious position of relying on foreign-flagged vessels to assist in the transport of military cargo, as was the case during the first Gulf War. In 1990, the United States had 408 vessels sailing under its flag—more than four times the size of the current commercial fleet—yet it still relied on foreign vessels to assist in the operation.10
Placing military equipment in the care of crews with no allegiance to the United States invites the risk of sabotage, theft, or the compromise of classified technology. A more likely scenario is that foreign companies would not wish to risk ships or lives for a U.S. conflict. If the United States were to find itself operating in a contested maritime environment, the availability of foreign-flag vessels would be questionable. If the U.S. merchant fleet continues to shrink, it is imperative that military sealift assets be capable of making up for the reduced capacity.
Sailing in a Contested Environment
During World War II, U.S. Merchant Marine Academy midshipmen studied both seamanship and naval tactics. Every midshipman spent a year at sea as a cadet. Those who survived returned to Kings Point to take their license exams and received their commissions. One hundred forty-two midshipmen were killed before graduating, which earned the Academy the distinction of being the only service academy permitted to fly a battle standard.11
Today, mariners no longer are taught to think tactically, and sealift ships no longer are built with a formidable naval adversary in mind. The Navy has done little to validate dated convoy procedures against modern threats. U.S. sealift ships could one day be sailing into contested waters, unprotected and defenseless against new and modern adversaries. If this realization is not acted on soon, losses could be insurmountable.
Rebuild for the Next Fight
It is time to begin building the next generation of sealift vessels. With a severely constrained replacement capability, these new vessels will need to be more survivable than in previous conflicts. Some of the defensive capabilities common on warships would need to become standard if military sealift assets are expected to survive in a contested maritime environment.
Providing sufficient tactical knowledge to merchant mariners also will play a critical role in the survival of sealift vessels. To reestablish continuity between mariners and the Navy, future naval exercises need to place greater emphasis on sealift operations, and tactical training needs to be reincorporated into the merchant mariner curriculum, especially at the Merchant Marine Academy.
For existing vessels, achieving 100 percent sealift readiness is paramount, but this will never be realized without more funding. U.S. civilian mariners continue to demonstrate their commitment, ingenuity, and motivation to achieve the mission. They are the best trained in the world. Despite severely limited resources, they continue to find ways to improve their vessels’ mission readiness and would proudly sail them in service to the nation—they just need the training and resources to operate in a contested environment.
Threats to U.S. security have reemerged on the world stage, but the U.S. maritime industry is a mere fraction of what it was. Military sealift fleet today cannot maintain sufficient readiness to transport full military force and effectively project power. What can be transported might never survive the journey. Until this deficiency is met with new ships and additional funding, the military’s on-paper ability to wage war against a near-peer competitor may be nothing more than the most expensive bluff in history.
Man the Lifelines!
The United States has long recognized the link between the maritime industry and national security. From the securing of fishing rights in the 1783 Treaty of Paris to the protectionist provisions in the Jones Act, the nation has put in place measures to promote a vibrant maritime industry generally and, more specifically, to ensure the ability of sealift to respond to national emergencies.
The importance of sealift and the maritime industry was never more apparent than in World War II. During the war, the call to arms for merchant mariners was “Man the lifelines!” alluding to the certain fate awaiting Europe should the flow of U.S. men and material cease. The extraordinary sealift effort that made Allied victory possible was achieved only as a result of a robust maritime industry. Between 1942 and 1945, the United States built 5,500 ships and moved 268 million tons of cargo.1 The casualties were no less staggering. By the time of the Allied victory, 733 merchant ships and 5,638 mariners had been lost.2 Without the ability to build and man ships faster than they were destroyed, Allied armies would have run out of fuel and munitions, England would have starved, and the war would have been lost.
1. U.S. Maritime Commission, Division of Public Information, Merchant Marine for Trade and Defense (Washington, DC: 1946).
2. War Shipping Administration, The United States Merchant Marine at War: A Report of the War Shipping Administrator to the President (1946).
1. U.S. Maritime Administration, National Defense Reserve Fleet Inventory, 28 February 2019.
2. Department of Defense, Summary of the 2018 National Defense Strategy of the United States of America.
3. Turbo Activation History 2010–18 (MSC and MARAD vessels).
4. Tim Johnson, McClatchy Washington Bureau, Other, “The U.S. Merchant Marine Fleet Is Dying—And It May Hurt America’s Ability to Wage War Abroad,” taskandpurpose.com, 15 May 2018.
5. Keith Fawcett, “Learn from the El Faro Disaster,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings 144, no. 8 (August 2018).
6. Department of Transportation, “U.S. Flag Privately Owned Merchant Fleet 1946–2016.”
7. U.S. Department of Transportation, U.S. Flag Privately-Owned Merchant Fleet Report, 15 April 2019.
8. Johnson, “The U.S. Merchant Marine Fleet Is Dying.”
9. David B. Larter, “U.S. Army Warns of Crippling Sealift Shortfalls during Wartime,” Defense News, 1 November 2018.
10. Salvador Mercogliano, “Why the United States Needs a Merchant Marine: A Historical Basis,” GCaptain, 23 October 2018.
11. George J. Ryan, Braving the Wartime Seas: A Tribute to the Cadets and Graduates of the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy and Cadet Corps Who Died during World War II (Bloomington, IN: Xlibris, 2014).