Well, there is a reason he cops to the nickname “Chaos.” Last month Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis set the naval community aflutter by musing, Hamlet-like, about jettisoning the U.S. Navy’s effort to rotate carrier, amphibious and surface forces from home port to foreign stations on a foreseeable cycle. To be predictable, or not to be? That is the question, quoth Chaos. His Shakespearean reply: nay.
The naval establishment has long striven to keep a regular schedule. Over the decades deployment schemes have gone by such titles as “tactical training cycle,” “Fleet Response Plan,” or, better yet, “Optimized Fleet Response Plan.”
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Crudely speaking, that means about a third of the fleet is undergoing upkeep on any given day and is unavailable for combat duty. Another third is working up for deployment by executing increasingly demanding training and exercises, or it has come back from deployment and is conducting local maneuvers to maintain proficiency should it need to surge back overseas before putting into a depot for overhaul. Depending on the unit, crews from that third fall somewhere midway between greenhorns and completely battle-worthy mariners.
The final third of the force is actually on cruise, backing U.S. foreign policy with steel.
The current plan purports to keep each unit fit for action for half of each 36-month increment of its lifetime. Carrying out maintenance, training, and operations in standard phases gives suppliers, consumers and targets of naval power—shipyards, naval commanders at home and abroad, allies and prospective foes—a good idea of what U.S. Navy and Marine Corps forces will be on scene at any time to uphold American purposes.
