Politique Internationale — How important is the maritime environment in defense today? What are the US Navy’s missions in this area?
Admiral Lisa M. Franchetti — Our Navy just celebrated its 248th birthday. I was speaking with Admiral Vaujour, the Chief of Staff of the French Navy today, and the French Navy is about to celebrate their 400th birthday. And I think it really goes without saying that foreign Nations, all of our Navies are critically important, because they really support the national security interests of our Nations, and they provide for the prosperity and really the economic security of the free flow of commerce around the world. I think if you look at the United States Navy, we have several roles. By law, our mission is to provide for combat operations, incidents at sea. And we’re also responsible for protecting the national security interests of the United States of America. What does that really mean? Our Navy forces are responsible for deterrence, they’re responsible for control of the seas. They’re responsible for power projection, maritime security, and we also are responsible for sealift. So, the Navy has many missions. And I like to say that we operate forward around the world, along with our amazing allies and partners, to be able to preserve the peace, responding to crises. And if necessary, to fight and win our nation’s wars decisively.
P. I. — What are your Navy’s main theaters of operation today?
L. M. F. — Our Navy operates globally. And it’s very important for us, again, to be able to promote and support the rules-based international order all over the globe. So, we currently have our Pacific fleet that operates in the Indo Pacific, they operate with, again, all our allies and partners there to uphold and support that rule-based international order that’s guaranteed prosperity and security for so many years. As you know, we also have the Sixth Fleet that operates in the Mediterranean, we have the Second Fleet that operates in the Atlantic. And of course, we have operations in the Middle East.
The US Navy, just like the French Navy, actually operates all over the globe. It’s really important for our Navy to be agile and flexible, to be able to provide options to our national decision- makers every day, to potentially deter potential adversaries, to respond if there’s a crisis. And I’m very happy to say that all of our fleets have all the ships and the platforms and the people that they need to be able to do all of those missions simultaneously.
P. I. — Have new strategic concepts emerged?
L. M. F. — From a strategic point of view, our Navy continues to perform the same missions that it has for many, many years. But we always think about the importance of adapting and understanding new technology, and the opportunities that that technology is going to provide to us. What we can do is take things like new capabilities in unmanned platforms, and be able to integrate them with the operational concepts that we have now. For example, we have stood up a Task Force in the Middle East, Task Force 59, that has done a great job of bringing in from industry a lot of different unmanned technologies, and integrating them together in a network that can provide maritime domain awareness in a large area. And by having all these unmanned platforms operating together, they can create an operational picture that not only the US, but all the other partners participating in that network can see, and increase their own awareness. And when they see an anomalous behavior, they can send a human-driven asset to go look at it. And again, if you think about how we adapt this conceptually, you can save a lot of resources by having an unmanned platform provide this awareness.
When you have a concept, then you can do some experimentation, and learn from it, helping industry work with sailors to develop the technologies that will make it even better. We will continue to improve the capability that we need, while also getting a real-world practical application.
P. I. — What is the extent of cooperation between the US Navy and your foreign partners?
L. M. F. — We had an international sea power symposium in September 2023, and we had the opportunity to bring together about 94 different heads of Navy and heads of Coast Guard. And we all talked about how it didn’t really matter, the size of your Navy, or the amount of capability that you have. Everyone plays a role in the global maritime chain, and every navy can contribute to that. If you look at the strength of the NATO alliance, we measure the importance of working together to do exercises, to develop our tactics, techniques and procedures in order to be more and more interoperable. This makes our alliances incredibly powerful, especially in the maritime domain. About the US contribution to NATO, I have so many personal examples illustrating the fact we are able to bring together various maritime capabilities in just a short time. Recently, we’ve been able to bring to bear many more capabilities with partners that have amphibious ships, and also integrating US carrier strike group capabilities into the Alliance. To defend every inch of NATO, bringing together the maritime capabilities is critically important. I think as we build our systems and we build our exercises, we continue to increase that interoperability so we can plug and play whenever we need to work together.
P. I. — What about new areas of cooperation to investigate between the US and French Navies, thanks to new fast-developing technologies?
L. M. F. — For all capable navies, the question is how can we best blend the conventionally manned and operated platforms with the new technologies with unmanned and autonomous systems that are coming along? And how do we integrate those together? The French Navy, like the US Navy, is a global navy. As very capable navies, we answer to these questions together. I’ve had the pleasure of working with the French Navy, both through exercises, but in real world operations too. And we continue to develop and strengthen those relationships, and to grow that interoperability, which is absolutely critical. Many times, the French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle has been deployed in the Middle East, and then alternated with the US carrier being deployed there. It’s a great opportunity to bring together lots of different partners, because they might have to have an opportunity to train and integrate with the strike group, wherever it goes. And it’s not just the US, France, the UK, it’s really a lot of partners, such as Italy too. And the more we can continue to operate together in these different environments, I think the more prepared we’ll be for anything that comes our way.
P. I. — Tomorrow’s battles call for ever greater innovation. What are your priorities in this area? How do you bring new disruptive technologies to the fore?
L. M. F. — It’s really important to innovate. How do we leverage all of the good thinking, the good creative ideas, as a navy? We need to share the challenges that we’re facing with the defense industry, with the innovation base, so they can bring creative solutions that we can experiment with, and try to solve some of those bigger challenges together, because it really needs to be a partnership between industry, academia and the military. In the US Navy, we stood up a “Disruptive Capabilities Office”, which is designed, again, to share the challenges with the creative people out in industry, and help them bring solutions to us that we can test out and experiment with. This office reports directly up to the Vice-Chief, and the head of our acquisition office, and does not have to go through a lot of layers. And we can test, learn, fail a little, and test again, learn more, and continue to innovate and iterate at the same time to really bring some of these disruptive capabilities to bear at scale. Sometimes you get a disruptive capability, but it’s hard to bring it to bear because you cannot get it out to the scale that you need for the warfighters. We’re really excited to have the opportunity to partner our initiatives with those managed by the Deputy Secretary of Defense, like our Defense Innovation Unit (DIU).
P. I. — In the face of growing threats, such as the rise of the Chinese Navy, do you believe unmanned systems are the solution?
L. M. F. — I think it’s always going to be a mix of conventional platforms, hybrid platforms, some unmanned platforms and autonomous platforms. And we need to do a lot of experimentation, wargaming, and concept development to understand what is the best mix warfighting ecosystem you need even today, and on into the future. It’s all the Navy, the joint forces, the system of systems, combined with the allies and partners you put together, that you are really thinking about as we go forward into the future.
P. I. — Unmanned systems for what missions? For example, the French Navy is engaged in a sort of full dronization for mine warfare. What is your conviction about that or for other domains?
L. M. F. — I consider that the work being done by the Unmanned Task Forces for domain awareness could help some Nations. All around the world, there are a lot of ungoverned spaces. For example, around Africa, illegal unregulated fishing is just one example. If you have unmanned patrols, you can detect patterns, and you can send them law enforcement, to disrupt or potentially arrest the people that are illegally fishing out of waters in Africa. If you could help African Nations have this capability, they would be better able to control their own waters. Domain awareness is critical, we’re always trying to understand where smuggling is, what is going on around us. And the more you can extend your view, even for our warfighting platforms, the better situational awareness you have around you. You’re going to be more effective in your warfighting capability. But certainly, for any task. Like you talked about Mine Warfare, somewhere where you can have a drone do something like defuse a mine or something that’s dangerous and you don’t need a person to do it, that would be a great place to invest.
On innovation and unmanned systems, we are also in the process of developing our first unmanned aircraft to go on aircraft carriers, called the Stingray. We already have some for other tasks, but I’m really excited about this one because it’s going to be the tanker. And when you have an unmanned tanking capability, then you can extend the range of your air wing; you also don’t need to use your fighters as refuelers. You extend the capability, both the reach and the volume.
P. I. — What about swarms of drones and Artificial Intelligence being associated?
L. M. F. — This is one of those areas where I’m really looking forward to getting with the industry and their understanding of the different technologies out there and then start experimenting with them. Because I think, you know, until we start testing them out and seeing what we can do with them, then we won’t really know what the best approach is. There’s plenty of new technologies, and we always need to try to stay one step ahead of anything that a potential adversary might get.
P. I. — Today, the ecological transition is taking hold in all sectors, including defense. Is sustainable development a concern for the US Navy? Do you integrate environmental objectives into your strategic and industrial thinking?
L. M. F. — Our Navy is very focused on the impacts that the climate changing can really have on our environment and operations at sea. In the event of sea level rise, we’re looking for ways to improve our efficiency, and the use of fuel on our ships. How can we reduce consumption through more effective engines? How can we make our shore facilities more resilient? How can we create microgrids for power? Again, we really need to be creative in this space. This is a big effort on the part of our Department of Defense, looking at electric vehicles, all of the different things that we can be doing. It’s all about how do we make ourselves more resilient, and more effective warfighters.
If you think about producing a ship that uses less fuel, because it’s more fuel efficient, you need to replenish less often. So again, you become more effective as a platform because you can stay out longer, so you’re more sustainable on your own. If you can have 3D printing, you can print your own parts when you need to make repairs. It’s more effective, more efficient. And if you think about where navies operate their ships, the more self-sufficient they can be, the longer they can stay on station. I am convinced there are a lot of areas where we can work with industry to figure out how to make ourselves more effective and more sustainable.
P. I. — You are the first woman to be appointed Commander-in-Chief of the US Navy. How do you interpret this? Do you want to increase the number of women in the Navy?
L. M. F. — First, I’m very much honored to be the Chief of Naval Operations. When I joined the Navy 38 years ago, there were a lot of things women could not do. There were a lot of doors that were not open. And it’s been really great to see that over those 38 years, there were some changes in the law, changes in policy, we’ve had changes in culture that really allowed me to get all of the different experiences over time that are identical to my peers. I was the commander of a destroyer, the commodore of a Destroyer Squadron, the commander of a strike group, the commander of some fleets. I really felt like the Navy gave me all the opportunities to develop my experience, whether operational, tactical, or in leadership to be able to take on this position. As I talk to younger people now, I always tell them that you can really have a big dream and figure out what you personally need, to learn how to be your best.