US Navy Launches Largest Exercise in 40 Years

Against the backdrop of a major wargame failure, the US Navy and Marine Corps are conducting two-ocean live-virtual-constructive manuevers with the unimaginative name of Large-Scale Exercise 2021.

With the US troop pull-outs from regional battlefields such as Afghanistan and Iraq, Summer of 2021 exercises are reverting to Cold War-themed scenarios. Analysts suggest the drills send a message to Russia and China that America can simultaneously answer aggression on multiple fronts.

Large Scale Exercise runs through 16 August and includes units in 17 different time zones, according to the Navy. Some 36 ships and more than 50 virtual units, in addition to military, civilian and contract personnel, are participating in the exercise. Six naval and Marine Corps component commands, five US fleets and three Marine Expeditionary Forces are also involved.

"LSE will test our commanders across the spectrum of naval warfare from the tactical to the strategic, integrating the Marine Corps to demonstrate the worldwide fleet's ability to conduct coordinated operations from the open ocean to the littoral," said Vice Adm. Gene Black, US 6th Fleet commander.

The sea service is also revising its long-standing combat doctrine after US strategy “failed miserably” in a simulated confrontation, believed to be against China over the island hotspot of Taiwan. "An aggressive red team that had been studying the United States for the last 20 years just ran rings around us," explained Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. John Hyten at the National Defense Industrial Association's Emerging Technologies Institute. "They knew exactly what we're going to do before we did it, and they took advantage of it."

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Hyten said that US forces attempted to establish information dominance in the simulation "just like it was in the first Gulf War, just like it has been for the last 20 years, just like everybody in the world, including China and Russia, have watched us do for the last 30 years." However, data from sensors as well as radio and digital communications is suspectible to jamming on the battlefield or wider disruption if US satellites are targeted. Hyten called it a "big problem."

James R. Holmes, the J.C. Wylie Chair of Maritime Strategy at the US Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, said the LSE hopes to demonstrate that US forces can deny adversaries control of the seas, crucial in the Western Pacific with regard to Taiwan or China’s designs on the Japan-administered Senkaku Islands.

The training involves a progression of scenarios that will assess and refine modern warfare concepts, including distributed maritime operations, expeditionary advanced base operations, and littoral operations in a contested environment.

“We have shifted focus from the individual Carrier Strike Group to a larger fleet-centric approach, challenging fleet commanders' abilities to make decisions at a speed and accuracy that outpaces the adversaries,” said Admiral Christopher W. Grady, Commander, US Fleet Forces Command. “LSE is more than just training; it is leveraging the integrated fighting power of multiple naval forces to share sensors, weapons, and platforms across all domains in contested environments, globally.”

Included in the exercise will be evaluations of experimental technology from a variety of warfare areas including unmanned technologies.