[T]he late-Vice Adm. Art Cebrowski, who led the Pentagon’s Office of Force Transformation, was a huge proponent of understanding that the key to changing culture was rooted in the language one used to champion new ideas.
So here’s their new name: the Expeditionary Fleet. These are ships fully capable of operating in that petri dish mix of missions that constitute the vast majority of what Navy and Marine forces do on a daily basis. This includes missions such as presence and stability operations, humanitarian assistance/disaster response, security assistance and maritime training, counter-piracy, countering transnational crime and search and rescue operations. The Expeditionary Fleet can shoulder the majority of missions that fall into what the military categorizes as Phase 0 (shaping the environment) to Phase 2+ (when combat actually begins). This is not a small set of missions.
Senior Navy and Marine Corps leaders have been strong and vocal advocates for the capabilities these Expeditionary Ships bring and how important they are to future operations. They have repeatedly talked about these ships in public forums and advocated their acquisition before Congress. But in promoting their capabilities and touting their need, these same leaders have repeatedly stumbled over what to call these ships and their earnest efforts to properly “label” them is undermining the very operational advantages they are attempting to promote.
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