Analytical Approach to Prioritizing the Development of Seabasing Components

摘要

A fully-developed Seabasing capability would be of substantial value to the Joint Force commander, enhancing the Joint Force's freedom of action and significantly improving its agility in support of national military and strategic objectives. It would reduce the time from decision to action by eliminating the need to build supplies ashore before starting operations, enable the Joint Force to act without the political constraints of friendly host nation access, and defer the time until the Joint Force commander must have a large supply base ashore to continue operations. The two main challenges to the full implementation of Seabasing are that the equipment required is expensive and that several critical pieces of technology required do not yet exist. Because of this, an incremental approach to developing and fielding Seabasing technologies is the most fiscally and strategically responsible plan. This study helps to enlighten the choices required for this incremental approach by demonstrating a method to analytically compare various building block technologies. Potential solutions in four key capability areas are analyzed for their relative value to Seabasing, value to the Joint Force in other areas, procurement cost, and technological development status. The results of this analysis are reviewed to provide prioritized recommendations on how to efficiently allocate scarce budgetary resources towards the various programs that are needed to fully realize the Seabasing concept.