This is more than a humanitarian mission. The Sudan operation is providing the Navy with a chance to put some seemingly bizarre, but in fact hugely valuable, combat-support ships through their paces in a real-life situation.
Evacuations of civilians and troops are dangerous and unpredictable. Sometimes, as with the fall of Kabul in Afghanistan in 2021, they can go terribly wrong. At other times — think Vietnam in 1975 — they can be chaotic but overall fairly successful. Often when the nation in question has a coast, as Sudan does on the Red Sea, the Navy conducts the bulk of the operations.
Normally, such missions would be conducted from massive amphibious warships such as the "big deck" helicopter carriers of the Wasp and America classes. These ships ferry Marines around the world, conduct amphibious attacks and carry vertical-lift jump-jets for combat strikes ashore. But the operation in Sudan, which is (so far) relatively small, looks quite different.
While there is always a risk to evacuees, in Sudan it is unlikely that either side in the civil war would deliberately target civilians. So we are seeing the use of two warships that have little offensive combat capability but excellent, adaptable logistical-support abilities: the Brunswick and the Lewis B. Puller.
I know both of these ship classes well, having played a role in their adoption over a decade ago. The Lewis B. Puller is an "expeditionary mobile base" with a crew of only about 150 (as opposed to 5,000 on a carrier), but a huge and flexible capacity to operate helicopters, drop off special forces, provide medical and logistical support ashore, and host hundreds of civilian evacuees.
The Navy began to experiment with this type of at-sea base after the 9/11 attacks. I was heading up the tactical think tank "Deep Blue" in the aftermath of the plane striking the Pentagon. We were preparing for operations in the world’s littoral regions (shallow areas near shores) for what would become known as the Global War on Terrorism.
The Navy did not want to devote its nuclear aircraft carriers or even big-deck amphibious ships to such missions, so we looked for alternatives that were far less costly, both in terms of manpower and sticker price. These mobile bases, with hulls based on those of oilers, are large and capable — more than 750 feet long and displacing 80,000 tons. But they are a bargain at $650 million, as compared to nearly $15 billion for a new nuclear carrier.
The other main ship in the Sudan operation, the Brunswick, is far smaller but nearly three times speedier. Known as an "expeditionary fast transport," the Navy commissioned six of these craft, which ride on a catamaran hull and can move at over 40 knots. At only 300 feet in length, they can carry more than 600 tons of cargo and, for brief periods, hundreds of passengers. Operated by a tiny crew of around 40, they even have a small but capable helicopter deck.
As commander of US Southern Command in the 2000s, I experimented with an early variant of this class for Caribbean counternarcotics operations, where we very successfully embarked alongside Coast Guard law-enforcement detachments.
Because neither of these ships is armed beyond light machine guns, a Navy destroyer is typically deployed with them to bring defensive firepower. In Sudan, the Truxton, an Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer, accompanied the Puller and Brunswick. Drones are also being used to provide overwatch ashore in case of any threat to the civilian evacuation operations.
These two new ship classes have a broad range of uses, both in noncombatant roles like evacuations but also in support of combat. To name a few potential missions: operations in the island chains of the western Pacific; oil and gas protection off the coast of Norway; counterterrorism at the Horn of Africa or islands in the Philippines; natural-disaster relief; medical diplomacy; and further evacuations of noncombatants.
The nature of security is far broader than simply lobbing Tomahawk missiles, dropping precision-guided bombs or landing Marines. The Brunswick and Puller are showing a wide spectrum of abilities for conducting operations fit for the modern world.
(COMMENT, BELOW)
Stavridis is a Bloomberg columnist. He is a retired U.S. Navy admiral and former supreme allied commander of NATO, and dean emeritus of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. He is also an operating executive consultant at the Carlyle Group and chairs the board of counselors at McLarty Associates.
Previously:
• 05/01/23 Ukraine is running out of ammo. So is the US
• 03/10/23 The US military must create a Cyber Force
• 12/07/23 Putin will carpet-bomb Ukraine unless the West acts
• 10/14/22 Putin's campaign of terror from the air is already failing
• 09/08/22 Iran reveals how its naval warfare is changing
• 08/02/22 US needs a global alliance against Russia's cyberattacks
• 06/28/22What to expect from NATO's new strategic concept
• 04/13/22 Nukes? Ukraine war's most potent weapon may be a cell phone
• 01/18/22 Russia is pushing Finland and Sweden toward NATO
• 10/20/21 What Colin Powell taught me about war and optimism
• 09/14/21 Why the U.S. Navy is hunting pirates off Africa
• 07/29/21 Cuba and how Biden can avoid another Mariel boatlift
• 07/01/21 Donald Rumsfeld never gave in
• 02/16/21 Keeping troops in Afghanistan makes America safer
• 08/19/20 Military reasons to celebrate the Israel-UAE deal
• 07/02/20 Taliban bounties would be a new low even for Putin
• 01/02/20 May the 'Space Force' be with you
• 08/02/19 What Iran will do next, and how to stop it
• 05/06/19 The 'Five Eyes' intelligence-sharing alliance should expand, starting with Israel and Japan
• 04/24/19 Sri Lanka attacks mark the birth of terrorism 3.0
• 01/14/19 Iran's tiny navy is trying to revive the Persian Empire
• 06/04/18 US was right to give China's navy the boot
• 06/04/18 Big winner of Colombia's election is the US
• 05/17/18 Great power politics is back as U.S. aims at Russia with resurrected Navy fleet
• 03/20/18 Fake advice for Putin's fake win