Naval Operations Concept (NOC) To Be Released Oct 08

This little notice arrived in the mail yesterday:

New Navy Operations Concept Will Include Force Structure Details NOC Due By October (INSIDE THE NAVY 22 SEP 08) … Zachary M. Peterson

The 2008 Navy Operations Concept, known as the NOC, will include force structure details not included in the tri-service maritime strategy released last year and in the 2006 version of the document, a high-ranking Navy admiral said last week.

 more details:

“We are working hard to incorporate [into the NOC] force-structure analysis that we’ve been working on, so when we go to our partners in Congress, in [the Office of the Secretary of Defense] . . . it tells you I need ‘X’ number of ships, ‘X’ number of airplanes to operate the Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard in a manner required in the Naval Operations Concept to support the maritime strategy,” Vice Adm. Barry McCullough, deputy chief of naval operations for integration of resources and capabilities, said Sept. 16 at a luncheon sponsored by the Surface Navy Association.

Interesting etymology note — First citation above speaks of the Navy Operations Concept and VADM McCullough’s quote talks about the Naval Operations Concept – an important distinction in that the former concentrates only on Navy while the latter, like the Maritime Strategy, incorporates the Marines and Coast Guard, an important distinction especially where force structure discussion is concerned.  Of course it could also just be lax journalism or casual useage of seemingly indistinguishable terms (highly doubtful if that is the case where VADM McCullough is concerned however…).  We’re calling it the Naval Operations Concept until we see the actual hardcopy.

 

We’ve disussed the NOC and its role before on these pages and while we feel it is about 8 months late, we nevertheless recall the birthing pains from our own experiences and look forward to this version, particularly to see if it assists in filling some of the missing parts of the Maritime Strategy.  We also hope that the NOC will be publically advocated via fora like the DoD Blogger’s Roundtable (hint, hint) and other public venues besides the usual suspects(The Hill, etc.).  Of course we’ll have a copy posted and offer the same venue and critique as when the Maritime Strategy was released last year – at about this time…

Stay tuned.