A spokesman for Secretary of the Navy Kenneth Braithwaite confirmed to the press on December 3 that the Navy is rebuilding the First Fleet. Braithwaite himself previously said in a speech on November 17 that the U.S. military should build a new naval fleet in the Indo-Pacific region to more comprehensively address the challenges facing U.S. Indo-Pacific Command.
Jereal Dorsey, a spokesman for the secretary of the Navy, said that the “administrative requirements” to reactivate the First Fleet are in the final stages of coordination, according to the U.S. Defense Department’s Stars and Stripes newspaper. He explained that the Secretary of the Navy is working with Acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller, Congress, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, Chief of Naval Operations Michael Gilday, Marine Corps Commandant David Berger and other stakeholders to ensure that the Navy maintains its maritime superiority in an era of great power competition.
In his speech last month, Braithwaite stated, “We want to build a new U.S. military fleet. We want to deploy that fleet at the crossroads between the Indian Ocean and the Pacific, and we want to really leave a footprint in the Indo-Pacific.” He continued, “We can’t just rely on the Seventh Fleet in Japan, we have to look to other allies and partners, like Singapore and India, and God forbid, if we ever get involved in any disputes, that’s going to be very important.”
The mission Braithwaite is referring to now belongs to the U.S. Navy’s Seventh Fleet, which is based at Yokosuka Naval Base in Japan. It is the only U.S. fleet deployed in the Indo-Pacific region. It includes the USS Reagan carrier strike group, which is sometimes supported by ships from the Third Fleet based in San Diego. The Seventh Fleet is the U.S. Navy’s largest deployed fleet, with 50-70 ships and submarines, 150 aircraft, and about 20,000 sailors. Its nearly 48 million square miles area of operations extends from the International Date Line in the central Pacific to the India/Pakistan border, and from the Kuril Islands in the north to the Antarctic in the south.
The U.S. Navy cannot rely solely on the Seventh Fleet to cover the area, Braithwaite said. Seventh Fleet ships regularly conduct freedom-of-navigation cruises and other missions in the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea. In the South China Sea, Beijing has established a military presence on artificial islands in disputed waters. At the same time, China’s navy has been growing rapidly. In September, the PLA military sent two aircraft carriers to sea together for training, and work continues on its third carrier.
More importantly, it will provide a stronger deterrent,” said Braithwaite. So we’re going to build the First Fleet, we’re going to deploy it at, or at the bottleneck where Singapore is located, and we’re going to look to make it more expeditionary and cruise it across the Pacific until our allies and partners see that it can best assist them as well as assist ourselves.” Historically, the U.S. Navy’s First Fleet began early operations in 1946 and became operational in 1948. The First Fleet was formerly part of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, primarily responsible for the Western Pacific region, and was decommissioned on February 1, 1973, with responsibility taken over by the Third Fleet.
Ross Babbage, an Australian analyst who served as special adviser to Australia’s defense minister, said in an email Friday that the obvious home port for the First Fleet would be Cockburn Bay in Perth, along with HMAS Stirling, the Australian naval base. He noted that “the local location is in an excellent turnaround position, providing ready access to the (Southeast Asian) Straits and a broad strategic land-based depth.”
Western Australia is a preferred port of call for U.S. sailors, Babbage said, and their families would find the region a perfect setting for a vacation. He said, “The Australian government has announced significant upgrades to many of the naval bases and support facilities in the region.” He continued, “This will include the early installation of a brand new, very advanced underwater range and underwater surveillance system.”
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