US Navy Expeditionary Forces shifts focus from joint force requirements to better meet naval needs

A Naval Mobile Construction Battalion Seabee is shown here launching reconnaissance drone for expeditionary navy operations. (US Navy)

The redesignation of the Navy Expeditionary Combat Command (NECC) to Commander, Navy Expeditionary Forces (CNEF) on 1 October highlighted the US Navy (USN) shift to a focus on naval expeditionary needs, according to Rear Admiral Brad Andros, CNEF commander.

As part of that shift, the CNEF reoriented its acquisition priorities to focus more on naval requirements than those of the joint force, Rear Adm Andros said on 5 November during a media roundtable discussion of CNEF.

“It really changed our strategy in equipment [acquisition],” Rear Adm Andros said.

The new designation was representative of the “leaner, more expeditionary” nature of operations and assets now under control of CNEF, the result of five years of modernisation efforts, Rear Adm Andros said.

In particular, Rear Adm Andros cited the emphasis on expeditionary logistics.

In his online “C-Note” 1 October message about the redesignation, Admiral Daryl Caudle, chief of naval operations (CNO), noted the new name formally recognises the command's established role as the navy's expeditionary Type Command (TYCOM) and “more accurately reflects the breadth of forces and capabilities required for the navy to operate, sustain, secure, and fight from austere maritime environments”.

Rear Adm Andros said, “This aligns us with how the navy organises other forces.”

With the establishment of NECC in 2006, the focus for those forces to was to meet the land-focused joint force needs in battling the Global War on Terrorism, he noted.

“Over the last five years we've reoriented ourselves and focused on what the navy really needs us to do,” Rear Adm Andros said.