Identity crisis: Navy leaders to articulate current and future missions.

Recent efforts by the Navy to deploy forces for ground combat and engage in other non-traditional duties are signs that the service intends to be relevant in the U.S. war on terrorism, analysts say. But the Navy also has to come to grips with how it should define its broader role in military campaigns over the long term.

Until the Navy is able to clearly define its roles and functions--not just in current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan but also in future operations--it will continue to be vulnerable to budget cuts, which would jeopardize the service's plans to recapitalize its aging fleet, experts contend.

"The Navy does not have a coherent message explaining what its role is, in the long war," says Eric Labs, senior analyst for naval forces and weapons at the Congressional Budget Office.

During the past two years, the Navy has taken steps to increase its presence on the ground in Iraq, officials note. It recently reached a milestone in which more sailors deployed in the Middle East are on the ground than on the water. The Navy also has resurrected a riverine force to help thwart terrorists from using waterways to conduct business, and it has established a new command to train and equip sailors for maritime security operations close to shore.

But analysts also point out that the Navy seems to be the proverbial fish out of water in the fight. Many of the sailors on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan are carrying out nontraditional duties, such as providing security for military installations. As a result, the Navy's duties have been viewed as peripheral, or in some cases overlooked.

Navy officials have further complicated the message of what the Navy's role is in the nation's war on terrorism by promoting esoteric concepts, such as "sea basing" and a "1,000-ship navy." Sea basing refers to the Navy's plan to deploy large ships that would be used by ground forces in the absence of traditional land bases. The 1,000-ship navy alludes to the notion that the United States does not have enough ships to patrol the waters of every hotspot in the world, but if many countries pooled their forces, they would be in a far better position to do that.

These concepts, while sensible, have left members of Congress and other decision makers mired in confusion over the Navy's role in future conflicts, says Labs.

Because of its perceived peripheral role in current conflicts, the sea service is the most susceptible of the four services to budget cuts in the next 20 years, Labs said at a recent conference hosted by the U.S. Naval Institute and the Marine Corps Association.

"It is the most vulnerable for three reasons. It has the least important contribution to the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq--it has after 'all, few forces that are directly engaged," Labs says. The upshot is that the Navy may be in peril of not reaching its shipbuilding goals.

Rear Adm. Dan W. Davenport, director of the Navy's assessment division capability analysis group, says the service is confident that it is moving along the right path toward "expanding our capability and capacity to contribute to the long war, while continuing to improve our ability to address a whole range of future challenges."

For example, the Navy is enhancing its irregular warfare capabilities by providing forces to help relieve stress on the Army and Marine Corps in Iraq and Afghanistan, says Davenport.

"The Navy is doing a great job, doing great things in back-filling for stressed out ground forces," says David Kilcullen, chief strategist in the State Department's office of the coordinator for counterterrorism. But the Navy's long-term role in the U.S. campaign against terrorist groups will not be relegated to only supporting the sister services.

"The idea that the war on terrorism is largely a ground force activity is a temporary phenomenon," says Kilcullen. Citing a "terrorist triangle" between Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines that will require maritime strength to defeat, Kilcullen says the Navy, with its unique capabilities in expeditionary warfare, special warfare, and now, riverine warfare, will have greater importance.

"There's no doubt that naval forces will be ... key players in the war on terrorism for at least the next 20 to 30 years," he explains.

But in order to be a key player, Navy leaders say, the Navy must modernize and increase the size of the fleet, which currently has 281 ships. The chief of naval operations, Adm. Michael Mullen, has proposed a 30-year ship-building plan to expand to 313 ships.

But watchdogs say attaining such a fleet may be pie in the sky.

"Since 1993, the Navy has not been building ships in sufficient quantities to get to a 313-ship navy, or for that matter, a 280-ship navy. The Navy's new shipbuilding plan does not build enough ships and submarines to maintain 313 ships over a 30-year span," says Labs. Instead, the service is on a path to decline to between 180 and 240 ships, he notes.

"You have to be careful to not design ships so well and so expensively that you end up only being able to afford a few," cautions Labs.

The Navy may be able to find recourse in the Coast Guard, he says. Both services are looking for fast-response and high-endurance ships, but they are pursuing two different vessels for maritime security operations that will result in the procurement of four different surface combatants in the next 10 years.

By cooperating with the Coast Guard, the Navy may be able to share acquisition of those platforms and save time and money, says Labs.

Another possible solution to avoiding cuts is to put together a coherent message about the Navy's role in combating terrorism, placing particular emphasis on global commerce security, says Labs.

That message is expected to be pushed out to national audiences during the next several months, as part of the Navy's "conversations with America" outreach campaign.

"We want to broaden the conversation and not just talk to naval specialists," says Vice Adm. John Morgan, deputy chief of naval operations. "We hope to elevate the discussion of sea power in America."

The Navy, meanwhile, recently issued a new naval operations concept that not only will shape what the future service will look like, but also will allow it to become more relevant in the "long war," says Rear Adm. Philip Cullom, director for strategy and policy.

"The real point of the naval operations concept is to unlock the innovation and adjust the creativity of sailors and Marines out there on the deck plates and out there in the field," he says.

The Navy, perhaps more than any other conventional force, has had to wear multiple hats, especially at times of disaster. During the past two years, the Navy has assisted victims of tsunamis, earthquakes and hurricanes.

"These are not sideshows," points out Adm. Edmund Giambastiani Jr., vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

But analysts warn the Navy should not expect to get extra credit for its humanitarian contributions.

"I think there's a danger to looking at humanitarian operations as an augury of the future," says Michael Scheuer, former director of the Bin Laden Unit at the CIA. "Americans are expected to do what we did in the Pakistani earthquake and the tsunami. Indeed, our ratings would have gone down around the world if we didn't, because that's what Americans do."