The Miami Herald reports:
The Navy is considering restoring the Fourth Fleet in the Atlantic Ocean, a bureaucratic change that would raise the prominence of Pentagon maritime activities in Latin America and Caribbean. Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, made the disclosure during a visit to the Southern Command on Monday - calling it "a great idea" that "as far as I know is moving forward." The move would bring no new vessels to the region but would put Southcom on par administratively with other Pentagon outposts that have large budgets and bigger muscle. For example, the Central Command operates the Fifth Fleet in the Middle East. It would also restore an institution that sent U.S. Navy warships into southern waters in search of Nazi U-boats. The Navy created the Fourth Fleet in 1943 to hunt submarines in the South Atlantic during World War II.
There won't be any new ships for this reborn fleet, but there is a rationale, and I don't think it's quite as vague as what the Navy's making it out to be. Defense News quoted Admiral Roughead as saying the reorganization "would enable us to more effectively carry out the maritime strategy," (the WWS spoke with Roughead about that new maritime strategy late last year) and the Herald quotes Frank Mora, professor of national security strategy at the National War College: "It gives the Navy a bigger profile in the region . . . It sends a message to the region that you are important at a time when there is a sense that we don't care." All these things are true, but I expect the Fourth Fleet will do exactly as it once did during the Second World War: hunt subs in the Caribbean and, to a lesser extent, the South Atlantic. Only this time the enemy won't be Nazi U-Boats, but Russian Kilos operated by the Venezuelan Navy. Last summer there were numerous reports that Venezuela was planning to purchase anywhere between five and nine of the boats from Moscow in a deal valued at between $1 and $2 billion depending on the final numbers. This is the most likely explanation for why the Navy would revive a fleet after a nearly 60 year hiatus. The Coast Guard is capable of handling the current interdiction mission in the Caribbean. And while the Navy may want to engage more extensively with the Brazilians, who now operate an aircraft carrier purchased from the French in 2000, Venezuela is is the only potential threat to shipping in the region. As one expert told me, if Chavez gets his own sub fleet "it would turn the Caribbean into a Venezuelan lake." You have to figure that the U.S. Navy is thinking the same thing.