The Navy: Dead In The Water?
The Navy: Dead In The Water? | ZeroHedge
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Conclusion: All of these factors outlined above make it clear that our Navy is in extremis. There are not enough ships to do the mission nor enough manpower to man the ships optimally. Deployments are too long, and our people and ships are wearing out. Recruiting is stagnant. Too few ships, not enough people, not enough shipbuilding, or repair capacity have us on the brink of mission failure. To put the size of the Navy in perspective,
when this officer went aboard ship in 1970 to conduct anti-submarine patrols looking for Soviet ballistic missile submarines, the Navy had 792 battle force ships in commission. We now have 291. Then we had a cold war against one adversary, the old Soviet Union. Today we have adversaries all over the world and are trying to perform the mission quoted above with a tiny fraction of the ships we had decades ago. As a maritime nation with treaty allies all over the world coupled with our dependence upon the sea for 90% of the commerce that keeps our economy running, it is a travesty that such neglect of the Navy has occurred. Who is at fault for this neglect? Congress is ultimately at fault as it holds the power of the purse. However, it is incumbent upon senior Navy leaders to make the case for the right size Navy. The CNO and every other Navy flag who testifies before Congress should be sounding the alarm about the imminent failure of the Navy to perform its mission now in “peacetime” with multiple hots spots in Europe, the Middle East, and in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, and even more importantly in the next actual fighting war.
Someone long since should have laid his stars on the table to make the point to politicians that we need more ships and more manpower for the survival of our nation. Our way of life and our very lives are at stake if we do not rebuild our Navy to an adequate size to perform its vital worldwide mission.