NAVY ADDRESS - Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates addresses the audience at the annual Navy League of the United States conference in National Harbor, Md., May 3, 2010. DoD photo by Cherie CullenGates: U.S. Must Rethink Expensive Warships, Carriers, EFV -- Defense News
Pentagon and naval officials must decide whether to keep buying multibillion-dollar warships, since the Navy's shipbuilding budget is unlikely to grow amid economic uncertainty and two wars, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said May 3.
Gates raised eyebrows at a Navy League-sponsored conference in National Harbor, Md., by questioning, among other things, whether the United States will need 11 carrier strike groups when no other nation has more than one.
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I could almost agree with the secretary. Almost. It is certainly true that we have built ever-more-capable -- and ever-more-expensive and thus ever-less-numerous -- platforms. This is a problem in part because sinking just one is then a big deal, both in terms of our capability and enemy propaganda value; and in part because if you have one ship instead of seven, you can only be in one place with overwhelming force instead of seven with some force.
ReplyDeleteHowever, he misses a very fundamental political problem. If we just reduce the spending, and thus the capabilities, on new ships, without building more of the new, cheaper type, we've gained nothing and reduced the force we can project. But even if we had a 600 ship navy, with many more small ships, the loss of a single one would be just as bad as the loss of a destroyer. The American elites -- political, media, academic and sometimes (as Colin Powell demonstrates) even military -- are unwilling to accept the loss of a single ship, or aircraft, or sailor or soldier to combat. Some days, it seems that they are even unwilling to see an enemy killed in combat. This means that having less capable ships will not allow us to project force in more places at once, it just means that we will have more platforms that we are afraid to use, as they might be lost if we do.