The U.S. Navy Needs More Ships

The aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan travels through the Pacific Ocean with other ships assigned to the Rim of the Pacific 2010 exercise, north of Hawaii, July 24, 2010. U.S. Navy photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Dylan McCord

U.S. Navy’s Quantity Problem -- James R. Holmes, The Diplomat

As naval technology gallops on, can fleets execute the same missions with fewer assets?

Eminent people say so; I have my doubts.

Officials like U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Undersecretary of the Navy Robert Work point to scientific and technical advances that supposedly render numbers of ships and aircraft less meaningful than in bygone decades. Unmanned reconnaissance aircraft able to detect, classify, and track hostile contacts across wide sea areas and feed targeting information to U.S. Navy task forces represent one such innovation. Sea-service leaders also point out that warships now entering service are far more technologically advanced than the ones they replace.

The message, seemingly, is that quantity no longer has much quality of its own.

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My Comment: I remember the days when President Reagan talked about the need to have a 600 ship Navy in projecting US power overseas .... sighhh .... for the U.S. Navy those days are long long long gone.