Cutting The Army To Expand The Navy

U.S. Marine Corps Cpl. Sean Abrusci provides security during a patrol in Helmand province, Afghanistan, July 5, 2013. Abrusci is assigned to Echo Company, 2nd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment. U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. David McKenzie

Must We Cut The Army To Expand The Navy? -- Max Boot, Commentary

Seth Cropsey, a former deputy undersecretary of defense, has written a fine new book called Mayday, warning of the perilous decline of U.S. naval supremacy. It should be required reading in Washington. As you might expect, retired Adm. Gary Roughead, a former chief of naval operations who is now at the Hoover Institution, gave the book a thumbs up in the Wall Street Journal. But while endorsing Cropsey’s warning about the dangers of allowing the Navy to decline too far, Roughead adds a curious dig at the army:

With its 286 ships, the U.S. Navy is now smaller than it was in 1917, when it boasted 342. The number is stuck, and the trend spans the administrations of both parties. We have spent heavily on our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the U.S. Navy, which is central to our long-term strategic interests, languishes. Navies, unlike armies, take time to build—why the framers of our Constitution wrote of the imperative to “provide and maintain a Navy,” as opposed to the need to “raise and support an Army.”

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My Comment: If putting together an Army was that easy, after ten years of effort the Afghan army would be a stellar professional military force today .... but it is not. Bottom line .... professional armies take years to develop.