OPINION:
A nation’s standing in the global world order has always been judged by the strength of its naval fleet — both the quantity and quality of its ships. President Theodore Roosevelt sent the world a powerful message when he built the Great White Fleet and sent 16 new battleships on a worldwide cruise in 1907. Roosevelt’s message was the U.S. was a maritime power with a capable and congressionally supported blue-water fleet. “A good Navy is not a provocation to war. It is the surest guaranty of peace,” said Mr. Roosevelt.
Support for a strong maritime capability continued during the Woodrow Wilson administration when the fleet’s size was tripled. Further strengthening occurred when President Franklin Roosevelt and Rep. Carl Vinson expanded our Navy. At Vinson’s urging, Congress passed the Two-Ocean Navy Act in 1940. Vinson said America’s naval capabilities in the Atlantic and Pacific should be increased, especially if the U.S. became involved in a global conflict that threatened our nation. A year later Japan attacked Pearl Harbor.
What resulted from the Two-Ocean Navy Act was a 70% increase in our fleet. The act actually was a key to our success in World War II because many of the ships to see action were already being built.
However, the tide has turned. While leaders like the Roosevelts and Vinson saw the need and benefits resulting from a strong maritime presence, we’ve seen our Navy shrink to levels that should cause alarm. When the proposed budget for the next fiscal year was released a few weeks ago, the Navy budget calls for reducing the fleet from 298 ships to 280 by 2027. Meanwhile, China — our chief adversary — is now larger than the U.S. Navy with 360 battle force ships. China is on a pace to have 425 battle force ships by 2030.
In the past 10 years, China has increased its battle force ships by 140. China added more than 100 in just the past five years alone. Size alone does not necessarily make for a capable fleet. But in China’s case, we see their surface ships, submarines, aircraft, weapons and supporting systems much more capable than they were at the start of the 1990s, according to a recent Congressional Research Service report.
In its budget announcement, the Navy said it plans to decommission 24 ships next year alone. The strategy behind this reduction is referred to as “divesting to invest.” Some of the ships slated for decommissioning are just two or three years old.
It takes years to design and build a ship, and it will be years before the Navy will be able to grow its fleet with its divest to invest strategy. Meanwhile, our nation will be losing a tremendous amount of capability on the seas. Just as an example, we will lose more than 1000 vertical launching system cells with the ships being decommissioned. VLS cells are what fire long-range land-attack Tomahawk missiles. Tomahawks can also be used for air defense and ballistic missile defense, along with providing an anti-ship capability.
The fallout from a reduced fleet is the burden this will place on the few ships that will remain. Fewer ships mean longer deployments and more maintenance, not to mention the added stresses to the sailors who man them.
Needless to say, our weakened posture is an open invitation to China to achieve its grand prize of seizing Taiwan. China must see our Navy as weakened prey — certainly not a deterrent.
One of the loudest voices on our Navy’s demise is Rep. Elaine Luria of Virginia. Ms. Luria is a nuclear-trained Naval Academy graduate who retired as a commander after serving 20 years on active duty. She serves on the House Armed Services Committee.
“Every year since I’ve been in Congress, we’ve received a budget that wants to reduce the size of the Navy,” says Ms. Luria. After the most the most recent plan to reduce the fleet, she tweeted: “I’ve delayed putting out a statement about the Defense Budget because frankly it would have been mostly full of words you might expect from a Sailor, but here goes: It sucks.”
Concerning the ships that will be decommissioned, Ms. Luria said, “The Navy owes a public apology to American taxpayers for wasting tens of billions of dollars on ships they say serve no purpose.”
Russ Vought of the Center for Renewing America is also direct in his assessment. “There is no excuse for the Biden administration’s repeated refusal to adequately fund the Navy. A bipartisan consensus now exists that, as a maritime nation with an immediate need to confront an adversarial China, the U.S. must pursue a blue-water strategy that necessitates a far bigger fleet.”
• Rear Adm. Tom Jurkowsky, USN (retired), served for 31 years on active duty. He is the author of “The Secret Sauce for Organizational Success: Communications and Leadership on the Same Page.”
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