OPINION:
The U.S. Navy has a serious problem. The question is, is anyone paying attention.
The threat from the Chinese navy has been well documented. China has already surpassed the U.S. in number of ships and is the largest navy in the world. China has 348 ships to America’s 296. China will continue to build more ships and is estimated to have a fleet of about 440 in five years. Meanwhile, the U.S. Navy is decommissioning ships and will bottom out at 280 in 2027. The Navy’s plan is to decommission ships and take older units out of service, allowing it to pay for a future fleet. The plan is referred to as “divest to invest.”
The plan may be a good and well-intentioned one. But the threat from China is now, not five years from now.
Exacerbating the problem is our Navy’s current readiness. In its most recent report examining all the military services’ readiness to be “mission capable,” the General Accountability Office found that the Navy had the most failures. In recent testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, the GAO official who oversees military readiness said its compiled findings over the last five years were “rather troubling.”
In one of its reports released earlier this year, GAO said that Navy warships are breaking down more often than expected and are taking longer to repair.
These are not good signs for a Navy that is facing a persistent and growing threat from a Chinese navy that is enhancing its capabilities. Even the chief of naval operations, in recent testimony before a House committee, said he’s concerned.
“I’m not satisfied with where we are with respect to maintenance and readiness of the force,” said Adm. Mike Gilday. “It does need to improve.”
Illustrating its current readiness condition, the Navy-Marine Corps team has been unable to deploy to three urgent missions over the past 18 months. The two most recent were the Navy’s inability to send amphibious ships with Marines to offer support after the horrific earthquake in Turkey and Syria and the evacuation of personnel from Sudan.
Neither of these events was combat-related, but noncombatant evacuations, humanitarian assistance operations and disaster relief are part of our country’s DNA. It’s who we are. When sailors and Marines go ashore and provide assistance, including medical support, it makes a statement and enhances our reputation as a global force for good.
Unfortunately, we were unable to support these type of operations as we have for decades in the past. Why? Because we didn’t have the ships available with embarked Marines in either of those theaters.
Granted, the U.S. did assist those affected by the earthquake in Turkey and Syria — but not to the extent a Marine Expeditionary Unit, or an MEU, in a large deck amphibious ship could have.
The U.S. citizens who were in Sudan were forced to make a dangerous 500-mile journey from Khartoum to Port Sudan without any support — just an unmanned aircraft to keep an eye on the evacuation route.
They were basically on their own. Upon reaching Port Sudan, they were placed on two Navy transport ships manned by civilian mariners.
In February 2022, when Russia was building its forces along Ukraine’s border, an MEU was ordered to deploy to Europe in case support was needed. The Marines were prepared and ready. Unfortunately, the three amphibious ships that were to take them to Europe were not out of maintenance in time to deploy.
Marine Corps leadership has been vocal in apologizing for its inability to respond to these events — events for which the Marines have historically been responsible. Evacuations have traditionally been a Marine Corps mission, and being able to provide support to devastating events is part of the Marine ethos.
Gen. David Berger, the Marine Corps commandant, told Congress that he had serious regrets over the fact the Marines were not available to support the earthquake and the Sudan evacuation. Gen. Berger said that as a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he owes the political leadership the best options.
“Here I felt we couldn’t offer them the best option because we have the Marines and the equipment and they’re trained but we didn’t have the ships,” he said.
In a separate set of remarks, the general lamented the readiness rate of the Navy’s amphibious fleet — 32%.
“We can’t live with that,” he said.
The warning flags about the state of our Navy have been raised numerous times over the past several years. What we’ve illustrated in our inability to respond to the three situations discussed above is just a piece of the overall degradation of our fleet. Our Navy has been neglected for the past 30 years because each administration over that period of time has failed to realize we are a seafaring nation dependent on the oceans.
Our political leaders need to understand what President Theodore Roosevelt said about a navy. “A good navy is not a provocation to war. It is the surest guaranty of peace.”
Accordingly, our political leaders need to reorder their priorities and accelerate our nation’s shipbuilding. We need ships, and we need them to be ready. The clock is ticking. In fact, we may already be in sudden death overtime.
• Retired Navy Rear Adm. Tom Jurkowsky served on active duty for 31 years. He is a member of the Military Officers Association of America board. He is the author of “The Secret Sauce for Organizational Success: Communications and Leadership on the Same Page.” The opinions expressed are solely his.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.