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Admiral sees difficulty meeting goals for fleet expansion

CongressDaily January 14, 2009

The Navy's top resources official Wednesday said the nation and the service were facing "the most challenging fiscal environment" in decades and it cannot afford to buy the ships and aircraft it wants.

Vice Adm. Barry McCullough, the deputy chief of naval operations for integrating capabilities and resources, gave that grim assessment to a Navy and industry audience while acknowledging he did not know what level of procurement funding the service would receive in the fiscal 2010 defense budget.

McCullough reiterated that Navy leadership regards a 313-ship fleet and a certain number of aircraft as minimum requirements to meet the increasing demand for naval forces. But, he continued, "when you look at the budget, you can't buy them all. There's not enough in the top line to buy them all."

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The difference between operational requirements and what the Navy can afford "is where you take the risk," he said. The admiral said the military has been depending on emergency supplemental funding to cover the added costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The challenge for fiscal 2010, he said, is not knowing how much will be in the base defense budget and whether there will be another supplemental.

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  • Maybe the problem is the fact that the Navy keeps contracting out for vessels that always end up costing much more than expected, due to enormous cost overruns. The Navy needs to keep a tighter rein on costs, and maybe should settle for just as capable, but less expensive, vessels. For example, it has recently decommissioned vessels, such as the Yorktown class AEGIS cruisers, that are fairly new, and still have many years of service left in them. Given the current and projected threats facing us, does it make sense to design new (and hugely expensive) classes of warships, when the warships we already have outclass anything owned by any current or future enemies? Just because it costs more, doesn't necessarily mean it will be better!
    Navy Fan Posted January 20, 2009 12:16 PM
  • Isn't this the problem of the military since forever? You optimize the use of funds to acquire the most effective force you can for the battles you're going to fight. To do it right, you must understand what's available and what kind of war you will have to pursue. Part of that is predicting the unknowns, which is probably the dividing line between the men and the boys. You can't just buy everything! In the US we buy more of everything than anyone else has been able to in history. What a luxury! That's how we won the cold war -- by buying lots of advanced stuff, we forced the USSR to buy more stuff than they could afford, and they went bankrupt. Let's not drive ourselves into bankruptcy the same way. That would be ironic!!
    Arty Wright Posted January 15, 2009 1:05 PM
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