CDR Sal, all great points. IMO, all of these problems are impacted by the reward to consequence mismatch that currently exists in acquisition. The "reward" goes to those who milk the acquisition process for dollars regardless of whether they are actually providing capability or meeting the specified (yet constantly sliding to the right) timeline. Creating an environment that forces people to do the right thing or not get paid is a start. However, concur 100% that foundationally, you MUST HAVE AN INDUSTRIAL BASE to produce at scale. If you don't you are engaging in "trade show" defense production levels. This will take time and effort if we choose to fix it. We may have the ability should we choose to expend the resources. Time...not sure about that at all.
On the money. Day one and two new SecDef personally interviews all four and three star generals and admirals. Send most packing. Goldwater Nichols started with a good idea and now is a yoke around the DOD neck. It’s a hiding hole for a lot of dead wood and excuse not to be at sea or in the FMF for Marine Officers. Either you’re a war fighter or you’re an office Pog eating poggy bait all day. Figure out to be joint without the joints.
We need tradesmen, Mile Rowe (the dirty jobs guy) just spent the weekend here in NH, they had 80 trades under a big tent, it is possible to get the young back to the trades. Here in NH 5 retire for every 2 that enter…we have 6,000 employees over at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard many are soon to retire. Further the shipyard is a classic case of it taking too long and costing too much to get the attack boats in and refitted and back to sea. (If a dumb assed Marine Infantry Officer knows this than the Navy has a problem, just speak with the boat crews when they are in port for 18-24 months, they are careful with their words but the shipyard has a problem)
Rolled steel. For the love of Mike do not allow the acquisition of US Steel by Nippon Steel, we have several smaller or similar sized steel companies that could get a deal done get the SEC out of the process on this and get the rolling mills going. People think milk comes from the dairy section of the supermarket, people have no idea of where steel comes from or that the cost of every ton of steel is predicated on the cost of a gallon of diesel. Enough DIE and EPA, cut the regulations down and quit wasting prescious time with DIE. Thouroughly Modern Milley has retired whisky glass in hand and time to send CRT and white rage packing with along with anyone who doesn’t want to “pick up a rifle and follow me.” Get the Marine Air Ground Task Force (MAGTF) back as the 911 force, we are brush fire experts, let the other services handle the big stuff, (happy to help if needed) but get the ARG/MEU capable of meeting Title X mandates. Fire the current Commnadant, he is a major part of the problem. 1000 atta boys gets wiped out with ah sh*t. Arrongance and ego have no place in the oldest standing structure in Washington DC.
Finally as ole Shakes had it so well “kill all the lawyers” well at least fire most of them.
"Sell non-war fighting assets " - No no no. Convert them into useful assets but do not sell them. If we sell them we can never get the land back and we put ourselves into a bad position where NIMBY people complain that bought these assets and we paint ourselves into another corner. Convert golf courses into weapons igloos, runways, barracks, whatever but keep them as assets that can be used in the future. Keeping them as raw land is better than selling to a developer. How about this, re-employ a number of soon to be fired federal employees to cut the grass and caretake these facilities as opposed to putting them on welfare.
Hear hear. Never forget what BRACs has taken from us. Once the For Sale signs go up the greed driven political class has shown us it’s not about NATDEF but line it’s pockets & going to far.
Naval Stations and Army Bases should be places where families live. They should have golf courses, and tennis courts; hospitals and soccer fields; and etc.
As a Nation we can leverage our ownership of land to provide non-monetary incentives to attract and retain the skilled professionals required for our self-defense.
Gallagher's column is wrong at a couple of main points. His first line on the industrial base is well taken. However he soon goes off the rails. The Pentagon (a lazy generality for a building that contains several departments with differing responsibilities - in this instance the Joint Staff working IAW administration guidance), does not establish the technical requirements for any service - those emanate from the individual service organizations charged with those missions. Next he addresses rapid equipping, which worked so well with the design as you build process (with unproven technology to boot). Rapid can work for lesser procurements if properly executed (no pet rocks, please). He reiterates the industrial base and asks for increases in weapons production, excellent points. Then he hits the unreality button and goes for imaginary savings - you could abolish the organizations he wants to reduce and that would not make a drop in the bucket to the several tens of billions we need to ensure we have enough quality ships in the fight. The bottom line is his heart is in the right place but he hasn't made the effort to fully understand the details of the procurement process and the funding needed to support it.
Plus saving money to buy more of the wrong platforms will grow cost which could have been avoided with a new design that addresses cost to own with current best practices and modern equipment.
Because nearly everyone here at the Porch is steeped in Things Navy (wonder how many centuries the Porch has accumulated in active service years?), many don't get how isolated the Navy is from the non military exposed civilian today.
All they know about the Navy is 'TOP GUN' snarky type A Mavericks with cute callsign names strutting about in their flightsuits, and baseball cap wearing, beard sporting, Iowa farm garb dressed, tobacco chewing, fighting on mountain tops SEALS prone to 'roid rage.
In other words, to the average citizen, the US Navy brand is some mildly entertaining movie fare.
All this Pacific Pivot stuff is just some boring DC swamp stuff to them (and before you knee jerk to think I am talking just about the uneducated deplorables, you are wrong, the Navy is way less known among the purple hair progressives).
Also, it really doesnt help that the Navy is considered arrogant and aloof on the The Hill.
Not surprising since the Navalist emissaries, who are the ones who claim to be campaigning for the USN, openly state that most of their target audience are distasteful buffoons.
Cant see any sway of a positive swing of the needle towards better support for the Navy that these people have managed.
Anyway, USN Leadership does itself no favors by dressing up in the stereotypes that John and Jane Q Public have come to know...
(Is there some reason SWO's are wearing flightsuits?...the non naval American Citizen will just see another TOP Gun movie in that pic).
What that picture epitomizes is that the navy of 2024 is not as much a "Navy" as it is a mashed up Military/Industrial 'Enterprise' with "Naval" conveniently placed in its title.
The uniforms -which only show some Air Force Generals talking to some Army troops (Average American's view)- describe a gaggle of affiliated "Communities" instead of a cohesive, rationally thought out, Naval Service.
Wait. Leaving aside the uniform tragedy that the good Commander has addressed many times, is that actually an "Attack of the Clones" patch on the CNO's shoulder?! Please tell me that's Photoshop.
Why do you need to wear a flight suit to fly a drone?
The CNO is driving home the "affiliated communities" syndrome in that pic.
She is showing the world that the Navy is not interested in displaying its unique identity.
Of course, we've seen this with the decrepit appearance of USN ships over the last decade. Until they were shamed into it, the USN leadership wasn't interested in improving that situation at all.
What is simply inexcusable is that the Navy has the Service Dress Blue uniform. Dress Blue is a seagoing service’s uniform for sailors on shore. It’s a freaking man’s suit! You should be able to buy one at Brook’s Brothers. Tailor one for women, button the jacket the opposite way and you have a good-looking woman’s suit. It is an article of clothing that matches the clothing professionals wear in the workplace. No naval officer in SDB will ever feel out of place when civilians’s are wearing a suit and tie; because HE’S WEARING A SUIT AND TIE!!!
If folks take their jackets off, the naval officer can take his jacket off, and he will be properly garbed in a crisp white shirt and a navy blue tie. The perfect dress for an office.
When lawsuits go to trial, litigants usually try and dress well; usually in a coat and tie. There’s always a few folks who like to strut around in camo; hunting gear. These folks don’t make a good showing. Why in the world do we let our naval officers walk around on land dressed for hunting, or conducting an oil change; when they have a perfectly suited suit hanging in the closet?
"When you go to war with a nation four times your population, close to your GDP and with a larger Navy using internal lines of communication instead of external lines of communication, you are not going to win that with a few bespoke Tiffany platforms."
What is winning, and how is it achieved? The early 2000s concepts of doing a "distant blockade" and/or stand-off bombardment until China cries uncle seem utterly unrealistic at this point. Not least because the Chinese have built a big enough navy to challenge (and possibly break) any distant blockade.
Reform, money, and an industrial base are needed. But the first step has to be a good Roman decimation of our flag and general officers as well as senior civilian leadership. Figuratively, of course.
I want to have confidence in our senior military leadership. But they forfeited it by not publicly resigning to protest the doomed plan to "end" the Afghanistan campaign. Instead, years later those FOGOs go on book tours about how they knew the plan to retreat from Afghanistan was deeply flawed. Thanks a bunch.
I'm sure/hope many if not most of our senior military officers are good and that my bad view is driven by the politically adept who rise to the top so often these days. But Hell, perhaps we should ban any higher education majors other than engineering or military history. And I'm not sure I'm just joking.
But I digress. A useful essay about the Navy with implications for the other services.
What was the good plan to leave? We certainly needed to go. In going we gave ourselves time to get ready for the Ukraine situation we knew was coming. Our moose herd was thus not overtasked at the critical moment. What do you compare bad too? It played out like Vietnam on TV but is that what the stats show on the back end? Puck your battles. Who resigned when Trump said Fincantieri won the frigate because they were a swing state?
To avoid hijacking a discussion thread on restoring the Navy, I'll restrict myself to saying we'll have to disagree on the question of completely walking away. We may have simply delayed the price.
More on point, I'll disagree that the frigate shipbuilder contract decision was more critical that overloading a fine European FREMM frigate design to the point where costs skyrocket and hulls are limited. I've read we jammed 10 pounds of capabilities in a 5-pound sack.
And not to defend the shipbuilding choice in particular, but a political factor was not unique. Our government built 18th century Constitution and the other 5 famous frigates in shipyards to maximize public support. Thus has politics always been a factor in our republic.
" Assuming China sticks to its Taiwan timeline, the next secretary has two years to prevent World War III. To do so, he must put the Pentagon on a war footing, firing any bureaucrat unable or unwilling to work at a wartime pace. " YOWZA!!!!!! I vote a solid YEA!
This will all of course have to wait. One of the first things the incoming admin will do is hold accountability committees for our current and retired GOFO’s. Massive head hunting about to happen and the lists are already being made.
I just realised recently that, indeed, 2027 is basically 2 years away. For a long time, 2027 seemed "quite a bit in the future", but not it is soon on our porch.
Europe is a joke still, US is in a complicated transition - not sure how much it can be repaired in 2 years, and China is happily progressing, not spending ammo in Russia, and continuing to develop its overall capability. I'm somewhat dreading what 2030 will look like, but I have hope that things can be, and will be, turned around.
Recent conflicts (Gulf Wars 1 and II) started at a time and place of our choosing. 2027 you say? Makes sense, there's plenty of evidence to support that time frame. Thought experiment: PLA war planners are known to have exhaustively studied "the American way of war" so they can (if need be) challenge / and / or defeat the U.S. as tasked by Chairman Xi. Total war looks a bit different today from Sherman's march to the sea or even unconditional surrender in WW II. Opening acts such as take down the internet (undersea cables, as Flight-Er-Doc notes), take down degrade the power grid (via internet, EMP burst risks epic retaliation spasm)...and THEN simultaneously commence overt action against Taiwan. Hard to imagine a better administration to kick of that type of campaign against than the current one...someone go grab POTATUS from under the palm tree, stat!
(FYI, you might just find me bellied up to the bar at Coyote Roadhouse this weekend...but definitely eating prime rib at the bowling alley...I digress; back to the topic at hand)
"Quite a 4th-gen attack modality. How are we fixed for repair ships?"
Second. Call the question.
All in favor say "aye".
CDR Sal, all great points. IMO, all of these problems are impacted by the reward to consequence mismatch that currently exists in acquisition. The "reward" goes to those who milk the acquisition process for dollars regardless of whether they are actually providing capability or meeting the specified (yet constantly sliding to the right) timeline. Creating an environment that forces people to do the right thing or not get paid is a start. However, concur 100% that foundationally, you MUST HAVE AN INDUSTRIAL BASE to produce at scale. If you don't you are engaging in "trade show" defense production levels. This will take time and effort if we choose to fix it. We may have the ability should we choose to expend the resources. Time...not sure about that at all.
On the money. Day one and two new SecDef personally interviews all four and three star generals and admirals. Send most packing. Goldwater Nichols started with a good idea and now is a yoke around the DOD neck. It’s a hiding hole for a lot of dead wood and excuse not to be at sea or in the FMF for Marine Officers. Either you’re a war fighter or you’re an office Pog eating poggy bait all day. Figure out to be joint without the joints.
We need tradesmen, Mile Rowe (the dirty jobs guy) just spent the weekend here in NH, they had 80 trades under a big tent, it is possible to get the young back to the trades. Here in NH 5 retire for every 2 that enter…we have 6,000 employees over at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard many are soon to retire. Further the shipyard is a classic case of it taking too long and costing too much to get the attack boats in and refitted and back to sea. (If a dumb assed Marine Infantry Officer knows this than the Navy has a problem, just speak with the boat crews when they are in port for 18-24 months, they are careful with their words but the shipyard has a problem)
Rolled steel. For the love of Mike do not allow the acquisition of US Steel by Nippon Steel, we have several smaller or similar sized steel companies that could get a deal done get the SEC out of the process on this and get the rolling mills going. People think milk comes from the dairy section of the supermarket, people have no idea of where steel comes from or that the cost of every ton of steel is predicated on the cost of a gallon of diesel. Enough DIE and EPA, cut the regulations down and quit wasting prescious time with DIE. Thouroughly Modern Milley has retired whisky glass in hand and time to send CRT and white rage packing with along with anyone who doesn’t want to “pick up a rifle and follow me.” Get the Marine Air Ground Task Force (MAGTF) back as the 911 force, we are brush fire experts, let the other services handle the big stuff, (happy to help if needed) but get the ARG/MEU capable of meeting Title X mandates. Fire the current Commnadant, he is a major part of the problem. 1000 atta boys gets wiped out with ah sh*t. Arrongance and ego have no place in the oldest standing structure in Washington DC.
Finally as ole Shakes had it so well “kill all the lawyers” well at least fire most of them.
You mean we should be a serious nation again?
"Sell non-war fighting assets " - No no no. Convert them into useful assets but do not sell them. If we sell them we can never get the land back and we put ourselves into a bad position where NIMBY people complain that bought these assets and we paint ourselves into another corner. Convert golf courses into weapons igloos, runways, barracks, whatever but keep them as assets that can be used in the future. Keeping them as raw land is better than selling to a developer. How about this, re-employ a number of soon to be fired federal employees to cut the grass and caretake these facilities as opposed to putting them on welfare.
Hear hear. Never forget what BRACs has taken from us. Once the For Sale signs go up the greed driven political class has shown us it’s not about NATDEF but line it’s pockets & going to far.
Remember why lawyers call land “real” property.
Hey, Golf courses on base provide a useful buffer between the families and the industrial areas. That helps with retention, and makes it nicer.
Naval Stations and Army Bases should be places where families live. They should have golf courses, and tennis courts; hospitals and soccer fields; and etc.
As a Nation we can leverage our ownership of land to provide non-monetary incentives to attract and retain the skilled professionals required for our self-defense.
Gallagher's column is wrong at a couple of main points. His first line on the industrial base is well taken. However he soon goes off the rails. The Pentagon (a lazy generality for a building that contains several departments with differing responsibilities - in this instance the Joint Staff working IAW administration guidance), does not establish the technical requirements for any service - those emanate from the individual service organizations charged with those missions. Next he addresses rapid equipping, which worked so well with the design as you build process (with unproven technology to boot). Rapid can work for lesser procurements if properly executed (no pet rocks, please). He reiterates the industrial base and asks for increases in weapons production, excellent points. Then he hits the unreality button and goes for imaginary savings - you could abolish the organizations he wants to reduce and that would not make a drop in the bucket to the several tens of billions we need to ensure we have enough quality ships in the fight. The bottom line is his heart is in the right place but he hasn't made the effort to fully understand the details of the procurement process and the funding needed to support it.
Plus saving money to buy more of the wrong platforms will grow cost which could have been avoided with a new design that addresses cost to own with current best practices and modern equipment.
What are your thoughts on COCOM reform?
Yes.
How to get the navy's Groove Back...
Because nearly everyone here at the Porch is steeped in Things Navy (wonder how many centuries the Porch has accumulated in active service years?), many don't get how isolated the Navy is from the non military exposed civilian today.
All they know about the Navy is 'TOP GUN' snarky type A Mavericks with cute callsign names strutting about in their flightsuits, and baseball cap wearing, beard sporting, Iowa farm garb dressed, tobacco chewing, fighting on mountain tops SEALS prone to 'roid rage.
In other words, to the average citizen, the US Navy brand is some mildly entertaining movie fare.
All this Pacific Pivot stuff is just some boring DC swamp stuff to them (and before you knee jerk to think I am talking just about the uneducated deplorables, you are wrong, the Navy is way less known among the purple hair progressives).
Also, it really doesnt help that the Navy is considered arrogant and aloof on the The Hill.
Not surprising since the Navalist emissaries, who are the ones who claim to be campaigning for the USN, openly state that most of their target audience are distasteful buffoons.
Cant see any sway of a positive swing of the needle towards better support for the Navy that these people have managed.
Anyway, USN Leadership does itself no favors by dressing up in the stereotypes that John and Jane Q Public have come to know...
https://d1ldvf68ux039x.cloudfront.net/thumbs/photos/2405/8380609/1000w_q95.jpg
(Is there some reason SWO's are wearing flightsuits?...the non naval American Citizen will just see another TOP Gun movie in that pic).
What that picture epitomizes is that the navy of 2024 is not as much a "Navy" as it is a mashed up Military/Industrial 'Enterprise' with "Naval" conveniently placed in its title.
The uniforms -which only show some Air Force Generals talking to some Army troops (Average American's view)- describe a gaggle of affiliated "Communities" instead of a cohesive, rationally thought out, Naval Service.
Wait. Leaving aside the uniform tragedy that the good Commander has addressed many times, is that actually an "Attack of the Clones" patch on the CNO's shoulder?! Please tell me that's Photoshop.
"Attack of the Drones' my guess is it was a gift from a drone squadron.
A takeoff of it...
"Attack of the Drones" ...
Why do you need to wear a flight suit to fly a drone?
The CNO is driving home the "affiliated communities" syndrome in that pic.
She is showing the world that the Navy is not interested in displaying its unique identity.
Of course, we've seen this with the decrepit appearance of USN ships over the last decade. Until they were shamed into it, the USN leadership wasn't interested in improving that situation at all.
What is simply inexcusable is that the Navy has the Service Dress Blue uniform. Dress Blue is a seagoing service’s uniform for sailors on shore. It’s a freaking man’s suit! You should be able to buy one at Brook’s Brothers. Tailor one for women, button the jacket the opposite way and you have a good-looking woman’s suit. It is an article of clothing that matches the clothing professionals wear in the workplace. No naval officer in SDB will ever feel out of place when civilians’s are wearing a suit and tie; because HE’S WEARING A SUIT AND TIE!!!
If folks take their jackets off, the naval officer can take his jacket off, and he will be properly garbed in a crisp white shirt and a navy blue tie. The perfect dress for an office.
When lawsuits go to trial, litigants usually try and dress well; usually in a coat and tie. There’s always a few folks who like to strut around in camo; hunting gear. These folks don’t make a good showing. Why in the world do we let our naval officers walk around on land dressed for hunting, or conducting an oil change; when they have a perfectly suited suit hanging in the closet?
Also bring back the meter maid covers for women. The bus driver cover is not very complimentary to women.
"When you go to war with a nation four times your population, close to your GDP and with a larger Navy using internal lines of communication instead of external lines of communication, you are not going to win that with a few bespoke Tiffany platforms."
What is winning, and how is it achieved? The early 2000s concepts of doing a "distant blockade" and/or stand-off bombardment until China cries uncle seem utterly unrealistic at this point. Not least because the Chinese have built a big enough navy to challenge (and possibly break) any distant blockade.
Shuttering DoDEA would net a cool 100 million, and incidentally take little kids off what are now, with hypersonic missiles, the front line.
Reform, money, and an industrial base are needed. But the first step has to be a good Roman decimation of our flag and general officers as well as senior civilian leadership. Figuratively, of course.
I want to have confidence in our senior military leadership. But they forfeited it by not publicly resigning to protest the doomed plan to "end" the Afghanistan campaign. Instead, years later those FOGOs go on book tours about how they knew the plan to retreat from Afghanistan was deeply flawed. Thanks a bunch.
I'm sure/hope many if not most of our senior military officers are good and that my bad view is driven by the politically adept who rise to the top so often these days. But Hell, perhaps we should ban any higher education majors other than engineering or military history. And I'm not sure I'm just joking.
But I digress. A useful essay about the Navy with implications for the other services.
What was the good plan to leave? We certainly needed to go. In going we gave ourselves time to get ready for the Ukraine situation we knew was coming. Our moose herd was thus not overtasked at the critical moment. What do you compare bad too? It played out like Vietnam on TV but is that what the stats show on the back end? Puck your battles. Who resigned when Trump said Fincantieri won the frigate because they were a swing state?
To avoid hijacking a discussion thread on restoring the Navy, I'll restrict myself to saying we'll have to disagree on the question of completely walking away. We may have simply delayed the price.
More on point, I'll disagree that the frigate shipbuilder contract decision was more critical that overloading a fine European FREMM frigate design to the point where costs skyrocket and hulls are limited. I've read we jammed 10 pounds of capabilities in a 5-pound sack.
And not to defend the shipbuilding choice in particular, but a political factor was not unique. Our government built 18th century Constitution and the other 5 famous frigates in shipyards to maximize public support. Thus has politics always been a factor in our republic.
" Assuming China sticks to its Taiwan timeline, the next secretary has two years to prevent World War III. To do so, he must put the Pentagon on a war footing, firing any bureaucrat unable or unwilling to work at a wartime pace. " YOWZA!!!!!! I vote a solid YEA!
No lies detected in this article.
This will all of course have to wait. One of the first things the incoming admin will do is hold accountability committees for our current and retired GOFO’s. Massive head hunting about to happen and the lists are already being made.
Worked great for the Soviets at the start of wwii.
Keeping the political cadre in charge worked so much better at Tsushima.
I just realised recently that, indeed, 2027 is basically 2 years away. For a long time, 2027 seemed "quite a bit in the future", but not it is soon on our porch.
Europe is a joke still, US is in a complicated transition - not sure how much it can be repaired in 2 years, and China is happily progressing, not spending ammo in Russia, and continuing to develop its overall capability. I'm somewhat dreading what 2030 will look like, but I have hope that things can be, and will be, turned around.
Recent conflicts (Gulf Wars 1 and II) started at a time and place of our choosing. 2027 you say? Makes sense, there's plenty of evidence to support that time frame. Thought experiment: PLA war planners are known to have exhaustively studied "the American way of war" so they can (if need be) challenge / and / or defeat the U.S. as tasked by Chairman Xi. Total war looks a bit different today from Sherman's march to the sea or even unconditional surrender in WW II. Opening acts such as take down the internet (undersea cables, as Flight-Er-Doc notes), take down degrade the power grid (via internet, EMP burst risks epic retaliation spasm)...and THEN simultaneously commence overt action against Taiwan. Hard to imagine a better administration to kick of that type of campaign against than the current one...someone go grab POTATUS from under the palm tree, stat!
Pretty sure the cities burned during the last administration by supporters of that former and future administration.
Oddly enough, two undersea cables in the Baltic failed recently.
Quite a 4th-gen attack modality. How are we fixed for repair ships?
(FYI, you might just find me bellied up to the bar at Coyote Roadhouse this weekend...but definitely eating prime rib at the bowling alley...I digress; back to the topic at hand)
"Quite a 4th-gen attack modality. How are we fixed for repair ships?"
Wow! Who would've anticipated that!
Ships? That is singular.
The US owns only one cable ship:
https://www.navy.mil/Resources/Fact-Files/Display-FactFiles/Article/2232652/cable-layingrepair-ship-t-arc/
She is a bit long in the tooth...
https://x.com/WarshipCam/status/1747810842714821006
Last account I had she was in Charleston in the yard.
But wait, it doesn't get any better about undersea cable repair.
There are only 22 ships worldwide that can accomplish cable repairs...
https://www.theverge.com/c/24070570/internet-cables-undersea-deep-repair-ships
It would be a damned shame if something happened to those ships - engineering casualties, dock strikes, who knows?
Not sure if you read the article, but both the ships and crews are aging.
First, fire every DEI CRT PC flag officer beginning with the CNO and USNA superintendent.
End all LGBTQ DEI programs and transfer personnel to useful communities or out the door.
Inform promotion boards that merit is the only criteria. Remove mandatory female and minority board members.
Recall Admiral McRaven to active duty and indict him for treason. Fat Leonard’s friends too.
Restore all CSA names and monuments. Erasing history is ok for the Taliban or communists.
That is Day One. Let me think about Day Two.
Let’s meet back in 4 years and see how that impacted recruiting.
The trend over the last 4 years is validation of the point made.