I’ve always loved unfunded priorities lists. More often than not, they show the true disconnect between those who are asked to fight our wars and those in DC who have … perhaps other priorities.
Just close your eyes for a bit and think about those things old, new, borrowed, and blue that you would like to have in sufficient numbers should we have a requirement to steam west of the International Date Line to secure our national interests.
We need to defend our bases, have long range strike, and deny access to our adversaries from free use of the seas. Having friends who own the local real estate would be helpful as well.
My top-10 is a bit different than theirs, but its close. Using their priority list numbers below, here’s mine:
Guam Defense System
Joint Training Team
MILCON
Precision Strike Missile Inc. 2 & Inc. 4
Powered Quickstrike
Maritime Strike TLAM (USMC)
SM-6 Block 1B
Clandestine Delivered Mines
Economic Warfare Analysis Capability
International Security Cooperation
Over to you in comments.
Attack submarines. Play your silly surface sea and air games. If I can lock you into underground sea pens with a real threat of sinking all your surface ships...war is over and I win. Expensive? Yeah. Effective? Until someone learns to find submarines without hacking into comms systems to find them and get notice when they sail, yes.
Drones and missiles.