The Heart of the Problem

Building off the theme of yesterday’s post, Blake Herzinger outlines well that - when you back up from the spreadsheets, maintenance schedule, and enlistment numbers - there is a larger area of neglect, both real and intellectual;

At the heart of the problem is that the Navy’s leaders have been unable to articulate their needs to policymakers. They have instead provided a range of options of what they might be able to afford within assumed spending limits, but that satisfies no one. Meanwhile, an ongoing battle between Congress and successive presidential administrations of both parties has made matters worse, with the White House proposing budgets that are insufficient to ensure growth and Congress growing increasingly frustrated with the lack of direction that affords, as well as with the Navy’s lack of an articulated vision.

The Navy even struggles to maintain the ships it does have, with average delays in maintenance having increased by a factor of four in a decade. Ships are increasingly repaired with parts cannibalized from other vessels and are more frequently reporting serious equipment shortfalls. One of the insidious effects of these delays and inadequacies is that the longer a ship’s repairs are postponed, the more wear and tear it suffers. The result is that ships come in for maintenance in worse shape than planned and take longer to fix, which ultimately reduces the amount of time they spend at sea.

The Navy’s problems are fixable, but there are no simple solutions. Without increases in shipyard capacity, a clear acquisition strategy to grow the fleet and dependable appropriations for shipbuilding, the Navy will continue to struggle to even maintain itself, let alone grow.

That first part - making the argument - there is the failure. This century our Navy produced a whole parade of CNOs and VCNOs who knew this, but failed to make the argument, or to even make an honest effort to make it.

For reasons best known to them, they worship at the Cult of the Joint - in word and deed - when the world’s requirements demand the exact opposite of what people long dead thought of almost four decades ago in the mid-80s when Goldwater-Nichols framed the house we are all trapped in.

You can ask for a fleet all you want - use all the numbers you want - but if you cannot tell the story, explain the natural requirements of a maritime and aerospace power - it does not matter.