First in Harm’s Way
George Will — who does not oppose Chuck Hagel as Defense Secretary — has a few questions for him, anyway. Here’s the most important one:
The Navy has 9 aircraft carriers. Aircraft carrier groups are the principal means of projecting U.S. power. And they are very expensive. How many should we have? How is your calculation influenced by the fact that seven weeks ago China for the first time landed a fighter jet on the deck of an aircraft carrier?
I dread any further cuts to the Navy. Yes, naval procurement is a mess, and I’d like to see Hagel (or any SecDef) run roughshod over it, make some heads roll, and clean up the godforsaken mess. While we’re fantasizing, we might also give serious thought to nuking the Pentagon. The military’s new HQ could be located far from Washington, where they might actually get some work done. Here’s a few hundred bucks to book a couple rooms at the Holiday Inn in Salina, Kansas. Cut some more fat, and we’ll upgrade you all to the Holidome in Topeka.
But we were talking about the Navy.
Worst comes to worst, you can raise Army divisions pretty quickly. Marines might take a little more time, what with all that beach storming to learn. But so long as you maintain a solid cadre of NCOs, they can train up the lower ranks and the junior officers in comparatively little time. And we can do with a lot fewer officers. Today we have about one officer for every five enlisted men. In World War II — the last time we threw a winning war — the ratio was one-to-ten. Our higher-tech military requires a higher proportion of officers, but we can surely do without bunches of flag officers whose primary mission is military-grade ass-covering at the soon-to-be-nuked Pentagon. I can live with a smaller Army, and I suppose we’ll have to, given Washington’s inability to prioritize spending.
The Air Force is trickier. Before the 9/11 attacks, George Bush and Donald Rumsfeld came into office with a plan to skip a generation of procurement, and use the savings to speed up development of the next generation. We were at peace, and our existing airframes could be made to last long enough to cover the procurement gap. I liked this idea a lot, right up until jihadis brought war to Manhattan. But to give an example, our entire fleet of F-22 Raptors took 15 years to build, at a rate of about two per month. That was a leisurely production rate, and with a sloppy production system, too. To generate enough support in Congress for gold-plated fighters, production was split up amongst about 1,000 subcontractors spread out of 46 out of the 57 states. We can do better than that, should push come to shove. Which undoubtedly it has. So don’t get me started on how screwed up F-35 production is.
But that pales in comparison with raising a fleet. The first of our Gerald Ford -class aircraft carriers was laid down in 2009, but isn’t planned to be commissioned until 2015. Then there are all the other warships and supply ships which make up a carrier battle group. They take time, too. And it can take a year or two between the launching of a modern warship and when it can be commissioned into the fleet. I’m not sure there’s any way to speed up that process, either. Warships are incredibly complex beasts, requiring many sea trials before they’re ready for war.
And naval traditions are difficult to come by and easy to lose. We operate the best carriers in large part because we’ve been doing it longer than anybody else, and, most importantly, we’ve been doing it continuously. China has been trying for a couple decades now to get a working carrier, and has only just recently made their first (and only) carrier landing. That was on a “practice” ship that will probably never be able to fight. This stuff is really, really hard.
The job the Navy does, even in peacetime, is vital, too. Trading powers that can’t maintain the sealanes don’t stay trading powers for long. Before you object, Japan and the United Kingdom do have immense and powerful and experienced fleets — it’s just that most of the ships sport the American flag.
What I’m saying is, eliminate Army brigades if we must. Make the Air Force do more, with less, and faster. But this landlubber can’t say it enough: Do not shrink the Navy.
UPDATE: Try as I might, I couldn’t find the text of COL David Hackworth’s “Nuke the Pentagon” anywhere online. It was published in Playboy twenty years ago this month, and it’s one of the few issues I bought and kept. Because of Hackworth, I swear. Not the Barbie Twins. Not at all.
ONE MORE THING: An anonymous commenter left a link to a scanned copy of Hackworth’s article. It’s as true as ever, and is today’s recommended reading.
http://markganzersblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/from-beyond-grave-lt-col-david.html
Thank you!
No problem. As you wrote above, “We can better than that…”
Heh. You should’ve seen the typos I did catch.
There might conceivably be some issues with Page 4 of that scanned article. Either the wrong page was added, or Col Hackworth was a defense thinker with a unique point of view
“George Will – who does not oppose Chuck Hagel as Defense Secretary”
That’s interesting. Will may have come around to something close to Hagel’s views on when we should go to war, but he’s so pro-Israel he gives even me pause.
As for the Navy, this soldier agrees with Pug Henry, commenting decades after WWII: “A Navy remains a handy thing to have around when the going gets rough. I hope my countrymen will remember this.”
It makes sense to shrink the Army somewhat – we grew it to current levels to support protracted ground campaigns; we’ve declared one “ended” and we’re racing to the exits on the other. Sadly, it’s all too easy to cut training budgets and numbers of junior enlisted. The staffs you and I would call useless, the generals for whom an important job needs to be invented, are very, very good at making sure they’re the last to be cut. Or so it seems to me.
Note I didn’t say Will supports Hagel. Here’s what he did say:
Hardly a ringing endorsement, especially since that’s about all Will had to say about Hagel. He swiftly segued into a clever insult of Chuck Schumer and Harry Reid in one shot.
And you’re right about all those extra generals. They ought to be the first to go, but they’re just too good at playing Pentagon politics.
He should be confirmed
Obama’s nominees should go through the same treatment Bush’s nominees got. If Obama really wants him, what’s he going to offer in exchange?
He. Yup. I still have that Playboy issue, somewhere.
But don’t we have 12 carrier groups? I know we’re in the process of decommissioning the Eisenhower & building the Ford, so there might be some flexibility in that number, but I always thought it was around 12.
We just decommissioned the Enterprise which leaves us w/ 10 Nimitz class carriers. One is always going to be in extended overhaul. So 9 deploy-able carriers. The Ford is supposed to replace the Enterprise. I think the Kennedy (CVN-79) is going to replace the Nimitz. And CVN-80 is supposed to replace the Ike. But w/ the looming budget issues, I’ve heard that the Nimitz boats are going to be ushered out the door faster than the Ford’s will come on line.
Here, here! Steve! Don’t cut the Navy!
I completely agree w/ you about the procurement disaster that is the DoD. But I’ve been following the Arliegh Burke procurement. It looks like the Navy’s doing something right there. After the disaster that was the Zumwalt class (a destroyer that costs more that a carrier), Navy took a second look at the Burkes. They saw a highly capable platform w/ a lot of room for expansion. Upshot is, instead of building a whole new ship from the keel up w/ bleeding edge tech, they’ve put the Burkes back in production w/ upgrades and modifications to each new Flight of ships as needs are shown and tech is available.
You know, the cost effective/intelligent way to build things.
@Kevin,
But before they put the Burke class back in production, they spent hundreds of millions (at least!) on DDGX/DDG1000. I spent six months writing requirements for simulation software for a magnetic compass that’s on pretty much every ship in the damn fleet!. And I was not allowed to write the simulation software for that compass.
And it’s not even like it’s a primary navigation system, it’s about as used as a kid standing on deck with a sextant and a pocket watch. And there was already simulator software for that exact unit, but it was different software, and therefore not “modern” and didn’t “meet the needs of a next generation software platform”.
This is how the Navy “thinks” about software.
I didn’t say Navy procurement wasn’t brain dead stupid/criminal. I’m just saying in the one case of the DDG-51s, it managed a single good decision.
As for the DDG-1000s, from what I’ve been able to gather, is was just as cheep to buy the three ships they committed to as to pay the penalty for cancelling the order. And after spending billions on figuring out how to build the things might as well have new ships at the end of the day. Same thing happened w/ the Sea Wolf subs as I recall.
Excellent observation Kevin.
Long production runs of relatively simple designs that are capable of being upgraded via alterations have always been the moct cost effective platforms.
The Burke class DDG is a great example; so were 688 SSN’s.
Best Regards,
Speaking of old interviews.
SecNavy John Lehman did an interview way back in the 80s w/ Interview magazine. Same arguments back then about the usefulness and survivability of our supercarriers. Sec. Lehman made a very compelling argument and cleared up misconceptions re: a collision the Kitty Hawk had w/ a Soviet sub. He sums it up by saying if our carriers, the most heavily armed, armored and defended ships in existence can survive, then our thin skinned merchant ships are doomed and we might as well pack it in now.
I’ve never been able that article again. Anyone out there know what I’m talking about or am I crazy?
“I’d like to see Hagel (or any SecDef) run roughshod over it, make some heads roll, and clean up the godforsaken mess. ”
What relevant bureaucratic administrative ability or experience does Hagel have in his background to accomplish this?
His military credentials end at infantry deployment forty years ago. His management experience is zero.
Great post Stephen!
It takes real time and $$$ to build/equip/staff/maintain a capable fleet, and wise maritime powers have always kept production going in key shipyards in order to both maintain production capability, and sustain the size of the fleet as older warships are decommissioned.
Very Best Regards,