"Nautical Pax Americana"- Navy Force levels in jeopardy

[bruno]

A very interesting article on USN ship procurement policies. It's a pretty worrisome trend- huge and growing dollars spent on fewer and fewer platforms with less and less political support to sustain the Navy. The Author is a former undersecretary of the Navy- and lays out a grim scenario predicting that Navy will continue to shrink to under 200 ships by 2018 unless it radically overhauls its approach to force planning and procurement.

Link is below
http://www.realclearworld.com/articles/2009/01/navy_draft.html

A Nautical Pax Americana

By Everett Pyatt

"The U.S. Navy shipbuilding program has run aground, high tides are not projected and heavy winds are blowing ashore. Sound bad? It is. And the situation is particularly disturbing for those who believe that a nautical pax Americana best serves world peace and stability."...

 

[Bullet]

Very interesting article that touches on a subject that will greatly impact ALL the services: the DoD's aquisition system.

EVERY service is quickly beginning to understand an unaviodable fact: the system's broke, and instead of trying to fix it, we continue to march on ignoring it. Sort of like driving down the highway with a flat tire, ignoring the "thump, thump, thump" coming so loudly from the under-carriage, and hoping beyond hope it will just somehow magically fix itself. What we are forgetting is what usually happens: we end up throwing more rubber until we're running on the rim, shooting sparks, and then suddenly you crash because your axle comes apart. A paradigm we can't afford to follow anymore.

We, as a service to our nation, need to examine this and ask some pretty tough questions, the most important of which is: "is how we are focusing to go to war in the near future really the right solution?" I'm sure the young men and women on these threads just starting out will end up living with the consequences of our decisions today. And IMHO, the way they go to war will be MUCH different than what we experienced these past few generations...

Just some thoughts from a guy working these exact issues in the biggest obstacle of all: the PUZZLE PALACE (and they don't call that five-sided building that name for nothing!)

Stepping down from my soap-box now... Bullet

 

[LineInTheSand]

Touches even the non-DOD aquisitions.

 

[Zaphod]

EVERY service is quickly beginning to understand an unaviodable fact: the system's broke, and instead of trying to fix it, we continue to march on ignoring it.

That's happening across the entire government, actually. The bill's coming due...