Elections have consequences, and so you had to suspect that this was coming:
Word on Capitol Hill is that the Quadrennial Defense Review should result in the demise of two Navy carrier groups and the Marines’ Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle. On top of that, the Joint Strike Fighter program is likely to lose a so-far uncertain number of planes and the Air Force looks to lose two air wings.
This of course solves the “fighter gap” issue for the Navy. And theoretically we have gone from a rotational force to a surgeable one, so we no longer need to keep to the old math: Three carriers deployed (WESTPAC, Med and IO/NAS/NAG), three returning from deployment, three either in training to head over or on the way and three in maintenance.
Theoretically. Although, as best as I can tell, we’re still hewing to the same old schedule – every combatant commander wants a carrier strike group just like all the other four stars have. No gaps permitted.
So, we could just extend the deployment cycles for ships on station to ten or eleven months. See just how long it takes to break the force.
(The) solution to the retention challenge is not to keep our people at sea 85 percent of the time. We cannot always expect young people to stay at sea that long and to turn [them] around that quickly. They will not stay–they will vote with their feet. We are very much on the edge, but I do not believe that we have a hollow force. But if our people walk, we will have a hollow force.
Might take a while, what with unemployment so high, but these are highly skilled, disciplined workers.
Shucks, considering their voting patterns, it might make great sense to keep them away from the polling booth for long periods of time.
Extended deployment schedules will require us to extend maintenance availabilities, since higher deployed usage rates generate greater work package volumes, and combat systems upgrades tend to accumulate. But maintenance availabilities are very expensive, so that probably wouldn’t save the requisite dollars. So we could skimp on those, which would help us shorten inter-deployment cycle times and increase usage rates. See how that works.
Or we could ask the National Command Authority what legacy missions no longer need to be serviced. Which oceans surrounding our island home need no longer be patrolled. Which allies no longer need to be supported, which enemies no longer need to be deterred.
Which fights can no longer be fought.
I’m sure they’ll be helpful in that regard.
But hey, at least we’ll get “free” health care to go with our two trillion dollar budget deficit.
So we’ve got that going for us.
It’s almost like there is a plan to destroy the services.
These are the smart folks? Look, they spent $787 billion dollars, most of which was simply paid to the states to fund their budget shortfalls. If you want a real stimulus, Defense spending is one of the few ways to actually pump money into the economy.
The cuts in Defense Spending will be the final nails in the coffins of a lot of the small business manufacturing base of this country. When its gone its going to be gone forever. The way Congress dicks around with the appropriation bills each year causes real pain as it generates interuptions the flow of dollars until they finally get around to passing the damn thing three/four months late. At least when they spend money on buying things the taxpayer might actually get something tangible to show for it.
We knew this was coming but it doesn’t make it any easier….
FIFU.
It’s a pattern now, destruction of things “American.” The monetary systems, the Dollar, the banking industry, the car industry, the energy industry, the “phenomena” of small business, private investment, the health care system, and also the Military.
The “plan” for each of those has already resulted in disaster, or, by projections, is well on the way. This will make it so that there is not the power to project, which is incredible given three countries, aided and abetted by a fourth, are actively seeking the capability to employ nuclear weapons around the world.
To recover…well…there won’t be a “business infrastructure” left to tax to make a come back. If someone was planning this action specifically, it would be good to destroy the economy first…like going after the tap root, so the rest could not survive out on the limbs.
How’s that for shrew planning? Ask Napoleon how it sucked when the British Crown could keep counting taxing the merchants to fund a military to send Wellington to whoop him….
Think really big picture. Begin penning your manuscripts for a World without and America.
Cynical? Yes I am.
Oy.
It’s a certainly good thing we aren’t fighting any wars.
Oh, wait . . .
We’ve seen this one before, and the peanut guy from Georgia was its author. This is also the reason why Ronnie Ray-gun brought John Lehman in for to fix the Navy Department. We may not need a 500 ship Navy to handle today’s challenges around the globe, but we certainly need something to allow Sailors the opportunity to spend more time watching their kids grow up. One of Secretary Lehman’s top initiatives was to shorten nine month cruises to six months, for a multitude of reasons that included family.
Yeah, yeah, I know. If the Navy/Marine Corps wanted you to have…, they’d have issued you one.
I’d hate to see what all this shrinkage is going to do to the materiel condition of our war fighting assets. One of our recent conversations here on this site was about USS ENTERPRISE and how beat to pieces she is. Well, USS AMERICA ended up in far worse shape in a far shorter time period, and most of it, IMO, due to a lack of sufficient time in the yards.
BTW, we only have one ‘old’ carrier left, USS ENTERPRISE. If we knock the fleet down by two carriers, does that mean USS NIMITZ gets powered down and sent up a well known river? Oh, wait…we’ll just kill the USS GERALD FORD build. Yeah, that makes more sense…recycle the scrap…do green things for the planet…budget cuts…
The same sense of frustration goes out to the other services, as we proceed down this path of ‘Surgeability’. We’ve been surging for so long now, that the nation has forgotten what it’s like to have most of the force at home. We’re continually using the Reserves as augment forces, leaving us with little to none in actual reserve, and see no end in sight or forthcoming change in policy.
Ask the human body to keep going at that level of intensity for very long, and we having a heart attack or suffering a stroke. Neither of which is preferable over the other.
“and we have”
Damn you, Virgil, now I’m doing it…
Lincoln refuel goes away – that’s the quick and “easy” cut…
It is an unfortunate fact of nature that a lowering tide lowers all boats. Undesirable perhaps, but generally, unavoidable.
And the apparent failure of a progressive healthcare plan will also lower the viability of these people- to the bottom, permanently: “135,000 uninsured Americans – including over 6,600 veterans will die before health reform takes effect!” LINK
Scarcity always brings the burden of difficult, contentious, and unwanted choices; but some choices do remain better than others.
Question: Where is health care spelled out as a right of the people in The Constitution?
Bonus Question: Am I misreading the “to provide for the common defense” as not something the Government is required to do? I may not be sufficiently “progressivized” to “get it.”
Tell me about how we have to step over dead and rotting bodies in the streets right now? Did I miss that people don’t die? The HC system has kept many alive, and the net outcome of the ObamaCare debacle will be just what you highlight: Choices in the fact of scarcity. Are you ready for each and every “Death Panel” in the office of every health care provider, who has to tell you “the budget for that treatment/drug/appliance/operation” has already been expended for the fiscal year.”
Better yet, how about the death in the street when Iran and North Korea and Syria export nukes? Yeah, I’m trotting out some hyperbole, aren’t I.
I guess your “right” to a doctor trumps the survival of the Nation when called to defend itself. The Government is asking us to sacrifice our country to make sure everyone gets medical care, yet we don’t even have the money to do that, so it’s just a sham move to get votes. A lie, a big lie. Once the likes of Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, et al, will 1) not have to live with, for they will vote themselves plenty on our dime, and 2) will die before the real effect of the de-population of America takes place.
Bonus snark: I’m sure they’ll make sure they are exempted from the 45%+ Estate Tax, too, by magic exempted investments, or just by writing it into the upcoming travesty of a bill that will be.
Hey Flit – if we magically turned on Health Reform today, how many of those people would live out 2010?
We need health reform, but what your boy is doing isn’t reform, it is shaping, worsening. If it were reform, it would start with tort reform.
I thought for a while that Pelosi, Reid, and their cast of dumb-asses would self destruct by passing this asinine legislation and get voted out next cycle. We would be stuck with the crap programs, but at least get rid of them. Now I’m starting to think we will get the best of both worlds – the legislation won’t pass in any meaningful form, but we still get rid of them all. FOR THE WIN!
The answer, of course, is ALL of them because none of the so-called reforms that provide access actually take effect until something like 2014. Of course the taxes start right away so that the first ten years can be scored as not adding to the deficit. That presupposes that you believe that the medicare cuts will happen (yeah, right) and that the government will magically decide to eliminate all that nasty fraud that is so much part and parcel to medicare today. Funny no one seems all that concerned with the fraud until they need to “eliminate” it to make the scoring add up then, well back to business as usual.
So explain to me again why this is such a great idea? Oh yeah, lets roll out all the uninsured that are just going to die if we don’t do this. Reminds me of a certain school board in Huntsville and all their concern “for the children”. Oh please….
I wonder if part of the solution would be more forward basing? I can rant and rave, but I wonder if the Aussies would like us to station a carrier group in Perth? With the Washington in Yokosuka (sp?), that would cut down on the IO/Westpac turnaround time.
Too bad the President seems bound and determined to piss off the Brits – Gibraltar or one of their bases in Crete might have been another place to put one or two.
“The days of lavish (love that word) budgets are over.”
Except, of course, for ACORN, as one Clinton-era Fed judge has just reminded us…
GOT to keep our priorities straight….
I drove along the piers in Norfolk this Spring and Summer. The material condition of the ships seemed to be just terrible. With apparently no time or money for even minor upkeep, I wonder what else looks ready to fall apart. Democrats always degrade our military capability at the same time their foreign policy emboldens our enemies. We never seem to learn.
Exactly why I heeded ADM Mullen’s call to walk with my feet if I could no longer stomach the brew they were serving. Enjoy. I
I think I’ll have another beer.
Makes me physically ill.
I was the Pacific Submarine Force Retention Officer from 1985 to 1987. We had barely gotten our manning to the point that some subs could go 4 section Ships Duty Officer in port instead of three section. If we delete these ships, stop repairing them as we were finally able to do three years AFTER Jimmy Carter gutted the fleet, and create such a hostile work atmosphere that our retention returns to the 24 percent for first term sailors and 66 percent for careerists I saw for our sailors throughout the fleet, then we are in for the roughest ride we’ve had since Korea. We are already overworked and underfunded. Shipbuilding is sadly unable to keep up with the ships we need to keep our heads above water.
This isn’t the beginning of the end. This is where the goat paths replace the gravel road. We are, no kidding, doomed already since we won’t be able to recover from where we are today for at least five years. Welcome home to jimmy Carter’s Navy. Courtesy of the Commander in Chief who has no fears of the outside world. Only fears of the Soldiers and Sailors who protect him from it.
Subsunk
We’ve done so much for so long with so little, soon we’ll be able to do everything with nothing, forever.
A refrain from my service during the Peanut Man’s tenure.
Small correction, Lex, et. al., but the debt rides much closer to $12 Trillion than $2… http://bigredcalculator.amazonwebstore.com/content/Big_Red_US_Debt_Clock.htm?gclid=CLjHoJvA2Z4CFSReagoduitNrw
When it comes to flit and health reform, I’m with Nose… all the way. It’s so difficult to understand why the left cannot understand that tort reform and the ability to buy health insurance across state lines would make excellent starting points.
Fliterman waxes poignant when he dismisses the inherent problems of decreases in the defense budget with a mere, “Undesirable perhaps, but generally, unavoidable.” You’ve heard it before, “Too bad, so sad”, you know… from your kids!
Years ago I half jokingly suggested we forward deploy a carrier to Israel to aleviate the presence requirement there.
It’s just a bathtub in the sine wave of military readiness that we’ve experienced over history.
To all of you who find it difficult to understand “why the left cannot understand that tort reform and the ability to buy health insurance across state lines would make excellent starting points”, remember what Deep Throat said to Woodward and Bernstein: “Follow the money.”
Many of our feckless representatives stand to make a fortune from this legislation and the cap and trade fiasco that’s next on the agenda. They don’t give a tinker’s damn about what we want.
You’ve got that right, twofivezulu!
Insane. And I note that according to that article, Congress knows it.
The big problem of the QDR is that it is almost certain to be obsessed with counterinsurgency. And the Great Big Lesson of the Iraq campaign is that the United States does NOT do counterinsurgency well. It’s a consequence of the Three Year Limit…the American public will fight for three years, but then demands either a victory in sight or a disengagement in progress. Counterinsurgency is a fight Americans can’t win.
And gutting the Navy when the strategic theater of interest is shifting to the Pacific is pure madness. Play with some range circles…you’ll rapidly see that the strategic mobility of the sea services makes them the trump card.
The only question is when reality will hit…and what the butcher’s bill will be.
In the future (DV) we shall be told about all of the money Obama and his ilk saved. Just as we are reminded today of how Clinton saved the country from deficit spending. I fear we tread on scary paths.
Completely OT, but Lex might wanna get his bid in for this little birdie…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4lE6HcBPxw
“The days of lavish budgets are over.”
No kidding. I just received my FY10 approved budget. 2.5%. That is, I am getting 2.5% of the amount I requested for the yearly operating cost of this shore command. Apparently, the other 97.5% was just fluff. For the first quarter I am going to get 2 boxes of paper, some duct tape, scotch tape, paper towels, a box of highlighters and one printer cartridge. None of the other quarters look much more promising. Heluvaway to run a Navy.
Da Yooper, I kept rereading your comment because it made absolutely no sense. Seriously. My brain hurts trying to rationalize that.
Without going too far down the rabbit hole…
My boss and many of my bosses folks have visited my buildings and told me to order a bunch of items: New desks, chairs, projectors, lights, etc. The furnishings we have are really old and most of it was obtained from DRMO several years ago(ie. someone else threw it away and we got it out of the Navy dumpster). The roughly 60 computers we have are too old to buy memory cards for them anymore since nobody makes that type of memory card anymore – they require replacement. The list goes on but suffice to say, the items I put on the budget are the same items I was told to put on the budget by the boss and his folks. These same items have apparently been on the budget for several years but each year they get cut despite all the assurances we get that “This year we are really going to fund it.” Next year I feel fairly certain that they will all visit again and remark that the same items need to be replaced and that I really, really should put it on the budget next year. Kinda feels like Groundhog Day.
The parent command does try to help us out when it is really, no kidding a gotta have item. For example, when the 16 year old Fax machine finally gave up the ghost they quickly got us a replacement one. The new one is only 8 years old and was sitting unused in a storage closet ever since they replaced it several years ago. It sounds kind of funny but at least it works. I ain’t complaining.
I know money is tight and every year it seems to get tighter. I am certainly willing to do my part but I just don’t think I can tighten the belt much further as we are quickly running out of leather.
Yeah, this solves the fighter gap like cutting off the other leg of a single amputee solves his limp. Too disgusted to post much else. We’ll be penny-”wise” on the military, which executes the primary and core reason for existence of government (to use its monopoly on the use of force to protect our rights and liberties), while being pound foolish on health care, the environment, and federal bailouts, things government shouldn’t be involved with in the first place.
Never attribute to conspiracy what is fully explained by idiocy.
This situation is clearly the work of a conspiracy of idiots.
Only logical explanation possible.
Idiots with a death wish at that.
The torch is being passed ….
Who will pick it up?
Well, we DO need to figure out how to pay for Cash for Clunkers, and now how to pay for all that “sexy” insulation that The One adores. And, we gotta keep shoveling boat loads of money to ACORN for all the vital work THEY do.
As far as commitments, I think Taiwan was just approved for annexation by the CHICOMs. And Dinner Jacket got the go-ahead to take out Israel.
Hollow force, here we come!
Elections have consequences, and I have not seen a single good one since November 5, 2008.
One bright spot- when the terrorists get cleared out of GTMO, that should free up plenty of space to house most of the top-level Obama administration if justice ever awakes and throws their butts in jail for their criminal acts of corruption, and at the rate they are going, treason is quite possible.
I pray our country can survive until the 2010 elections take hold and in 2012 throw the Chicago mob out entirely.
But I am not betting on it.
Dateline 2025: off the coast of Namibia where Islamic jihadists have threatened South Africa with nuclear destruction courtesy of the Iranian nuclear export program. President Pelosi demands to know where the Navy carrier is located. “Madame President, the Ford is still in the yard as the last 3 democratic presidents have refused funds to complete any capital ship named after a non-person. And her airwing is still waiting for airplanes. But we have 2 flavors of LCS we can send and both COs are ACORN graduates and they meet the diversity index. One ship is supposedly operational and even has a helo which sometimes works. Oh but we don’t have a trained LCS crew available as we have not successfully taught them how to read and write. Seems those new recruits’ required Harvard degrees didn’t teach them much. No ma’am we cannot send in the remaining Marine company as we would have to use our last White House door guards and we have no aircraft that can fly that far and also we have exceeded this year’s global warming quota on hi-altitude fuel burn. We do have some drones but they can’t carry people. Yes ma’am, we are in a pickle. But as Chairman Obama has proclaimed in his little red book “a crisis is simply an opportunity to further ensnare our subjects. So if there is not a crisis, we make one of our own”".
Stirring the grounds in this cold cup of coffee, found on the Strategy Page
Perishable skills and not so easily replaced assets come to mind.
This scenario not only sucks for Navy, but Everett prolly won’t get a replacement CV. It’s quite a thing to come down the hill towards the Sound and see the ship in port, with Possession Strait and Saratoga Passage for a backdrop. All that money spent to build facilities to homeport a cuppla Destroyers and a Frigate.