The editors of the WSJ opine that, the next time the Navy gets in a fight, the decisions made by our president and his secretary of defense seem designed to ensure it is a fair one:
A ship can only be in one place at one time. So numbers do matter if the Navy is asked to chase pirates in Somalia, ferry humanitarian aid to Haiti, protect the Strait of Hormuz and keep a muscular presence in the South China Sea—to name a few of the recent and growing demands on the fleet. To cite another, the Obama Administration has also pivoted from ground- to sea-based missile defenses. This means that Aegis class cruisers must be parked in the Mediterranean to guard against an Iranian attack.
An independent bipartisan panel that went over the Pentagon’s last Quadrennial Defense Review in 2010 said that the U.S. needed a larger Navy. It recommended 346 ships, including 11 aircraft carrier groups and 55 attack submarines (compared to only 48 in current plans), which it justified by invoking—as President Obama implicitly did earlier this month—the rise of China.
“To preserve our interests, the United States will need to retain the ability to transit freely the areas of the Western Pacific for security and economic reason,” the panel wrote. A 313-or-fewer ship Navy doesn’t look imposing from Beijing.
300+ ships?
We’ll be lucky to keep 250. At which point, we’d be lucky to win a fair fight.
not to worry Lex: what with the State Department using “smart poser” and a Lightw*rker in the White House, the days of the US needing to use military power to make up for it’s willful ignorance in international diplomacy are long gone…
I’m still surprised that the administration hasn’t decided to sell off some of our ships to the Chinese. It would kill two birds with one stone: raise money from the sale and reduce operating expenses. Thin of all the social justice we could have with that kind of mnney.
Money. I meant money. Darn keyboards!
That’s actually not a bad idea. Sell them Enterprise and, like buying a 50 year-old car, the incidental expenses ought to have them giving it away to a scrap dealer in Singapore within a year.
OK, that’s not actually true. People complain about a car that “nickle and dime’s” them to death, but fail to consider that it takes a whole lot of nickles and dimes to come up with even a $300/mo car payment, which I was told was awfully cheap this day and age. Think about inflation, that hidden added interest rate to every loan and cost of everything you buy, and suddenly repairing something you have makes a lot more sense compared to buying new.
Not that governments tend to think of these things, but the Iowa-class only cost around $100 million per ship. We waste that much on grants for art projects today. Take an Iowa-class that’s already paid for, propose an upgrade for a half-billion, and people start wondering why we’re adding so much cost to an obsolete platform. That’s not the question, that’s just ignorance of inflation. The question is why we want to spend billions on a new ship that doesn’t float any better than the old one just because when it was made for a billion dollar you could have *bought* the country you might go to war against.
– Max
10 months and a few days from now, the Vacationer-In-Chief will be put on PERMANENT VACATION.
The new administration will see enlarging the NAVY means JOBS & SECURITY.
JOBS in building more ships…..SECURITY in being able to send those ships where we need them. IF we spend less on the GREEN ECONOMY Boondoggles, we will have $$$ to spend where it creates jobs and enriches the economy, like a pipeline from CANADA to the Gulf Coast…Or jobs building SHIPS, something we need if we are to deal with the CHICOMS.
If you can argue against any of what I have written, bring it on. These concepts are proven, unlike the SHITE Obama spouts which seems to have been pulled out of his arse.
OMG. OBAMA MUST GO.
Who needs a navy? We have drones! They’ll get it done. Won’t they?
Yes, we have drones in the White House and the State Department.
Also in the Senate and House.
And you see what kind of job they get done.
A fair fight???? Any fight, whether in the schoolyard or within national borders is to be fought as quickly and as violently as possible to end it victoriously for our side. Anything less than that wastes ones own or ones nations blood & treasure.
When one allows fools and “correct thinking” politicians,(but I repeat myself), to decide how nice one should be to ones adversary we wind up with another Vietnam, Iraq or Afghanistan. Our military did a fabulous job in all three of these endeavors only to be sabotaged by fools and idiots in washington.
I pray that the socialist in chief perched upon his throne in washington is sent to the unemployment line along with his syncophant senate a few monthes hence.
Fair fight my a$$.
Fair Fight???
Well, sir! There’s your problem. “Fair” is a concept developed by the English for playing sports. It has nothing to do with real life. “Fair” implies an equal opportunity to lose. Armies and navies aren’t supposed to fight fair.
Of course, if your opponent also knows this, and you don’t expect him to, you’re going to need more than a “fair” advantage in capability in order to win.
Whoever said it is spot on. OMG!! OBAMA MUST GO.
Mike
Exactly !
I do not think they have enough liberal activists who served in the Department of the Navy to name another 100 ships after. This will never pass the Senate!
“Lucky to win a fair fight?”
When we have a 2:1 ratio of ships?
11:1 aircraft carriers?
17:1 LPDs and assault ships?
8: 0 Transport Dock ships?
22: 0 Cruisers?
60:25 Destroyers?
75:63 submarines?
[So OK, China has more Frigates than we do... 47 to our 27.]
135 ships for China compared to our 284? And we have a third more naval personnel than China?
We don’t need or want a fair fight if it ever comes to that. But even with major cuts here , the fear is and should be with them, not us.
See also, interior lines the tyranny of distance and the aggressor’s ability to concentrate at will.
Yup. The Germans gave the British fits in the First World War because they could pick the time to force battle…which completely negated a 3:2 numerical advantage the British held.
The Japanese figured on the same effect in World War II.
Are not interior lines and tyranny of distance the burdens usually shouldered by the aggressor, and not the defender?
Likewise is it not the defender’s rather than the aggressor’s advantage in their ability to concentrate at will?
If then it is our strategic purpose to be the aggressor, then I submit we change the name of the Department of Defense to something more appropriate and imposing.
Personally, Flit, I would change the name to War Department. It conveys a certain message that should be conveyed to our enemies.
Even if we are not the aggressors, we still need to fight the war as far from our shores as possible. There is a reason the 4th verse of the Star Spangled Banner is memorized by West Point Cadets.
As for me, we take the war to them. They bear the civilizational cost of a war they start. And the Red Chinks will start a war when they feel the correlation of forces are in their favor. That’s why they are building as they are, and even acting as they are in the South China Sea.
QM/
“Chinks?” Raaacist!!!!
FWIW, QM, I’m with you on going back to the “WAR” (what we actually do) Dept as opposed to the “Defense” (the hoped for result) Dept.
You misspelled Raaaaacist.
QM, Seriously…your “Red Chinks” comment is clearly an unfortunate/unecessary choice of words that adds nothing of value to this discussion. Best
You left out the word Raaaaacist. Sure ly you can do better Snake.
You know it’s one thing and jolly fun to call out those who label a thing as “raaacist” when it is not. Your usage of “Chinks” is not one of those “one things”, however.
It isn’t at all endearing, and doesn’t meet the house’s standards.
Gee, lex, I guess the entire population and graduates of Pekin HS, Pekin, Illinois from whenever to the mid eighties (when, under PC pressure, they changed the name to “Dragons” thus keeping the Chinese theme.) were racist, then, n’cest-ce pas? In point of fact they all wore coolie hats to the game to cheer their teams on, as was a point of pride with them. As a fighter pilot you must know that squadron emblems–the very thing one wears when risking one’s life–are not selected from among those things one despises, but often rather from (among other reasons) those things they honor and respect. Are all Indian-themed squadron patches “racist?” Are not the image of Indian warriors chosen for the martial spirit they displayed? How about names? Was the RN “racist” when they named an entire class of destroyers after native tribes–Eskimo, Zulu, etc? Or were they rather chosen out of respect? (their have been 3 Zulu keels in the hist of the RN.) When I grew up the term “chink”–although used by some in a derogatory way to be sure–was often as not used as a term of grudging respect for a particular caste of hard-bitten fighters from the Mongolian steppes.
Or how about LSU’s 1958 Nat.Champion football team whose defense was called the “Chinese Bandits” because of the “swarming” effect and general mayhem they created? I can remember them pictured in a PR Parade mag piece all proudly wearing chinese skull-caps. It’s not as cut & dried as you may think, Lex. Tho YMMV.
In my memory it was not uncommon for those who considered themselves gentlemen and ladies to use the “n word” in what was considered among themselves to be polite conversation. That custom has happily changed, and it has less to do with with PC pressure than emerging standards of decency and self-awareness. One may identify oneself as an Indian just as one may identify as having a European background, but these are merely descriptors. Racial epithets on the other hand are slurs, designed to be insulting and in this case intent surely matters. To use them in polite conversation submits one to a rebuttable charge of racist speech, and presumably of racism.
Which continues to exist, although not everywhere that it is alleged.
PS: Forgot to point out Pekin HS’s nickname was “Chinks” for their sports teams prior to the change.
All true, Lex. But in re; “RedChinks” I would point out that the generic term “Chinks” almost always referred to those Chinese engaged in battle. As such, QM’s use falls in the “fair use” cat, to me. But,as you aver, this can also be a generational thing, to be sure–as well as cultural. (In heavily Italian New Orleans one can still find the term “Wop Salad” on the menu at some neighborhood restaurants–even Italian ones.)
It is our purpose to be aggressive? You say that like it’s a bad thing.
You betcha we should be the aggressor in pursuit of many things. Not the least of which is aggressively maintaining freedom navigation and aggressively maintaining access to resources needed for our economy.
It’s a jungle out there baby.
Oh crap!
Concur.
Chris on a Crutch, Flit. Everything you said was wrong, but I expect nothing less from you.
Interior vs. exterior lines of communication are solely determined by disposition of forces, if you have a convex disposition you have the interior lines. Aggressive/defensive posture has nothing to do with it.
Tyranny of distance is determined by geography. A forward defense, say the islands of the east coast of Asia, will by hampered by longer lines of communication.
And ability to concentrate forces at will is an advantage enjoyed entirely by the aggressor. He is the only one who knows what the timing, objective, and means of an operation are. The defender has to keep forces positioned to cover all possible courses of action by the aggressor.
As for the name of the DoD, we all know what the best defense is.
How many of those ships that we have can be put to sea at one time and how many potential opponents are you including in those right side of the colon numbers?
Don’t we usually have 2-3 carriers undergoing major maintenance while another 2-3 are going through post deployment refit?
While we may outnumber the Chinese significantly, and we may outnumber the NORKS, significantly, and we may number the Iranians significantly, and we may outnumber the Russians significantly, we can’t outnumber them all at once. If we get tied up with the Chinese over Taiwan, for instance, wouldn’t that be the perfect time for Iran to make a move towards Israel or a neighbor like Iraq?
Got a little bit of news for you, Flit, which you might do well to ponder. Geography isn’t on our side — we’re attempting to show the flag everywhere from Singapore to Scotland to Sydney, and the Chinese can look in their back yard and see our trading partners and their ports and their sea lines of commerce. Now perhaps you’ve never felt, sitting in your living room, that geography was against you and in spite of you breathing air two thirds of the planet is covered in water and hence inhospitable to your way of life. On a strategic scale, we have to patrol the darned planet and China has to only deny us a part of it. Sort of like two thirds of the planet wanting to drown you but so long as you’re sitting on land in Kansas things look pretty good.
Defensive odds are way above offensive, and logistics chains obey the square of the distance rule.
You can argue with me, but you can’t argue with physics, distance, or numbers.
Oh, and the Chinese have 1.3 Billion people they can draw upon to serve in their navy. We have, what, 300 million? That’s, what, one thousand people to draw from for every one of us. For every Joe Foss plucked from the corn fields of South Dakota they have a thousand folks probably as skilled and full of fire and, oh, has no chance of finding a wife and settling down to be a middle manager at one of their factories.
Dude, we’re boned. Those are the numbers. It’s simple math — they have more.
– Max
I figured it out. Flit, for all of his discussions here is on the payroll. No, not of the liberal side of the aisle, but on the payroll of our intrepid host.
How else could he possibly explain away that paragraph.
Seriously Flit? Ignoring that all our fighting is (hopefully) over there somewhere.
Consider the ships in the yards, in transit and in workups. Shorter ship lives due to more time underway to cross the briney blue to the fight.
A bluewater Navy must have many more ships just to meet the fair fight criteria against a greenwater opponent that just sallie forth from near ports.
So yeah, more ships and more forward Naval bases. PI anyone?
PI, Australia, and India. And don’t be surprised if we wind up basing ships out of Camh Rahn Bay one of these days.
I figured the Filipinos would want us back one day. The anti-Marcos crowd wanted us to go away, when most the country wanted us to stay. Now even the elites are considering the Tiger pacing the South China Sea, encroaching on their economic zone and wondering how they could have been so stupid.
I’ve said this here before, but a fair fight is one *I* win. As for the rest, to bad.
Same for my country. The result of losing is ghastly and too hideous to contemplate. Allowing them to get close to our littoral is, in essence, a defeat because then the battle moves to our real estate.
The fewer conventional weapons the U.S. has, the more likely it will be to resort to nuclear options in a tight spot.
Will they even want us by then? Or one could argue they already have us – as captive consumers anyway.
Hey, Let’s let them have the place, stocked full with Liberals. “We’ll” all go melt in somewhere’s else.
Come back after they’ve knocked off all the Liberals, and Kick some
You know Flit I do think that the “Department of Defense” wsa actually named the Department of War at some dim distant time in our past.
Our problem–and burden–is that we are a maritime nation, and the free flow of commerce over all the world is a matter of national interest to us.
We have a Bozo (that’s short for Obozo) in the White House who believes–like many progressives–that all you have to do is say something, feel something or believe something to “make it so”. Unfortunately the real world is a harsh task master for that sort of fanciful thinking.
But basta–folks will believe what they believe, and when the cruel hard facts of life confront us, I expect we’ll somehow be able to save ourselves from the results of the dog’s breakfast that Bozo is forcing on us. I’m an optimist.
Actually, we had a War Department and a Navy Department, both Cabinet agencies.
Personally, I’ve long advocated going back to that arrangement – with a twist. The Navy Department would cover the Navy, Marine Corps, and State Department – the parts of the U.S. Government that deal with foreigners on a daily basis. The War Department would handle the Army, Air Force, and Civil Defense (ripped from the corpse of DHS) – the “war use only” capabilities. There was a reason why the Constitution gives Congress the authority to raise armies, but maintain a Navy.
http://wharfratshome.blogspot.com/ – stop on by sometime.
As for this story, where are the other departments on cost cutting? Since we know two things, the dems always love to cut defense, and no defense cuts can have an effect on the debt, why isn’t the real attention on the real problems out there?
‘Cause the libs own the teevees.
On paper, Flit, yes, we outnumber them. But those forces are scattered throughout the world. Theirs are already in theater with no transit time, close to supply bases and with land-based aircraft in support. If we get in a shooting war with China, we’d have some fighter forces from Japan, bombers from Guam and that’s about it. The carriers and their escorts would be outnumbered by China’s land-based Sukhois and J-10s, both of which can carry lots of ordnance that can do a lot of damage to a birdfarm.
We are a maritime nation, in case you’re not aware. We guard the sea lanes just about everywhere. And while most of our fleet is moving to the Pacific, that’s still a lot of real estate.
As stated earlier, we need to win with overwhelming force as quickly as possible and with as few casualties as possible. By cutting our fleet, we’re really making that a tough road to hoe.
We guard the sea lanes just about everywhere.
And there’s our problem. We don’t NEED to do that. We are suffering from Imperial Overstretch since we insist on patrolling the world 24x7x365. We no longer need to nor can we afford to. There is nothing in the South China Sea that we need to be “aggressive” about in terms of keeping the area open.
You betcha we should be the aggressor in pursuit of many things. Not the least of which is aggressively maintaining freedom navigation and aggressively maintaining access to resources needed for our economy.
Why do WE have to do this in the South China sea? What resources do we get from there? Answer – none!
We don’t need to guard the sea lanes?
Oh. My. Are you just uninformed? Or willfully ignorant?
What resources do we get from the South China Sea? Everything goes through there. Oil included.
Two words: Straits (of) Malacca. (Ok, that’s three)
A fair fight is when you bring a gun to a knife fight! We absolutely cannot afford to stream line our first line of defense.
We don’t need to guard the sea lanes?
Oh. My. Are you just uninformed? Or willfully ignorant?
What resources do we get from the South China Sea? Everything goes through there. Oil included.
Two words: Straits (of) Malacca. (Ok, that’s three)
You might want to check your sources. The oil going through those straights is destined for Japan, China, or Korea, not the United States.
Everything goes thru there? I think not. It is a major shipping lane, but it is not the only one in the area.
And no, we don’t need to guard every sea lane 24x7x365. That is the primary reason given that we “need” a massive fleet, not the more legitimate one of protecting the United States.
” The oil going through those straights is destined for Japan, China, or Korea, ”
…and we get products from where? …and we sell to where? No it’s not the only shipping lane in the area but it matters greatly to us.
Of course we don’t need to guard every sea lane 24x7x365. That’s not the case being made. Nice strawman though — careful with your matches.
Of course we don’t need to guard every sea lane 24x7x365. That’s not the case being made. Nice strawman though — careful with your matches.
Wrong. That is EXACTLY the case being made. No strawman here, especially with comments over the years here that the USN needs, gosh, 20 CVN’s to fight the Chinese, Iranians, NORKs, and sundry others all at the same time. Cause, you know, the above listed are all allies and coordinating their policies and military activites, etc.
Time to face hard fact and learn from history. No one nation stays preeminent forever. I know it’s a great fantasy that somehow, if we just had a massive Navy with thousands of ships, each one a high tech marvel, America will rule the seas until the end of time. Um, no, history teaches otherwise, and we’d be better off to accept that and figure out another way.
Oil is an international commodity–and it’s essentially fungible. There are differences in quality in various sorts of crude oil. I think the world is consuming–and producing about 83 million barrels of oil per day. Most of it goes on the water at some point between oil field and refinery. And that means that the crude oil from a particular field can wind up–and be used–anywhere in the world. Rough numbers here, but the USA consumes about 20% of the world’s energy–and produces about 25% of the world’s goods and services. (We are relatively more efficient in our energy use than a good deal of the rest of the world.)
Phalanx, believe it or not, the Chevron refinery in Richmond California regularly got and refined tanker loads of Iraqi crude–which had come through the Straits of Malacca to San Francisco Bay for much of the last decade.
The real point here is that the crude oil supply and demand system is essentially in balance on a daily basis, but it won’t put up with much tweaking. It’s like water in a partially filled balloon. “Push it” in the Straits of Malacca and it will bulge somewhere else. Obozo won’t allow the Keystone Pipeline to be completed so some Canadian Tar Sands oil can’t come to Houston (actually Canada and Mexico are our two largest crude oil suppliers).
The net result? Canada will build a pipeline to the West Coast and that Tar Sands oil will go to Japan and China—and oil that Japan and China had previously bought from somewhere else–say Indonesia and Saudi Arabia will go somewhere else say Rotterdam. And the oil that gets “backed out” of Rotterdam may well wind up in the United States.
But all of this stuff takes time to do and is very disruptive in the short run. When the energy supply system is tottering on the brink of disequilibrium you don’t want to mess with it. Which is why it’s important for someone to keep all of the sea lanes open. And if not us, who?
I think the Keystone pipeline should be built. It’s patently foolish to basically force Canada to export it elsewhere.
Which is why it’s important for someone to keep all of the sea lanes open. And if not us, who?
It’s important to keep the sea lanes open, so why not have the JMSDF out there? The Singapore Navy? The Phillipines needs to get off their a$$es as well and actually spend money on their navy.
We can no longer afford to patrol the world. Not with 15 trillion in debt. Rightly or wrongly (mostly wrongly) the military is going to take cuts. Now if we got away from the gold plated technological marvels and built simple ships, for example, in large numbers, then who knows? But our military is in love with gold plated uber tech that costs quite a bit and as a result can never be bought in large numbers.
I could see one way to keep us patrolling the world. Mass produce a ship the size of the Danish Knud Rasmussen vessels: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDMS_Knud_Rasmussen_(P570)
Base these in the PI, Singapore, etc, and have a smaller core of uber tech ships held at readiness. But the design I noted above isn’t high tech enough nor armed to the teeth and/or fitted with AEGIS so it’s a no go. And that’s stupid.
“so why not have the JMSDF out there? The Singapore Navy? The Phillipines needs to get off their a$$es as well and actually spend money on their navy.”
Sure… This decade or next?
Work with us? A good thing.
Cede leadership to them? Not so much. Don’t trust anyone to look after (y)our interests but (y)ourselves.
“We can no longer afford to patrol the world.”
Well, I agree with Dennis Prager, “I prefer clarity to agreement.”
For your consideration, perhaps we can’t afford NOT to be the one patroling the world.
Empire? Some say that like it’s a BAD thing.
As they say, if you’re in a fair fight, your tactics suck.
at the end of the day, either a republican or democratic administration will downsize the Navy. Repositioning ships to the Pacific should help, but why use fighting ships to deliver humanitarian supplies and why are ships needed to deploy an Aegis system for Europe? A land based application would work instead. The ridiculous cost of ship building has to come under control (there is no competition and the cost per unit makes small buys the only result possible). We can forget any allies augmenting our fleet in times of crisis except for show the flag or piracy efforts.
The Navy will simply have to tell the civilian leaders that missions will not be possible or a a greater risk to our sailors.
Goodbye Pax Americana.
This line of thought is a good exercise for those of us who are already committed to the proper defense of our Nation.
What is still needed is what has been missing for many years: An Electorate that appreciates the value of seapower and how it helps ensure unrestricted use of the sea to carry out national economic growth. I believe the long digit of blame must scan the many military and political leaders who have not yet made the necessary effort to bring the public up to speed on this issue.
Yes, indeedy, folks. Back in the earlier 1900s, we did have a proper War Department, before those rogue semanticists in the basement of the White House decided to rename it. Those folks in the basement there had all read George Orwell and had realized the power of semantics to change history. They decided to rename “government benefits” into “government entitlements”, realizing, as many of the more innocent among us did not, that the two phrases were not equivalent. When a company or a country designates something as a ‘benefit,’ the implication is that the organization in question has its financial ducks in a row, is operating on a healthy and profitable basis and out of the goodness of its heart, is going to offer its stockholders or citizens an additional ‘benefit’ to make their lives easier or more pleasant. The offer is not automatic. Change the description from ‘benefit’ to ‘entitlement’ and the whole picture changes. Entitlement means the government or the corporation *has* to offer the items designated as entitlements no matter whether the company or government is profitable or in deep financial trouble. It has become an automatic duty for the organization in question, where before it depended on the financial health of the organization or the government.
Semantics is power, my friends. Just read S. I Hayakawa’s Language in Action if you don’t believe me.
Marianne
Marianne/
I have had Language in Action on my bookshelf ever since my parents got it thru Book-of-the-Month Club in the early 50s. GREAT book. Are geesers(me)–and geezettes(you)–like us
the only ones who remember it?
Someone thinks that the USN outnumbers the PLA Navy? How about their HUNDREDS of gun, missile and torpedo boats? How about their TENS OF THOUSANDS of fishing boats, which could be covertly armed with small ASMs like the C701? And though the USN has a few more submarines, how many could be sent into theater at any one time? But the real question is, what is the strategic purpose of the USN’s presence in WestPac? As long as it’s maintaining the freedom of the seas, it is consistent with our national goals and traditions. The Chinese leadership perceives the USN as the number one strategic threat to their REGIME–is that a strategically valuable impression to convey? Is it what we really want?
Virge … I suspected that you would be a Hayakawa enthusiast. He makes a lot of things much clearer. I hope that we aren’t the only ones who remember and respect Hayakawa. When one is dealing with an Administration as twisty and skewed as our present Administration, we need frequent references to Hayakawa’s writing to untangle what they say and do. The courteous and kindly commenters on Lex’s blog perhaps would renew their acquaintance with Hayakawa, if they aren’t familiar with him. Like you, I have Language in Action on hand, and have had to refer to it much more frequently since 2008.
Marianne
P.S. You probably already now that Hayakawa became a legislator in his latter years.
Marianne/
Yes, about his stint as a politician–complete with trademark Tam-O-Shanter. He became very unpopular w. the Berkeley crowd for his support of the Vietnam War. Still retain the image of him standing on the roof of a van with a bull-horn shouting down a crowd of war-protesters.
I remember him from SFState in ’59. IMHO awesome guy.