Is our Navy ready for a looming Pacific war?

The Department of the Navy exists to deter an aggressor, defeat an adversary and protect American interests. But its budget is limited and the priorities to achieve results require change.

To start, it’s time to consider base realignment. We have more infrastructure than money to maintain our bases. No matter the mission, every base has duplicative expenses, life safety, security, etc. To achieve savings, we must consider the bottom line: What is the value of an installation if it drains precious dollars and doesn’t contribute to defeating an adversary?

We can no longer fight on two major fronts — China must be the focus. It is making its aggression known. Taxpayers fund the Navy with $220 billion, so how can the Navy spend more effectively for its mission? Here are the metrics: a declining ship count (now 296, with 39 marked for decommissioning, versus a 355 congressional requirement, against China’s fleet of 355 ships that is expanding to 420); aviation readiness of just 67 percent; and degraded infrastructure (installations maintained at 50-70 percent).

Research and technology expenditures raise questions on resulting weapon system acquisition (such as the littoral combat ship and Zumwalt class destroyer) and over-cost and delayed platforms (the Ford class carrier, at $13billion, and F-35 at $110 million). R&D is important but the threat of a conflict in the Pacific is not 10 years out — it’s immediate. For how many conflicts have we not been ready, either having been caught by surprise or having underestimated our adversary? We need urgency.

Construction, maintenance, operations, energy, labor, environment, resilience, encroachment and inflation — these are all cost factors impacting installation readiness. The Navy spends $16 billion annually on 96 installations and it’s insufficient to maintain readiness. Training range encroachment is reducing readiness. The Naval Air Station Fallon range is obsolete. Environmental regulations constrain readiness. Some locations want Navy investment, but not Navy presence hampering readiness.

America needs a Navy that can protect its interests. For example, South Korea believes an attack by the North is possible on any given day and its forces train constantly to be ready. Can the United States deploy a ready force to win a war in the Pacific if called upon today? If not, we need to set new priorities.

About the Author: Patriotman

Patriotman currently ekes out a survivalist lifestyle in a suburban northeastern state as best as he can. He has varied experience in political science, public policy, biological sciences, and higher education. Proudly Catholic and an Eagle Scout, he has no military experience and thus offers a relatable perspective for the average suburban prepper who is preparing for troubled times on the horizon with less than ideal teams and in less than ideal locations. Brushbeater Store Page: http://bit.ly/BrushbeaterStore

3 Comments

mike September 14, 2022 at 14:15

The new set of priorities we will have will be living day to day. If there is to be a Pacific war, it will be fought with our existing ships and crews. There is simply no way to build whole new classes of cruisers, destroyers, and frigates given the current economic realities and the broken, fraudulent, procurement system that got us into this mess. The Admirals and Senators have only just realized that the LTC and Zumwalt classes were a complete waste of time and taxpayer money. Both of these parties knowingly defrauded the taxpayers, they probably just expected the ships they produced to have at least some merit in the role of a warship instead of being worse than useless. For the most part, the replacement classes are still on the drawing board and being debated by the smart guys who did the War College thing in Newport. Why would we expect them to suddenly draw up something useful, get it approved, and get them built with a WW2 sense of urgency and within budgetary constraints? I think the Rainbow Moon mission has better odds of success at this point. In truth, I expect the bottom to fall out of the economy and the political system too, long before any of these projects comes anywhere near fruition.

In the mean time, as long as the status quo holds, the most reasonable action the Navy could take is to retire the junk, and bring some of the retired OH Perry frigates and other proven surface platforms back into commission. The focus should be on ASW which has been neglected. What we do not need is any of the amphibious centric nonsense from the USMC infecting the debate about ship procurement. There has not been a big over the beach invasion since Inchon in 1950. That was 72 years ago and we will not likely see another. Naval gunfire was a nice thing to have around in its’ day, but we don’t need it for the seaborne invasions we will not be doing and the gun platforms or whatever Zumwaltian fantasy they were expecting to utilize in that role are too vulnerable to land based ASM threats.

The submarine fleet, both attack and missile subs, probably represent the most effective and survivable naval assets we have going forward. They should be funded and kept in service to the fullest extent possible.
Is our Navy ready for a looming Pacific war? | partneringwitheagles September 14, 2022 at 21:49

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