Navy League Litany of Tough Times

Navy League Litany of Tough Times

By Colin Clark Monday, May 4th, 2009 5:12 pm
Posted in Naval, Policy

The Navy needs a “fundamentally different way of procuring ships.”

The Navy faces a “pressurized” period, the sort of time, when “we have to go ahead and make decisions we otherwise would not make.”

The Navy cancelled LCS because “costs were taking off at an uncontrollable rate.”


The Navy restructured DDG 1000 because it was “not the ship I envisioned us needing in the future.”

That litany of woe and tough times all came from Adm. Gary Roughead, chief of naval operations, at this year’s Navy League conference.

The Marines have had a tough time but are looking for some good news in 2010. “I see 2009 as a rather tough year for the Marine Corps,” said Commandant Gen. James Conway. The Marines have been “like a man with a foot in two canoes. We hope 2010 is better” as the Marines prepare to leave Iraq. But the years of operating as a counter insurgency force have taken their toll on the Corps. “Unfortunately, we have to admit we have lost expeditionary and amphibious skills,” Conway said. “We have become, in many ways, a second land Army.”

But, never content to lie down and get kicked, the Marines are clearly planning to take their case for renewal to the Quadrennial Defense Review and to the Defense Secretary. Walking out of the Navy League conference, Conway told me the Marines are committed to their role as “door kickers” and want to make sure the country does not lose the capability for forced entry.

A prominent Navy man, Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, told reporters at the conference that the country “really has a great opportunity to really set ourselves in the right direction for the future.”

But he is wary of putting more money into weapons programs that may not be performing and need more dough to, in that wonderful phrase, buy down risk. “I’ve put a lot of money into programs where the risk just went right up,” Mullen said, adding that fixing that tendency is “going to take some very creative, very inventive, top-down leadership.”

That sounds like a blast across the bow of the services chief to me. Roughead and his colleagues on the Joint Chiefs will doubtless face deeper cuts to treasured programs than we have already seen if I read Mullen alright.

Join the Conversation

Charles Phillips May 4th, 2009 at 7:54 pm

There is so much to comment on right now…

Gen Conway opines that the Marines are becoming a second-hand Army, and from watching my brother (LtCol USA, two tours in the sandbox) I fear that the Army is becoming an occupation force.

We are only buying vehicles that are applicable to the occupation task — the MRAP. They are TALL! High enough to be seen for miles around, and probably usable in armored battle as long as they are well protected by Abrams tanks.

Sure they are what we need now — in the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. But, as always, we need to closely watch our pals the Israelis and see how they apply their occupation experience (Gaza, West Bank) to invasions such as Lebanon.

The Israelis have not gotten better at invasions — of course the ROE is far different than they were in 1956 or 1967.

But we need to watch our selves and not devolve into a military that can only do occupation duty.

And if anyone wants to argue about Iraq — we have been in Japan and Korea and Germany for a long time. We may pull out “combat” units but there will be Americans in Iraq for a long time. And they are gonna be experts at occupation duty. It sounds like the Marines would like to leave that to the Army, and the Army would probably like to leave it to the Marines.

Charles Phillips May 4th, 2009 at 9:17 pm

Oops let me agree that the Navy procurement system is a bad as the rest of DoD and the Federal gov’t.

My earlier note deviates from the intent of the news article, sorry. The fact that the procurement system is so bad (yes I am an aerospace contractor and am well acquainted with the failings of the system) is well known and there was not much to add.

So I bloviated about the comment from Gen Conway. Sue me!

bambooviper May 5th, 2009 at 1:17 am

Marines will not be an occuping force unless they make the USMC a lot bigger. Marines are the right hand of the CIC, and they are the only ones, this will never change. If army stays then there will be just enough to stand lines to protect the army. If Operations need to be ran, there will be Marines for some of that for sure. But I don’t think this will be like before, to much truth is out, and now is time for damage control. It is a bitter pill to swallow, but needs to be done.

max reduce May 5th, 2009 at 5:26 am

Marines or either Military’s indeed are very important in our society. Passing the jobs to each other will not going to finish anything, I think Marines should take some turns of duty in Israel also and the same time the military its better to have two forces there and regarding with the said ships and weapons, YES they are indeed important but if we have still such things that are working very well why not use those don’t getting more funds that supposed to be used on other aspects of serving the people.

Ed Belsinger May 5th, 2009 at 8:46 am

I have been watching the politicians throw good money down the toilet for 55 years now. I have never understood why the military awards a contract and the politicians decide after billions of tax payer dollars of investments they (the politicians) cancel the projects. B1 was a good example of money down the toilet. Now I read that the Navy (CNO) canceled the Zumwalt class stealth destroyers after thee ships because it wasn’t in his vision. I suppose the hydrofoils like USS Pegasus and its sister vessels were not in someone’s vision in the 80 either or maybe CNO is practicing to become a Congressman. I guess the next CNO should be clairvoyant so he or she can bypass the congressional axe and just not invest billions or trillions of dollars in wishful thinking projects. It kind of mirrors giving G.M. and Chrysler billions of dollars just to watch them fail anyway.

George Nugent May 5th, 2009 at 9:45 am

For a mere $6 billion, we can buy the George H.W. Bush (CVN 77) aircraft carrier or 3 B2 bombers.
The last really good deal the Navy got was during World War 2. They commissioned 175 Fletcher-class destroyers,a very capable all-purpose ship. Perhaps we are getting too specialized today; e.g the LCS or the Zumwalt destroyer. Times have changed — again.

surveyor47 May 5th, 2009 at 10:56 am

A big part of the Navys problem is the absence of a US Merchant Marine. If you cannot build merchant ships, you cannot build Navy ships-at least for very long. The Navy has long seen the deceased US Merchant Marine as a competitor rather than a foundation. Merchant ships provide an industrial base, expertese in a variety of fields and prevent the Navy and shipbuilders from becoming one source/one customer enterprises– the root of the problem. Competition is always good. A thriving Merchant Marine translates into more and varied types of shipyards. Naval shipyards are a good thing to have, because they provide the Navy with a cost basis and a reality check. If the yards price is out of line, the Naval Shipyard can do the job for less. If the Navy is out of line, the Naval Shipyard will not be able to accomplish any more than the civilian yard and so inform the service.

Dan Curran May 7th, 2009 at 11:53 am

The Marine General said second land NOT second
hand. The Marine Corps will always be in the
forefront and never forgotten.

Retired Navy Chief

Colin Clark May 7th, 2009 at 3:29 pm

Chief,

Several other audience members told me later when they saw the story that he said land. I am willing to stand corrected and so changed the story.

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