America’s Naval Strategy Doesn’t Match Its Budget

[Onkel Neal]

Late last year the U.S. Navy (with the Marine Corps and Coast Guard) released an integrated, tri-service strategy for maintaining sea control and power projection as well as the resolve “to compete, deter, and win” against China. The document, “Advantage at Sea,” sought to fulfill its title—first and foremost—by “accelerating the development of a larger, more lethal future fleet.” A technologically capable navy backed with a greater capacity was the best way to compete with China, the document proposed, after extensive wargaming (and a separate study by former Secretary of Defense Mark Esper) recommended a naval force of at least 355 ships, with an emphasis on submarines, smaller combatants, and unmanned platforms.

Although the Navy needs to prioritize capabilities and then capacity, the Biden administration’s naval budget prioritizes current readiness (at 34.2 percent) at the expense of research and development (i.e., capabilities) and procurement (i.e., capacity). The proposed FY22 budget funded readiness at a year-to-year increase of 2.2 percent through shipbuilding cuts of 8.7 percent. It should be noted that the readiness increase occurred despite the fact that the costs of provision for twenty-four or fifty-eight days underway per quarter were the same as FY21. So, for a navy dedicated to renovating itself in size and skill to counter China, a budgetary increase for readiness—with no increase in underway replenishment figures or the number of ships—should raise eyebrows.

https://nationalinterest.org/feature...-budget-193082

[Aktungbby]

The Russians must love our military attention being soaked up by the Chinese expansion; recently accentuated by switching the 1 baby per household dictate to 3 per household; to compensate for a decline birthrate affecting the Sino-economy's growth. In a overheated, polluted world, with 8 billion people, of which 1.4 billion are Chinese, the old Russian adage "numbers have a cachet of their own" comes into focus. We simply don't have enough money, time or people to combat the upcoming WWIII threat unless it's with nukes. The 20th century sucked...the 21st will suck even worse; pandemics and global warming factored into suppressing "havenots" from taking our haves; which is what all warfare is all about.

[mapuc]

1.4 billion citizens you say..how big can the Chinese army get. In active duty they have around 2.2 million, how does it look like in wartime ?

USA does not have the strength to fight two wars
One against China and one against Russia.

Markus

[Otto Harkaman]

John Lehman (former Secretary of the Navy under Ronald Reagan):

More Bureaucrats, Fewer Jets and Ships
More than half of our active-duty servicemen and women serve in offices on staffs.

https://www.c-span.org/video/?286544...lehman-remarks

[Sean C]

With well over $28,000,000,000,000 in debt, I don't think anything matches our "budget".

[Otto Harkaman]

the money the Navy has saved on divestment activities — for example, retiring older Littoral Combat Ships and Ticonderoga-class cruisers — is being spent on institutional support rather than operations and training or research and development,

https://breakingdefense.com/2021/09/...nclear-govini/