Analyst's note: We know with assurity that a smaller U.S. Navy can NOT meet its multiple global missions ... it is already too small. The root cause of the deficit is shown in the charts below. If the U.S. fails, where are we going to run? Semper Fidelis
.bmp)
USS Barack Obama
.jpg)
.gif)
"President Obama plans to cut the Pentagon budget by half a trillion dollars or more in the next decade. He also wants the military to take on new missions, principally for the Navy to lead an American strategic "pivot" to the Asia-Pacific.
Something has to give. Care to guess what?
The Administration's record to date is undeniable. Defense was targeted from day one in office, and Mr. Obama disguised his latest, steepest retrenchment as part of a new "strategic review" earlier this month. The Pentagon on Thursday previewed the cuts, announcing that the 2013 defense budget due next month will decline for the first time since 1998. As spending on entitlements rises, budget cuts disproportionately hit the Pentagon, which accounts for a fifth of federal spending but over half the deficit reduction.
A closer look at the Navy reveals the damage. The Pentagon announced that seven cruisers will be decommissioned sooner than planned. Plans to purchase new Virginia-class submarines, a large-deck amphibious ship and smaller attack vessels will be delayed or reduced. Mr. Obama vetoed the Navy's offer to drop one of 11 aircraft carriers, but that decision may be revisited if he is re-elected. As Chief of Naval Operations Jonathan Greenert wrote last month, the service in 2025 "may be smaller than today."
This is not good news. The Navy's fleet is already too small and its ships too old to perform its multiple missions. The fleet has shrunk by half in two decades and currently stands at 285. At the height of the Reagan Cold War buildup in 1987, the Navy had 568 carriers, destroyers, submarines and other ships.
Five years ago, the Navy pledged to get back to a floor of 313 ships sometime in the next decade. But even that shipbuilding plan was stingy in ambition and funding, favoring smaller, relatively inexpensive combat and supply ships. An update last year cut the number of ballistic missile submarines to 12 from 14. The Pentagon's latest budget plan makes it virtually impossible for the Navy to meet the 313 ship goal. And as Defense Secretary Leon Panetta wrote in a letter to Congress in November, if it cuts another $500 billion next January under "sequestration," the U.S. may be looking at a "fleet of fewer than 230 ships."
[....] The U.S. needs 11 aircraft carriers, even when no other country has more than one, because no other country does what it does. American military power has ensured global peace and prosperity since World War II. The Navy is the symbol and instrument of America's ability to project power. Its deterioration would hasten the end of the Pax Americana, carrying a high and dangerous price for the world"
Related article:
Obama defense plans aren't good for US
