KB
04-22-2005, 10:30 PM
Higher costs thin ranks of Navy fleet
James Holmes - For the Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Thursday, April 21, 2005
Can the U.S. Navy still afford to rule the waves?
It's an open question. Last week, Adm. Vern Clark, the chief of naval operations, told Congress that shipbuilding costs had "spiraled out of control." As a result, "we can't build the Navy that we believe that we need in the 21st century."
Each Virginia-class attack sub, billed as a low-cost successor to the expensive Seawolf, will cost an astounding $2.5 billion. The next-generation CV-21 aircraft carrier will cost $13.7 billion.
At a time when annual shipbuilding budgets run only around $10 billion --- in part because of the cost of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan --- the Navy's fleet will shrink inexorably.
Escalating costs come as little surprise. As a naval officer in the late 1980s, I spent more time than I care to remember in shipyards, reactivating the battleship Wisconsin. Rarely was work completed on budget. Nor did the Navy always get its money's worth: on one occasion Wisconsin engineers had to shut down seven of the ship's eight boilers while at sea, because of faulty shipyard work.
Lack of competition and pork-barrel politics remove any incentive to streamline operations, remedy the kind of inefficiency I saw in the Wisconsin or hold costs down.
Such bloat and inefficiency have real and immediate consequences for U.S. foreign policy and naval strategy. The Navy has long relied on high-tech wizardry to make up for its fleet's declining numbers. And, to be sure, today's warships are more potent than their predecessors, though fewer in number.
But numbers count. Lt. Gen. Robert Magnus, the U.S. Marine Corps' deputy commandant for programs and resources, observed recently, "I'm certainly concerned about the continuing ability of the U.S. Navy to sustain forces forward."
Quoting Adm. Sergei Gorshkov, the architect of the Soviet Navy --- a navy inferior to the U.S. Navy technologically but superior in numbers --- Magnus said, "Quantity has a quality all its own."
China, the key U.S. rival in a region of vital interest, understands that. Beijing has come to grasp how important seagoing commerce --- especially oil and gas supplies --- are to its burgeoning economy. Accordingly, it is putting to sea large numbers of low-cost warships. For example, it has purchased Russian-built attack submarines and built its own nuclear and diesel boats, not to mention what it bills as "China Aegis" --- its answer to the most advanced U.S. surface ships.
Sure, these units couldn't stand against their U.S. counterparts in a one-to-one fight. But they wouldn't need to. China can purchase a dozen capable Russian-built Kilo attack subs for the price of one U.S. Virginia-class sub.
Fearsome though it is, the Virginia doesn't have 12 times the punch of the Kilo. And China has the luxury of keeping its fleet concentrated in East Asian waters, while the U.S. Navy is spread thin worldwide.
What to do? First, U.S. naval leaders need to give up their excessive faith in technology. Numbers still matter --- especially when you're operating in an adversary's back yard. The Navy ought to consider simply building more warships similar to those already at sea.
Second, Congress, the Navy and industry leaders must figure out how to integrate economic incentives into the shipbuilding industry, holding down the prices of next-generation vessels. Otherwise the U.S. Navy could find itself outmatched during, say, a war in the Taiwan Strait.
> James Holmes is a senior research associate at the University of Georgia Center for International Trade and Security.
James Holmes - For the Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Thursday, April 21, 2005
Can the U.S. Navy still afford to rule the waves?
It's an open question. Last week, Adm. Vern Clark, the chief of naval operations, told Congress that shipbuilding costs had "spiraled out of control." As a result, "we can't build the Navy that we believe that we need in the 21st century."
Each Virginia-class attack sub, billed as a low-cost successor to the expensive Seawolf, will cost an astounding $2.5 billion. The next-generation CV-21 aircraft carrier will cost $13.7 billion.
At a time when annual shipbuilding budgets run only around $10 billion --- in part because of the cost of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan --- the Navy's fleet will shrink inexorably.
Escalating costs come as little surprise. As a naval officer in the late 1980s, I spent more time than I care to remember in shipyards, reactivating the battleship Wisconsin. Rarely was work completed on budget. Nor did the Navy always get its money's worth: on one occasion Wisconsin engineers had to shut down seven of the ship's eight boilers while at sea, because of faulty shipyard work.
Lack of competition and pork-barrel politics remove any incentive to streamline operations, remedy the kind of inefficiency I saw in the Wisconsin or hold costs down.
Such bloat and inefficiency have real and immediate consequences for U.S. foreign policy and naval strategy. The Navy has long relied on high-tech wizardry to make up for its fleet's declining numbers. And, to be sure, today's warships are more potent than their predecessors, though fewer in number.
But numbers count. Lt. Gen. Robert Magnus, the U.S. Marine Corps' deputy commandant for programs and resources, observed recently, "I'm certainly concerned about the continuing ability of the U.S. Navy to sustain forces forward."
Quoting Adm. Sergei Gorshkov, the architect of the Soviet Navy --- a navy inferior to the U.S. Navy technologically but superior in numbers --- Magnus said, "Quantity has a quality all its own."
China, the key U.S. rival in a region of vital interest, understands that. Beijing has come to grasp how important seagoing commerce --- especially oil and gas supplies --- are to its burgeoning economy. Accordingly, it is putting to sea large numbers of low-cost warships. For example, it has purchased Russian-built attack submarines and built its own nuclear and diesel boats, not to mention what it bills as "China Aegis" --- its answer to the most advanced U.S. surface ships.
Sure, these units couldn't stand against their U.S. counterparts in a one-to-one fight. But they wouldn't need to. China can purchase a dozen capable Russian-built Kilo attack subs for the price of one U.S. Virginia-class sub.
Fearsome though it is, the Virginia doesn't have 12 times the punch of the Kilo. And China has the luxury of keeping its fleet concentrated in East Asian waters, while the U.S. Navy is spread thin worldwide.
What to do? First, U.S. naval leaders need to give up their excessive faith in technology. Numbers still matter --- especially when you're operating in an adversary's back yard. The Navy ought to consider simply building more warships similar to those already at sea.
Second, Congress, the Navy and industry leaders must figure out how to integrate economic incentives into the shipbuilding industry, holding down the prices of next-generation vessels. Otherwise the U.S. Navy could find itself outmatched during, say, a war in the Taiwan Strait.
> James Holmes is a senior research associate at the University of Georgia Center for International Trade and Security.