A Collision At Sea

February 16th 2025

This past week USS Truman was in a collision at sea. As Themistocles noted, some 2500 years ago, a collisional sea can ruin your entire day. Unfortunately, the US Navy is, metaphorically speaking, about to have a collision at sea.

As anyone who has not been living under a rock knows, the Trump administration is looking for waste. One of the targets is going to be the Department of Defense, and anyone who has spent any time in the military knows there is waste. To a certainty, the Navy is going to come in for its share. And the Navy has demonstrated, over the past 30 years a steady stream of poorly managed projects, projects that either ran far over budget or didn’t work, or both: the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS), the Zumwalt class destroyers, the Ford class carriers, etc. Even when the Navy has had a really good program - the Virginia class submarine, recognized by everyone as a superb submarine, when Congress tried to increase the production rate due to worries about developing threats, the Navy and the contractors were unable to respond.

Meanwhile, I would suggest that the Navy is headed for a force of 9 carriers. First, a carrier lasts 50 years. And there is exactly one yard in the free world that is large enough to build an 1100 foot, nuclear powered carrier. The 10 Nimitz class carriers were all built at Newport News shipyard, over a period of 41 years. The Ford class are now building and they are currently on schedule to produce 4 carriers in 25 years, but believe that they can reduce the construction time to 6 years per ship. 

And, while you could argue that they could build two carriers at a time at the yard, they also need room to perform periodic refueling of the reactors of the other carriers (an expensive, multi-year effort) and there simply aren’t enough skilled shipyard workers to build 2 carriers, refuel a third and provide periodic maintenance on a fourth. 

Said differently, the total number of carriers is going to drop.

Of course, the US Navy only has 9 carrier air wings so, under the best of circumstances, assuming there were 9 carriers ready for sea, there are only 9 air wings. 

Furthermore after more than $1 billions in weapons expenditures in the Red Sea (that was the number Business Insider gave out in April of last year - 10 months ago), and the huge shipments of weapons to Ukraine, one wonders whether we can fill 9 aircraft carrier weapons magazines.

But more to the point, if the US Navy can’t defeat a 4th rate power like the Houthis, if the US can’t establish sea control around a country with no navy and thereby prevent them from being resupplied, if the US Navy cannot, with a couple of carrier strike groups make the Red Sea safe for innocent passage of merchant ships, then what exactly is the argument for a larger Navy?

And of course, as the leadership in DOD looks for waste, the other services will have arguments to defend requests for more funds.

Consider the USAF: The next time you are at an air show, or maybe just watching some big game of some sort and some USAF aircraft do a fly by - think of this:

The average F-15 (Cs and Es) are over 30 years old. The newest USAF F-16 is 20 years old. And bombers? The newest B-2 is 25, the newest B-1 is 37. And the B-52? The newest one is 63 (even the youngest F-22 is 14 years old). If you answer that “they are superbly maintained,” I would respond with a comment I heard from an Air Force officer and good friend a number of years ago: “Would you send your kids off to college in a 25 year old car?” 

While you are considering that, how old is your car?

It’s true that in the end there may not be a reduction in overall defense spending, after all, the President is calling for allies to increase spending to 5% of GDP (we currently spend about 3.5%) and there are a host of things that need to be bought (weapons, for one). But changes are coming; even if there’s no reduction in the top number, we can expect weapons programs to be canceled, new weapons programs started, and manpower reductions. For the Navy that means a need to focus on ships and deployable forces and strip everything else to the bone. 

To be clear, the people to blame fore this mess aren’t in Congress and aren’t defense contractors. A number of years ago I sat and listened to the then Chief of Naval Operations - ostensibly the number 1 sailor - tell a large hall filled with more than 500 senior naval officers that he needed help, he needed to craft a new maritime strategy. At first, I thought he was being polite and encouraging one and all to think and write about the problem. But as I sat and listened, I realized that he was unable to articulate what the Navy needed to be able to do, and what the Naval Services roles was in the US National strategy. In short, he was unable to tell you why we needed the US Navy or the US Marines. How can that be?

It has become clear over the past 25 years that for the bulk of the Navy’s senior officers, the Navy is, first and foremost, a force provide to the Joint Force Commander. Whatever else it might do will be a task it receives from on high, but whatever it is, they are not mentally engaged in anything other than following orders at the tactical level, or defending programs if stationed in the Pentagon.

Meanwhile, we’re watching a host of smart guys take over DOD and there is virtually no Naval experience among any of them. But a great deal of Army experience. I’m left with the concern that the admirals - and captains - who’ve been unable to articulate a maritime strategy, who’ve been unable to readily explain what a Navy does - who clearly do not know what a Navy does - as demonstrated by the inability to reestablish Sea Control in the Red Sea - those officers will be left to argue to smart, Army flavored folks, why more money needs to go to the Navy and less money to the Army.

To a certainty anything that doesn’t look and feel like "red meat” - operational forces and those assets in direct support - is - and should be - cut. But what else might be cut? The leadership of the US Navy must do one of two things: come up with a plan - and a clear and convincing argument for the Navy - a different Navy - the Navy the nation needs, or be prepared to be told what the right answer is.