Unholy Wholeness

Over at Proceedings online, our friend Jerry Hendrix is keeping up the pressure to 355+ as other efforts are flagging or distracted.

To build our Navy to where it needs to be it takes constant pressure, political support, and invigorating debate on how to get there.

Along those lines, to build your personal toolbox of ideas in advocating for Seapower (one word, capitalized), make sure and read the whole thing – but for now, here are the major points.

First, one must deconstruct institutional smoke screens;

When pressed during questioning by several legislators, to include Armed Services Committee chairman and retired Navy captain Senator John McCain, on whether the additional funding provided within the FY 2018 budget should have been spent on acquiring more ships, the Navy’s leadership team replied that the best use of additional funds, at this point in time, is on fully funding readiness and maintenance accounts. There is, however, a hole in the logic of this argument.

You then need to rebuild the argument;

…“wholeness” to the force in the form of repaired and well-maintained ships can be reestablished through only one of three methods.
…
First, the nation could stop asking the Navy to do the same number of deployments with a smaller fleet. …
A second option is to base more U.S. ships in overseas ports.
…
A third, better alternative is to build a large enough fleet so that 100 deployed ships would once again represents 25 percent of the total Navy.

I agree with Jerry that until the pro-BRAC Orcs are beaten back to Mordor, Option-2 will have to be kept in ordinary.

There are your wholeness options, but what about building?

Extend Service Life, Reactivate Ghosts Ships, and Build More Ships

To get those details, you need to read it all.

Oh, and the high-low mix … it is a thing. It worked once, it can work again.