Absence Makes the Need Grow Fonder

Usually, things go from here to twitter - but today we're going to reverse the flow.

What got my blood up this AM? A good 24-hrs of people commenting on Sam LaGrone's great article on our CVN deployment gap.

Aircraft carriers – the most visible tools of U.S. military power – are spending more time in maintenance and at home even as the Pentagon has declared it’s entered a new era of competition with China and Russia.

According to a USNI News analysis of more than 50 years of carrier air wing deployments over the last 15 months, the Navy has seen the lowest number of carrier strike groups underway since 1992, the year following the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

It is nicely summarized with this pic;

Well, a few things. This is,
1) Good news. We’ve been shooting up the horse for way too long.
2) Get used to it. There is neither the political will or the budgetary heft to build enough CVN to meet what we think we need. Our friend Bryan McGrath is correct, 13 is the minimum, but Congress will never fund that nor the airwings to put on them - not to mention proper escort numbers.

We need to accept this as we are about to enter the Terrible 20s. Political disruption has only begun, we will have a recession NLT 1QFY21, we will spend more on interest on the debt than DOD by 2023.

Medicare goes insolvent in 2026, Social Security 2034.

We need to learn to do what we can with what we will get, than think about doing more with what we will never have budgeted.

This isn’t the future I want, but it is the one the last 2-decades of politicians gave us.

The Terrible 20s are neigh. Don't avert your eyes, focus.

H/t Cavas.