The New York Analysis of Policy and Government concludes its two-part look at how slashed funding from Washington and rising threats from abroad have left the United States vulnerable at sea.
Admiral William F. Moran, the Navy’s Chief of Naval Operations, informed Congress earlier this year that “Time is running out. Years of sustained deployments and constrained and uncertain funding have resulted in a readiness debt that will take years to pay down. If the slow pace of readiness recovery continues, unnecessary equipment damage, poorly trained operators at sea, and a force improperly trained and equipped to sustain itself will result. Absent sufficient funding for readiness, modernization and force structure, the Navy cannot return to full health, where it can continue to meet its mission on a sustainable basis. And even if additional resources are made available, if they continue to be provided in a way that cannot be counted on and planned for, some will be wasted.”
Earlier this month, Admiral Moran expanded on his worrisome theme: “The Navy has deployed, on average, about 100 ships around the world each day, collectively steaming thousands of underway days each year, despite having the smallest battle fleet since before World War I, and significantly smaller than the Navy we had immediately after 9/11 over a decade ago. 2 Although warfighting capabilities of ships have dramatically increased in the last century, the size and scope of U.S. responsibilities around the world have also increased.”
While the U.S. Navy struggles, America’s maritime adversaries grow larger and bolder. According to a study by the Brookings Institute “Russia is, impressively, both retrofitting older vessels and procuring newer ones. And the [Russian] navy has unveiled a significant capability: Its Caspian Sea corvettes and frigates can fire cruise missiles at targets over 900 miles away. This is a previously unknown capability. To put things in perspective, the two variants of the U.S. Littoral Combat Ship, Freedom and Independence, are substantially larger at roughly 2,900 tons and 3,100 tons respectively—but they do not possess any cruise missile or similar power projection capability.”
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“has warned the Kremlin is building up its maritime arsenal. It calls on Nato to prepare for how to deal with Russian hybrid warfare at sea ‘before it is too late.’ Its study notes that “Russia could send new submarines and ships to launch undersea attacks to ‘paralyse’ Europe…”
China’s threat may exceed Russia’s, and the two nations are closely allied, and increasing their coordination through joint training exercises. In its Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China 2016 the Department of Defense notes that “Over the past 15 years, China’s ambitious naval modernization program has produced a more technologically advanced and flexible force. The PLAN now possesses the largest number of vessels in Asia, with more than 300 surface ships, submarines, amphibious ships, and patrol craft. China is rapidly retiring legacy combatants in favor of larger, multi-mission ships equipped with advanced anti-ship, antiair, and anti-submarine weapons and sensors. China continues its gradual shift from “near sea” defense to “far seas” protection.”…China is expanding its access to foreign ports to pre-position the necessary logistics support to regularize and sustain deployments in the “far seas,” waters as distant as the Indian Ocean, Mediterranean Sea, and Atlantic Ocean. In late November, China publicly confirmed its intention to build military supporting facilities in Djibouti…This Chinese initiative both reflects and amplifies China’s growing geopolitical clout, extending the reach of its influence and armed forces…”
Essentially, China has developed a modern and powerful navy with a growing capability for conducting operations beyond China’s near-seas region. Observers of Chinese and U.S. military forces view China’s improving naval capabilities as posing a potential challenge in the Western Pacific to the U.S. Navy’s ability to achieve and maintain control of blue-water ocean areas in wartime—the first such challenge the U.S. Navy has faced since the end of the Cold War. More broadly, these observers view China’s naval capabilities as a key element of an emerging broader Chinese military challenge to the long-standing status of the United States as the leading military power in the Western Pacific.