January 26, 2016
America's Naval Presence Problem
One month ago, Secretary of Defense Ash Carter sent a stinging letter to Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus entitled “Program Balance.” The memo offered a stark reminder that Budget Control Act-imposed defense shortfalls will change much more than just the endstrength of our land forces. Secretary Mabus was ordered to re-program the Navy’s 2017 budget to place a higher priority on advanced warfighting capabilities while cutting the number of planned ship purchases by 12, thus curtailing the number of ships available for presence operations. The language used in the memo includes an implicit strategic decision that is about more than just the relative slicing of the budget pie. Carter goes on to say that a combination of higher advanced capabilities and the posturing of the force will be enough to compensate for decreased naval presence around the world. This statement betrays either a misunderstanding of the characteristics of naval presence or a dangerous devaluing of its role in our nation’s overall military strategy. Others, perhaps anxious to defend their own strategic agendas, have promoted Carter’s arguments.
Read the full op-ed at War on the Rocks.
More from CNAS
-
Bombshell: Come What May
Podcast
Erin, Radha, and Loren invited Dr. Lindsay Cohn of the U.S. Naval War College to join their posse and explain America’s history of employing the military for domestic purposes...
By Loren DeJonge Schulman, Lindsay Cohn, Radha Iyengar & Erin Simpson
-
Loren DeJonge Schulman on The Smell of Victory Podcast
Podcast
On The Smell of Victory Podcast, Bob Hein and Phil Walter sat down with Loren DeJonge Schulman of the Center for a New American Security to discuss the draft. Listen to the f...
By Loren DeJonge Schulman
-
Susanna V. Blume on Defense & Aerospace Report Podcast
Podcast
On this Roundtable episode of the Defense & Aerospace Report Podcast, sponsored by Bell, a Textron company, our guests include Bob Hale,(who now advises Booz Allen Hamilton &m...
By Susanna V. Blume
-
CNAS’ Colby on Nuclear Strategy, Deterrence, Developing New Capabilities, INF Treaty
Video
Bridge Colby, the former deputy assistant secretary of defense for strategy and force planning — one of the authors of the Pentagon’s National Defense Strategy — n...
By Elbridge Colby
