So.....Numbers Don't Matter?

Raymond quite rightly informs us in the post previous to this one of the extended deployment lengths that are becoming far too easily digested without comment. 

And so, the emptiness of the "numbers don't matter" argument is exposed for all to see.  Thank you for raising this issue, Raymond.  Numbers do matter, they matter in the real operational world in which we live, rather than in the Powerpoint world of OV-1's and lightning bolts; they matter in kitchens across the country where families face the prospect of nine-month deployments as a matter of routine, rather than as a response to an emergency/extension (as is the case with the IKE GROUP); and they matter in the main machinery spaces of a fleet that is wearing out its ships at a rate that present shipbuilding numbers does not come close to replacing, undercutting the confidence anyone can have in projections of fleet size in the out-years.  One only has to look at the FY13-17 budget, in which we build 41 ships but do not grow the fleet by a single hull.  At this rate, we will not even do that well (hold even) in years to come as tired ships reach the premature ends of their programmed service lives, denied the maintenance and upkeep so vital to their health in order to meet operational demands or worse, sacrificed on the altar of "efficiency". 

One of two things is true, and perhaps they both are:  our Navy is not big enough, or it does too many things.  It really is that simple.   I believe the former, that the Navy is too small for the objectives with which it is tasked.  Some believe it should be asked to do less out of a desire for the US to do less overall.  I do not sign up to that.  That is the road to second place, and it is the action of a nation whose interests are contiguous with its landmass, as ours are not. 

 In my view, the Navy doesn't do enough; it should shoulder additional responsibility as it and the Marine Corps take up the primary, enduring peacetime deterring and assuring missions for which they are irreplaceable.  Vital American Seapower is the necessary predicate for any desire to be influential on a global basis, especially in an era of land force contraction.  To do so, the Navy must be larger.  Considerably larger.

The strategically short-sighted response of criticizing the Combatant Commanders for insatiable appetites may be initially satisfying, but ultimately destructive.  Theirs is the role of tending our far flung interests, nose to nose with those who wish to see us diminished.  Of course there are superfluous requests, and we must rely on SECDEF to smoke them out.  But the request of the CENTCOM Commander for the presence of 2 Aircraft Carrier Groups cannot be blithely disregarded as excess appetite.  His judgment is not the issue here; the Navy's capacity to satisfy the requirement is.

Bryan McGrath