The Grey Lady Weighs In

The New York Times has published an editorial on funding the Pentagon in the coming years, along with specific recommendations on various big-name Pentagon procurement programs. I won't repeat their recommendations here, since you can easily read them at the link above, but wanted to touch on a few of them.

They recommend canceling the Virginia-class submarine (SSN-774) program, and instead spending money to 'extend the operating lives of the existing fleet of Los Angeles class fast-attack nuclear submarines, which can capably perform all needed post-cold-war missions — from launching cruise missiles to countering China’s expanding but technologically inferior submarine fleet.' They further claim that this decision would produce net savings of $2.5 billion. Given that they describe the Virginias as costing $2 billion each, recommending that the U.S. put off the replacement of a submarine force which is already aging and which was acquired initially at a high rate, meaning that it will leave service at the same high rate, for savings amounting to little more than the cost of one of the current boats seems foolish to me. Also, given that the Virginia is one of the few programs which does in fact appear to be roughly on budget and on time, the message this would send appears counterproductive.

They recommend cancelling DD-1000 (unsurprisingly) but explicitly choose to do so in order to favor funding the LCS acquisition. I'm not sure I should even bother going into that here - and I won't. I'm sure Galrahn and Yankee Sailor will chime in if they think anything even needs to be said. They want to cut a CVBG (at least one) and offer straight-ahead acquisition cost numbers to justify this.

Their general positions is made explicitly clear on page 2, where they call for reductions in the Navy and Air Force in order to fund needed increases in ground forces. Especially for the Times, this seems odd - since the primary cause of those 'necessary increases' is ground wars which they have been unabashedly critical of in the past. They also seem quite sure that the U.S. Navy's current blue-water dominance is something which can be confidently assumed to continue into the near to medium future, even with said reductions in ship procurement. I would argue instead that while ground forces are a possible reaction to events which affect the U.S. overseas, access to those locations is a prerequisite, and the Navy is what buys the U.S. that access. Furthermore, the Navy is much more about the classic defense of the United States' sovereign territory than the Army. The Army exists in present day to enforce U.S. foreign policy, even if that policy is in 'defense' of the United States. However, in order to perform classic defense of the U.S., you need to prevent intrusion onto the U.S, its territories and those of its core allies. That is done not, in fact, by an expanded Army, but by a strong and ready Navy and Air Force. Claiming that an expanded ground force is the primary means of defense of the United States is to state that either the U.S. has thrown away its traditional advantages of sea power and would prefer to engage enemies after they have come ashore, or that a vigorous prosecution of foreign interventions is now critical to U.S. core defense. While the latter may be possible, it runs counter to much of what the Times has spent a great deal of time claiming.

For this post, I would offer the opinion that for the moment, improving the efficiency, predictability and reliability of U.S. weapons procurement will offer much more valuable savings as well as more assets than a hasty attempt to control total procurement dollars by cutting large programs for their acquisition cost savings. Although I don't presently know the answer, I would be much more inclined to listen to calls for extending the 688 boats vs. funding 774s if there was any evidence presented that the operating costs (as opposed to simply the acquisition total costs) would be lower. None is forthcoming.

Snarkily selected image is a Victor-III being dismantled. Har, har, 'cut submarine,' I'm such a card.