Darkness Falls on Fleet Condition Information

This report from Navy Times is not good news for either analysts or the suspicious at heart. While the ongoing condition of the fleet is important enough information for the effectiveness and feasibility of any Maritime Strategy, the real worry here is that information on program success will be more difficult for analysts and policymakers to obtain and use in open debate over shipbuilding and strategy. For example, the recent information on the results of inspections of LPD-17 following its highly-publicized problems. Or information on how well the LCS prototypes withstand a year or two of steaming at sea - something that will have critical implications for the potential success or failure of the program. It's difficult to see how this information is suddenly more national-security relevant than it has been in recent times - deployment of U.S. Navy assets on a non-surge basis isn't that difficult to track, and the only issue I can possibly come up with on the external threat side is that an opponent concerned with our ship movements over a period of months or years might gain information which would help them plan procurements or deployments. But, again, given the preponderance of power in the U.S. Fleet right now, I'm of the opinion that the Navy's internal problems (budgeting, shipbuilding, etc.) are of far more concern to 'get right' than the incremental amount of information on operations that this might expose. If there are professionals out there who disagree with me, I'd be eager to learn why I'm wrong.

UPDATE: As usual, someone on the USNI Blog has a better post than me on this same subject. Thanks to Defense Springboard for a zingier screed.