Mitt Romney Proclaims Love for Seapower

Danger Room has a good article on the Mitt Romney whitepaper, An American Century, A Strategy to Secure America’s Enduring Interests and Ideals. I've read it, and I admit that I haven't taken it very seriously even though I probably should, because it does give quite a bit of focus on the US Navy.

The real issue for me is that I have a hard time taking any of it seriously because the content in the Romney whitepaper is very generic. It reads like someone spent 48 hours with a few Navy Admirals and got the PowerPoint Full Court Press.

What I'm hoping for is that the paper leads to a true defense policy discussion in the 2011 election. The Obama administration went from a President promising to end the wars we are in to being the President who engaged in what is now SEVEN wars: Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and now Uganda. I don't care if these are drone wars, clone wars, or small wars - we are bombing seven nations on two continents and in a few cases - including a nuclear power whose government is publicly against our bombing policy. When this global war foreign policy is matched against the Presidents defense cut economic policy, the Obama administration appears to lack a coherent grand policy or even a coherent foreign policy that can be articulated.

We are a nation that has been at war for 10 years. We are clearly due a defense policy debate.

Is it possible the Mitt Romney white paper will bring about this policy discussion? I suppose it is possible, and I for one hope it does. The white paper spends a lot of time discussing shipbuilding and the US Navy, but can the candidate actually articulate any of it with factual information to an American public audience that has been brainwashed into thinking land war in Asia and drone war in Africa is OK, NP, NET GOOD? I think good defense policy questions related to seapower would stump Mitt Romney and just about every other Presidential candidate except maybe Gingrich. I'm actually surprised Romney hasn't been asked any questions yet on the topic, but that probably means they are waiting for the right time knowing this is low hanging fruit for embarrassing the guy in a public spot.

Anyway, check out the Danger Room article - it's very good, and check out the white paper to get a sense how seapower could enter the election cycle. Should the nation build 15 ships a year as Mitt Romney suggests? In my opinion, not until a President can articulate a national defense policy that drives a national strategy that informs naval leaders what ships to build, and why to build them. No disrespect to Big Navy, but the six ships they would build a year would probably not be the best choices for America today in my opinion, and Admiral Greenert may have called for a strategy to guide his choices, but he hasn't advocated a strategic vision for seapower of his own publicly since becoming CNO.

Finally, last I checked the only Presidential candidate for 2012 with a genuine seapower advocate on their staff who has the intellectual muscle to truly inform a candidate on policy or military strategy discussion related to seapower is Barack Obama, who could easily call on UNDERSECNAV Bob Work to brief him and help him develop seapower policies for his administration.

Until Mitt Romney or some other Republican advocating seapower hires someone who reaches the level of respected seapower professional near Bob Work, like a Seth Cropsey, Bryan McGrath, or Mackenzie Eaglen, don't expect whitepapers written by political advisers who once witnessed a Navy PPT brief to impress me. Seapower is a big boy grand strategy topic that ranges the entire spectrum of foreign policy from global nuclear war to offshore economic security assistance. Absent professional intellectual advisers and experts preparing a politician on the issues, a serious policy discussion with a seapower focus will quickly make uninformed politicians look like the village idiot.

For example, icebreakers is a top five maritime policy topic in October 2011 as part of the Arctic Ocean security discussion. I doubt a single Republican candidate, nor even the POTUS, could name or even count the number of operational icebreakers in the US Navy (zero) or US Coast Guard (zero). Mitt Romney discusses the number of Navy ships, but what is the average age of the nations Coast Guard Cutters (over 40 years). Speaking for myself, I would absolutely love to hear what President Obama has to say about the future of the nuclear triad in the US. These are big boy discussions, and I'm thinking our domestically focused President would struggle - a lot - sounding informed on a topic like that. After 10 years of war, I pray I'm wrong about that, but alas war in Washington appears to have been outsourced to the established bureaucracy.

A defense policy discussion would prove it one way or the other, and after 10 years of land war in Asia, it is certainly time for our nation to have a very serious defense and foreign policy discussion as an election cycle approaches.