Unfortunately, the United States doesn’t have an enduring continuity of national strategy required for building and sustaining an effective Navy. Political stability necessary over decades to design and maintain a Navy has been compromised. One domestic political party advocates for the abandonment of NATO and other major alliances. There is plenty of hard evidence that Russia would receive unfettered U.S. support by enacting a “stand by” approach to see if the Ukraine survives the atrocities inflicted upon their sovereign by Vladimir Putin.
Never before has the unreliability of U.S. domestic politics had such a profound impact on our ability to invest in a national security “consensus”. The situation disarms any healthy debate on the finer points of structuring an effective defense.
My first decade of Naval service was laser focused on the Cold War followed by two more decades of building alliance capacity. The later years being dual tracked on asymmetrical warfare which applied terrorism as a mode of force.
Until the U.S. gets itself back to functioning as a democratic republic with continuity of national strategy, a cycle of “all or nothing” will repeat itself every political cycle. That is one of the most lethal existential threats that faces the U.S. Navy today.
I agree with your points and I think Mr. Work has the factors backwards in the “requirements drive program” relationship. The Nation’s requirements of it’s Navy should not be determined by the size of the Navy, but the Navy should be built and maintained to fulfill the Nation’s requirements as expressed by the size/cost of the Navy the Nation is willing to support.
In the spirit of ADM Burke’s simple strategy during WWII, the Navy should be built and maintained to go where we (the US) want, to do what we want, for as long as we want.
Unfortunately, the United States doesn’t have an enduring continuity of national strategy required for building and sustaining an effective Navy. Political stability necessary over decades to design and maintain a Navy has been compromised. One domestic political party advocates for the abandonment of NATO and other major alliances. There is plenty of hard evidence that Russia would receive unfettered U.S. support by enacting a “stand by” approach to see if the Ukraine survives the atrocities inflicted upon their sovereign by Vladimir Putin.
Never before has the unreliability of U.S. domestic politics had such a profound impact on our ability to invest in a national security “consensus”. The situation disarms any healthy debate on the finer points of structuring an effective defense.
My first decade of Naval service was laser focused on the Cold War followed by two more decades of building alliance capacity. The later years being dual tracked on asymmetrical warfare which applied terrorism as a mode of force.
Until the U.S. gets itself back to functioning as a democratic republic with continuity of national strategy, a cycle of “all or nothing” will repeat itself every political cycle. That is one of the most lethal existential threats that faces the U.S. Navy today.
I have a hard time arguing against anything you wrote here.
I agree with your points and I think Mr. Work has the factors backwards in the “requirements drive program” relationship. The Nation’s requirements of it’s Navy should not be determined by the size of the Navy, but the Navy should be built and maintained to fulfill the Nation’s requirements as expressed by the size/cost of the Navy the Nation is willing to support.
In the spirit of ADM Burke’s simple strategy during WWII, the Navy should be built and maintained to go where we (the US) want, to do what we want, for as long as we want.