Congress and the Navy: Forty Years of Dysfunction
Bryan McGrath
January 9, 2017
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Paul E. Pedisich, Congress Buys a Navy: Politics, Economics, and the Rise of American Naval Power, 1881-1921 (Naval Institute Press, 2016)
How large should the fleet be? What capabilities should the prevailing fleet architecture reflect? What is the Navy’s role in national defense? To what extent should parochial, political concerns stand in the way of national objectives?
These questions dominate the atmosphere surrounding President-elect Donald Trump’s stated desire to grow the Navy from its current size of 273 ships to an eventual strength of 350. Yet they are not new questions, as Paul E. Pedisich’s wonderfully written new book, Congress Buys a Navy, ably demonstrates. In a meticulously researched and readable work, Pedisich recounts how 20 meddlesome Congresses over 40 years managed the growth of a Navy that eventually came to reflect the rising status of a world power. This growth came despite a lack of consistent effort by the executive branch to link fleet size and capability to coherent strategy and Congress’ purposeful hobbling of organizational change designed to make the Navy more efficient. As with all good works of history, there are lessons here for the future, especially for those who will try to implement Trump’s plan for a larger Navy.
https://warontherocks.com/2017/01/congress-and-the-navy-forty-years-of-dysfunction/
