The U.S. Navy: To Grow Bigger, Build Smaller
By Andrew Davies
November 28, 2016
There’s been talk lately about so-called plans for the US Navy battle force inventory to return to 350 vessels. President-elect Trump has pledged to begin the biggest naval build-up since the 1980s. The USN inventory was 271 battle-force vessels in 2015, well below its current target of 308 (which is currently under review).
A target of 350 is ambitious, and would require reversing a steady trend established over the past quarter century. The fleet declined markedly after the end of the Cold War, and now has 299 fewer vessels than in 1990. Most of that reduction happened in the 1990s as part of the ‘peace dividend’, but financial pressures have continued to whittle away at fleet strength, which has lost 66 vessels since 2000. (The source data is here.) Adding another 80 vessels won’t be easy. The ‘Reagan build-up’, which was intended to produce a 600 ship navy (but didn’t), added just 40 over the 1980s—just in time for the big post-Cold War cuts.
http://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2016/11/28/the_us_navy_to_grow_bigger_build_smaller_110388.html
