TRANSCOM’s Unreadiness
By Seth Cropsey
March 27, 2023
U.S. Sealift is Insufficient for a Major Power War
The United States is a maritime power in disarray, as the U.S. Navy’s current woes indicate: the Navy cannot build enough ships, with designs from the 1980s, to maintain the fleet’s current size, nor can it keep ships in the active battle force to preserve a fleet large enough to even maintain an acceptable balance of forces against China.
Yet the issue of sealift may be more critical, and more eroded, than that of active combat capacity. American political figures should take note, and resource the U.S.’ maritime transport capabilities as thoroughly as what is required to sharpen the U.S.’ naval combat fleet’s power.
America is a bizarre maritime power. From the view of national interest, the U.S. is indisputably a maritime nation. It exists at significant remove from Eurasia, but fundamentally depends upon the free flow of goods along Eurasia’s littorals, and between Eurasia and the Americas, for its political-economic model to be sustained. In this sense, the U.S. is a maritime power in the same mold as the UK or Imperial Japan, with a distinct interest in the freedom of the seas, stable international chokepoints, and most fundamentally, an existential interest in the denial of any power or coalition hegemony upon the Eurasian landmass.
https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2023/03/27/transcoms_unreadiness_889580.html
