Legitimate Questions About the U.S. Navy’s Struggle to Change
PUBLISHED SEPTEMBER 27, 2023
@ 12:54 PM
By Steven Wills
A New York Times article earlier this month on the U.S. Navy’s struggle for change was poorly received by the wider naval community and attacked as uninformed on many issues, but most especially on the acquisition of cheaper, more numerous unmanned systems as advocated in the article.
The article suggests that the Navy, aided and abetted by legislators from shipbuilding states, is producing an expensive, “20th century” Navy ill-suited to modern warfare. Specifically, the article criticizes the Navy for building large, multi-mission warships that the Ukraine War has proven are vulnerable to missile and drone attacks.
The piece also suggests that while the Navy has experimented with many small, and far less costly, uncrewed ships such as those in the 5th Fleet’s Persian Gulf Task Force 59, the service continues to spend most of its funds on larger, traditional and more vulnerable warships. The article further says that the acquisition system for warships is too slow and dated to provide ships rapidly to the fleet, and that wargames held by several institutions suggest that conventional naval forces would suffer heavy losses in a war with China.
The article poses legitimate questions that deserve cogent answers beyond the naval “chattering class’” disapproval.
https://defenseopinion.com/legitimate-questions-about-the-u-s-navys-struggle-to-change/447/
