CNO: US Navy is having a 1930s moment
Franchetti highlights “warfighting” and “warfighters” as key priorities.
PATRICK TUCKER | JANUARY 9, 2024
NAVY
The U.S. Navy’s surface fleet finds itself in a position not unlike the 1930s, when it needed new focus and energy to prepare for a potential war, the chief of naval operations said Tuesday.
“In the 1930s, constrained defense budgets following the Great Depression resulted in reduced construction, a shrinking shipbuilding industry, and a widening gap between the capability and capacity of our Navy and that of Imperial Japan. America in the 30s possessed a fleet that was too small and insufficiently resourced for war,” Adm. Lisa Franchetti said at the Surface Navy Association’s annual conference in Virginia.
Franchetti, who stepped into the Navy’s top job in November, recalled how her long-ago predecessors needed to boost production of new ships and develop new tactics to face a new adversary, the Japanese. Key to meeting that challenge: figuring out how to integrate air operations into fleet maneuvers. A handful of minds at the Naval War College helped turn the American naval fleet into a living laboratory for new concepts.
https://www.defenseone.com/policy/2024/01/cno-us-navy-having-1930s-moment/393229/?oref=d1-skybox-hp
