A number of Republican leaders and naval experts have recently been
suggesting that the Obama administration is leading the nation toward a
battle fleet of just 250 ships. Immediately following the last
presidential debate, Rep. Randy Forbes (R –VA) and Gov. Bob McDonnell
(R-VA) held a press briefing in Virginia and stated that the Obama Navy
is on a path to reduce the number of ships in the battle fleet from the
current 284 to below 250. This was reported by The Hill and the Daily Press of Hampton Roads, VA.
We were unfamiliar with the 250 number associated with any current Navy planning, so we wondered where did this 250 number come from?
First, we can report that it is not an official number. The Navy’s official fleet plan is found on pg. 4 Table ES-2 “FY2013-2042 Naval Battle Force Inventory” of Naval Operations’ “Annual Report to Congress on Long-Range Plan for Construction of Naval Vessels for FY2013.” The table shows a low of 276 ships in FY15 and a ten year high of 300 ships in FY19.
So, if the notion of a 250 ship Navy is not official, where did it come from?
Its origin appears to be verbal testimony provided by Eric Labs, CBO Senior Analyst for Naval Forces and Weapons, before the House Armed Services Committee Subcommittee on Seapower and Projection Forces on 9 March 2011. Mr. Forbes serves on the Subcommittee.
During this hearing Rep. Mike McIntyre (D-NC) asked Mr. Labs, “…if the Navy remains at its currently planned levels of funding, how many ships do you believe the Navy will be short of its 313-ship planned procurement?” Mr. Labs response was, “…if the Navy is stuck with the historical average of $15 billion, in other words they must cut substantial numbers of ships out of their program, would depend very much on the composition of those cuts. If they choose to cut very expensive ships, you could end up having a force not of 313 or 322, but maybe somewhere around the force we have today of 280. If you cut more of a mix of less expensive ships, it could range anywhere from 200 to 250 ships in the fleet. It would depend very much on what whoever would be the deciding authority, whether it would be the Congress or the Navy, what they decide to remove from the shipbuilding plan in order to bring that overall budgetary level over the next 30 years into sort of an historical average line.”
The idea of the Navy shrinking to 250 ships next surfaced in an op-ed by Robert Kaplan appearing in the Financial Times on 29 November 2011. In it, he wrote: “The US navy’s current strength is 284 warships. In the short term that number may rise to 313 because of the introduction of littoral combat ships. Over time, however, it may fall to about 250, owing to cost overruns, the need to address domestic debt and the decommissioning of aging warships in the 2020s.”
Patrick Cronin of the Center for a New American Security joined Robert Kaplan in a January 2012 report called “Cooperation from Strength: The United States, China and the South China Sea”
(Chapter 1, p.6) writing: “The United States should strengthen its
naval presence over the long term by building toward a 346-ship fleet
rather than retreating to the 250-ship mark that the United States faces
due to budget cuts and the decommissioning of aging warships in the
next decade.” They go on to say (p.8) that: “Whereas the Reagan-era U.S.
Navy boasted almost 600 warships, the number presently stands at 284.
Although the Navy’s goal is to expand to 313 warships, current defense
budgets, coupled with production delays and cost overruns, do not
support that goal. Furthermore, with budget cuts in the offing, as well
as the mass decommissioning of warships in the next decade because of
age, the United States faces the prospect of a Navy with 250 ships or
fewer.” Cronin and Kaplan don’t source their “250 ships or fewer”, but
it seems quite likely they picked this up from Labs’ testimony.
John Lehman, Gov. Romney’s naval adviser and champion of a 350 ship Navy, wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed in April 2012 that “…It is anything but certain that the administration’s budgets will sustain even that rate of only eight ships per year, but even if they do, the United States is headed for a Navy of 240-250 ships at best.”
Eric Labs makes some cogent points about the choices the Navy and Congress have for living within a constrained shipbuilding budget. These insights have been ignored by advocates for a 346-350 ship Navy in their eager use of his “250 ships” phrase.
If the Navy retires and does not replace some high-end ships during the next twenty years it can manage its shipbuilding money so as to buy more ships that cost less. Obvious candidates for cuts are aircraft carriers and strategic missile subs. Cutting a couple carriers and reducing the strategic missile submarine fleet to seven will save tens of billions which can help pay for less expensive destroyers and attack subs. In the middle range of cost the LCS is steadily edging its way toward being a failed system (especially in terms of cost-effectiveness) and is more than twice as expensive as the retiring frigates it replaces. There are modern frigate designs that can built for a fraction of the cost of an LCS. These are just a few of the economical choices that the Navy and Congress can and will need to make to sustain the battle fleet.
Eric Labs also said that the size of the future fleet depended on choices of the “deciding authority… the Congress or the Navy.” In this regard it is notable that the Congress has denied the Navy’s request this year to retire three (expensive to operate) cruisers that the Navy wanted to decommission in order to, in part, free up resources for new shipbuilding.
[The Project on Defense Alternatives is an independent defense analysis ‘think tank’. In this campaign season it seems important to state that we prize our nonpartisan stance. We are skeptical of statements made by ‘experts’ aligned with both Democratic and Republican parties. We are proud to contribute quality information providing citizens with the wherewithal to make independent judgments.]
We were unfamiliar with the 250 number associated with any current Navy planning, so we wondered where did this 250 number come from?
First, we can report that it is not an official number. The Navy’s official fleet plan is found on pg. 4 Table ES-2 “FY2013-2042 Naval Battle Force Inventory” of Naval Operations’ “Annual Report to Congress on Long-Range Plan for Construction of Naval Vessels for FY2013.” The table shows a low of 276 ships in FY15 and a ten year high of 300 ships in FY19.
So, if the notion of a 250 ship Navy is not official, where did it come from?
Its origin appears to be verbal testimony provided by Eric Labs, CBO Senior Analyst for Naval Forces and Weapons, before the House Armed Services Committee Subcommittee on Seapower and Projection Forces on 9 March 2011. Mr. Forbes serves on the Subcommittee.
During this hearing Rep. Mike McIntyre (D-NC) asked Mr. Labs, “…if the Navy remains at its currently planned levels of funding, how many ships do you believe the Navy will be short of its 313-ship planned procurement?” Mr. Labs response was, “…if the Navy is stuck with the historical average of $15 billion, in other words they must cut substantial numbers of ships out of their program, would depend very much on the composition of those cuts. If they choose to cut very expensive ships, you could end up having a force not of 313 or 322, but maybe somewhere around the force we have today of 280. If you cut more of a mix of less expensive ships, it could range anywhere from 200 to 250 ships in the fleet. It would depend very much on what whoever would be the deciding authority, whether it would be the Congress or the Navy, what they decide to remove from the shipbuilding plan in order to bring that overall budgetary level over the next 30 years into sort of an historical average line.”
The idea of the Navy shrinking to 250 ships next surfaced in an op-ed by Robert Kaplan appearing in the Financial Times on 29 November 2011. In it, he wrote: “The US navy’s current strength is 284 warships. In the short term that number may rise to 313 because of the introduction of littoral combat ships. Over time, however, it may fall to about 250, owing to cost overruns, the need to address domestic debt and the decommissioning of aging warships in the 2020s.”
John Lehman, Gov. Romney’s naval adviser and champion of a 350 ship Navy, wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed in April 2012 that “…It is anything but certain that the administration’s budgets will sustain even that rate of only eight ships per year, but even if they do, the United States is headed for a Navy of 240-250 ships at best.”
Eric Labs makes some cogent points about the choices the Navy and Congress have for living within a constrained shipbuilding budget. These insights have been ignored by advocates for a 346-350 ship Navy in their eager use of his “250 ships” phrase.
If the Navy retires and does not replace some high-end ships during the next twenty years it can manage its shipbuilding money so as to buy more ships that cost less. Obvious candidates for cuts are aircraft carriers and strategic missile subs. Cutting a couple carriers and reducing the strategic missile submarine fleet to seven will save tens of billions which can help pay for less expensive destroyers and attack subs. In the middle range of cost the LCS is steadily edging its way toward being a failed system (especially in terms of cost-effectiveness) and is more than twice as expensive as the retiring frigates it replaces. There are modern frigate designs that can built for a fraction of the cost of an LCS. These are just a few of the economical choices that the Navy and Congress can and will need to make to sustain the battle fleet.
Eric Labs also said that the size of the future fleet depended on choices of the “deciding authority… the Congress or the Navy.” In this regard it is notable that the Congress has denied the Navy’s request this year to retire three (expensive to operate) cruisers that the Navy wanted to decommission in order to, in part, free up resources for new shipbuilding.
[The Project on Defense Alternatives is an independent defense analysis ‘think tank’. In this campaign season it seems important to state that we prize our nonpartisan stance. We are skeptical of statements made by ‘experts’ aligned with both Democratic and Republican parties. We are proud to contribute quality information providing citizens with the wherewithal to make independent judgments.]
