While I would like to see six new heavy icebreakers for $4.5 Billion, and I’m willing to see our tax dollars spent to build them, the truth is that I’d much rather see $4.5 Billion spent to create more and better seagoing jobs. We can get by without any icebreakers.
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The source of my frustration is the Fitzgerald and McCain collisions. We got A LOT of flak from the Navy for our articles and that got me thinking… what do they have to hide?
Yeah, that article. There’s a reason you got the flak you did.
So I started researchig the Navy fairly heavily and the more I read, the more I worried I have become. I can’t go into detail (that would require writing an entire book) but, in short we are screwed if China attacks. Utterly screwed. We are also in bad shape against Russia.
Break this down for me. “If China attacks.” Are you indicating a general war (nuclear or non nuclear), or a more limited action, like say the forceful retaking of Taiwan? Chinese power projection is nothing to lose sleep over outside of the second island chain. Anti-access/area denial is another matter though. Let’s be honest; we’re not going to attempt a forceful invasion of mainland China, and they cannot project power outside the region. They cannot protect their SLOCs, while we can protect ours. Russia may be better off than they were at the turn of the century, but they are still not a threat. Running convoys through the GIUK gap is not a concern.
There’s a lot that needs fixing in the Navy. Your hit piece did not engender merchant mariners to the Navy however. Before it came out, most naval officers had no opinion of merchant mariners whatsoever, Worse case, they got dismissed as truck drivers delivering cargo in straight lines from point A to point B. Now there are undertones of arrogance and ignorance of naval operations. You may have had honorable intentions, but you hurt your cause more than you know.
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What’s the opposite of Love?
It’s not hate, it’s apathy. Hate or annoyance or disrespect or hostility can be redirected towards positive goals just as you can get a girl who hates you to fall in love. But you can’t do anything with a person, organization or lover who totally lacks interested in you.
So did we hurt “our cause”? IDK but I’d rather have a Navy that hates the merchant marine than one who totally ignores us or thinks we are some kinda truck drivers.
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I don’t know what China’s intentions are and I jave no idea who they are going to attack or when. And neither does anyone in Washington.
What I do know is that they are building LOTS of new ships to add to their existing fleet. And their existing Naval Fleet is number 2 in the world versus ours which is currently #1. Their merhant fleet is also number two while ours is #20.
One problem I see is that the military plans too many specific war scenarios and is missing the forest from the trees. The forest here is the fact that their combined fleet is a lot bigger than ours and the ocean has not decreased in size.
Because it was truthful and is more accurate in retrospect than anything the Navy Admirals publsihed?
What exactly pissed you guys off about what I wrote? Please explain because I can be thick and don’t fully understand the motivations for hating us… and I do respect and want to undeerstand your perspective.
I agree fully plus Russia is mostly defensive in nature. This is why I suggested just a few billion for icebreakers and ships to supply northern ports if needed.
The whole thing with the Merchant Marine is that we don’t need much. Minimum manning, low costs ships, low operation costs, easy layup of vessels all equal not much $ required. But we do need more training than we have and we do need to update the ready reserve fleet with ships built overseas.
We can do a lot with a little but… MARAD doesn’t seem able to do that… which, unfortunatly leaves the Navy.
And, honestly, the navy doesn’t even need to use its own money… it just needs to stand up and support marad and the us merchant marine in washington.
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I posted a long reply to your post here, but it appears to have disappeared.
I wonder why??
The Chinese think in centuries, we’re lucky if we can pass an annual budget. Still, there is value in war gaming to see where potential hot spots will be. We have to assume that their long term goal is to reunite the country, by force if necessary. And that they will continue to press their claims in the SCS.
I don’t worry about the size of a country’s merchant fleet, because the era of power projection through merchant ships has waned in this era of globalization. US flagged ships carrying US exports to emerging markets is a romantic notion, but one of the past. Countries like us and the UK needed a strong fleet to wage campaigns around the world, but all of China’s interests are local. They aren’t going to form a colonial empire in Africa, no matter how many roads they pave there. And even if they did, they could not hold the Strait of Malacca in order to import resources or export finished goods.
The Navy would be a poor advocate for MARAD, if for no other reason that MARAD knowledge is severely lacking. I would hope that the SSO program would be breeding officers to do this. In my current billet I am working with a USCG Commander, and it has been an enlightening experience. So yes, I know all about the icebreaker woes and think that funding new ones would be worthwhile. I also like their culture of small ship COs, and how they grow their officers. And he’s been telling me about how after the DHS was formed they became the bastard stepchildren there.
Institutionally, the Navy does not like small ships, and it does not like non-combatants. When the different type commands were formed into the mammoth SURFOR in 1975 there was a precipitous drop off in interest in the service force ships, mine force ships, and to a lesser extent amphibious ships (although those are propped up by the marines). The same thing happened in the Air Force when they merged the fighter jocks and bomber guys in '92 - the fighter guys took over and didn’t care about boring bomber missions.
I’m not saying anything you’re advocating for is wrong, it’s just that you’d have to be really desperate to come to the Navy for help.
Because it was truthful and is more accurate in retrospect than anything the Navy Admirals publsihed?
What exactly pissed you guys off about what I wrote? Please explain because I can be thick and don’t fully understand the motivations for hating us… and I do respect and want to undeerstand your perspective.
I will work on giving you a proper answer to this, but I want to do it justice so it probably won’t be tonight.
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You think $1billion is an acceptable price for an icebreaker? We’re talking about breaking ice on Earth, not in space or on mars, correct?
The only one that did any hitting was the Navy hitting other ships…ZING. I’ve yet to meet a single merchant mariner that gives two hoots to the negative or positive opinion a naval officer expresses towards our industry. Nor have I met an airline pilots that cars what the military pilots think of civilian operations. The navy can’t even keep a ship running without maintenance civilian contractors on board…and as sadly proven, they obviously can’t even look at the window with 10+ people on watch…maybe they should bring civilians aboard to do that function too?
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The USA’s navy exists to be a self licking ice cream cone for their officers and the contractors that make billions supplying them. Aircraft carriers have out lived their strategic value just as the battleship did years ago. Now that land based missiles can reach a carrier and its group beyond the range of the planes the carriers carry they are nothing but trillion dollar sitting ducks.
MARAD serves no purpose and beyond submarines the US navy is of little value when it comes to an all out modern war. For assisting minor league allies that cannot defend themselves I suppose the navy with it’s carriers and other toys such as the LCS come in handy. But as far as protecting the continental USA they are not needed. There are good reasons other countries don’t waste their money on aircraft carriers and the many ships it takes to support them. It makes no financial sense. But financial sense does not figure into US military spending.
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The Navy uas a oot of smart guys, I’m certain they coupd get up to speed on the knoweldge of there was a will to do so.
The SSO has changed names but the basic concept has been around for decades. If proper “breeding” hasn’t worked so far, I don’t see why it would work today without a major change.
The change that’s needed is to retention and promotion. The problem with SSO is it does not retain many officers who reach the higher licsenses. And the Navy needs to promote a few senior SSO officers the flag ranks. Without these two measures the SSO program will continue to be a program that only suceeds in giving very basic naval operation training to junior officers.
Yes we are desperate. Read The Abandonded Ocean to see how bas it’s gotten: http://amzn.to/2EJpkYv
And there is another option. The Navy could lay off the merchant marine all together. The merchant marine was once very seperate from the navy but marad was moved by regan out of the department of commerce and into the DOT. And since the government has choosen to fill the senior position with Navy officers. The navy has also abandonded commercial ships in favor of controlling msc. The navy has been the primary government organization to block attempts to remove the US Shipbuilding requirements from the Jones Act. The Navy has dragged the uscg from it’s focus on domestic affairs to fighting overseas and training Navy boarding teams.
In short, the Navy keeps meddling at the upper levels without understanding or supporting the foundational elements.
If the Navy dropped MSC tomorrow and replaced it with contracts to US flagged shipping. If they insisted that no former navy guy could work at marad and instead pressed them for a strong commercial leader that could fund the new civilian version of msc. If the navy asked Marad to turn the RRF ships over to civilian companies. And if the navy banned former flag officers from leading (and doing so very poorly) commercial shipping companies like Tote. If they totally washed their hands of us but paid market rates for our services then… “maybe”… things would be better today.
But, as it stands, the navy (the army too) is the primary beneficiary of the US Merchant Marine and, as such, should either advocate for our needs or get out of our way and stop filling our service with former navy officers who agree to let the navy paying 25 cents on the dollar for the services we currently provide.
For one built in an American Shipyard. Yes that’s an acceptable price.
Is it acceptable that US shipyards charge that much? No, it certainly isn’t.
But but but…heroes and entitlement…
https://taskandpurpose.com/military-families-need-to-get-over-their-sense-of-entitlement/
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Part of the problem is that the trure heroes aren’t entitled to anything more than those in the rear with the gear.
I was just at Arlington for the funeral of a wwii serviceman who flew straight into the path of danger but, in his own words, did nothing beyond follow orders and act for self survival.
I also visited his son who died twenty years ago from agent orange exposure in Vietnam and had several bronze stars for acts of bravery without regard for personal safety. He was exposed to agent orange because he volunteered to fly helicopters into hot combat zones as a medic rather than stay in the relative safety of his assignment in ahospital.
The father recieved a full jet fly over and died debt free with 100% of his medical bills paid. The son passed with only a small honor guard and over $200k in medical bills outstanding.
The father in law of the vietnam vet took a civilian navy job to duck out of wwii retired a GS15 and passed with a very large bank account after many decades traveling the world on his pension.
A few Merchant Mariners who signed up for multiple Murmansk Runs and volunteered to launch resuce boats while bombs were falling have recieved even less than these three men despite acts of bravery far in excess of all three.
I agree that signing up for the military and doing your job doesn’t make you a hero but it does gives you the opportunity to step up to the plate and become one.
Maybe we need to differentiate between the two and provide more benefits to those who are highly decorated for selfless acts in combat regardless of the uniform worn (or lack of uniform in the case of the true hereos of theMerchant Marine)?
Another part of the problem is the true heroes have seen a lot of carnage and feel gratefull for having survived. They feel entitled to little more than the life (often disabled) they have as a survivor. They don’t expect or ask for much more than what’s given to them.
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Aircraft Carriers absolutely have a preeminent role to play in maintaining naval superiority. That’s the reason countries that have the money (like China) are expanding their naval aviation assets while others (like the UK) are rebuilding their fleets (at great expense). And suffice it to say that building a missile with the ability to reach a carrier at sea is a very different thing than actually being able to hit it.
And as an aside, it’s not that the battleship became useless either, simply that with peacetime budgets, they became too expensive to man and operate.
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Everyday in this world, there are acts of heroism–and it’s likely that most of these heroes are not in the military.
Vets of Vietnam/Korea/WWII and before have one major difference than those of today: the draft. I am by no means discounting the modern military, but every single person willingly joined. And the pay and benefits in the modern military are not too shabby. (example: 26 yr old E6 makes more than average American, has a potential pension/healthcare for life).
We all make life and career choices…we must not forget those that did not have a choice.
And since the government has choosen to fill the senior position with Navy officers. The navy has also abandonded commercial ships in favor of controlling msc.
Is this an attack on RADM Buzby? I know he was once commander, MSC, but his reputation was always as a straight shooter. It seems like he’d be a good fit for MARAD. Frankly, I’d rather see retired officers go there than advocate for overpriced, unnecessary weapons for the fleet in the hopes of being rewarded by a board position with the defense firms they prop up. I assume of course that MARAD doesn’t have as deep pockets that Lockheed Martin, et al. have.
The navy has been the primary government organization to block attempts to remove the US Shipbuilding requirements from the Jones Act.
I can see the mariner perspective there being that foreign-built ships mean the potential for more jobs for sailors, but the Jones Act is a protectionist piece of legislation. Why protect the sailors but not the underlying industry? How does that further the stated national defense goals of the Act if we can’t build our own ships?
The Navy has dragged the uscg from it’s focus on domestic affairs to fighting overseas and training Navy boarding teams.
The Navy probably doesn’t do the USCG a lot of favors, but they’ve got their own internal problems too. I have seen CG cutters in both Bahrain and Japan - for my money they should never leave our EEZ. And the USN should stop wasting its time doing counter-drug ops.
If the Navy dropped MSC tomorrow and replaced it with contracts to US flagged shipping things would be better today.
Ok, how? The MSC is not a business, they don’t have to show a profit. They won’t be tempted to pay off ships in order to improve their margins, compromising the ability to support the fleet in sustained combat operations.
I’m not smart on a lot of what MARAD does or doesn’t do, or even what they should or shouldn’t be doing, but I don’t think the Navy can be the scapegoat for all of it.