Obama’s Unready Navy

[Geee]

National Review:

Barack Obama has never understood why we must maintain a strong Navy or why the decline in the number of ships is such a big deal. He cited the advanced technology of our equipment in his condescending and arrogant quip after Romney raised the issue. Obama’s sneering response — “We have these things called aircraft carriers where planes land on them. We have these ships that go underwater, nuclear submarines” — completely missed the point.

In citing high technology, Obama gave us a display of brazen hypocrisy at its finest. On his watch, the Department of Defense has been cutting procurement programs such as the F-22 and the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle. In both cases, our military personnel must now make do with aging alternatives (the F-15C and AAV-7 family of vehicles). The F-15 entered service in 1976, the AAV-7 in 1972. By the 2016 election, both of these systems will be 40 years old, and expected to still be in service for as much as a decade. So much for relying on new technology — Obama has halted production of the high-tech replacements.

The Obama administration’s neglect of the Navy can be typified by the early retirement of the USS Enterprise (CVN 65) and its plans to decommission other naval assets. In August of this year, I outlined on NRO why the Enterprise should remain in service, but the Big E is only the most prominent asset slated for premature retirement. The administration also plans to decommission and scrap six Ticonderoga-class cruisers, although the vessels have as many as 15 years of service life left (even without further overhauls). Maintaining freedom of the seas requires hulls in the water — and the Navy hasn’t even started building the replacements for these cruisers. At present, all we have is a design study called CGX, which may or may not enter production.

[Valin]

NRO:

Multi-decade neglect has sent our Navy into decline — and Obama has accelerated the trend.

Harold Hutchison

10/24/12

 

Barack Obama has never understood why we must maintain a strong Navy or why the decline in the number of ships is such a big deal. He cited the advanced technology of our equipment in his condescending and arrogant quip after Romney raised the issue. Obama’s sneering response — “We have these things called aircraft carriers where planes land on them. We have these ships that go underwater, nuclear submarines” — completely missed the point.

 

(Snip)

 

The Obama administration’s neglect of the Navy can be typified by the early retirement of the USS Enterprise (CVN 65) and its plans to decommission other naval assets. In August of this year, I outlined on NRO why the Enterprise should remain in service, but the Big E is only the most prominent asset slated for premature retirement. The administration also plans to decommission and scrap six Ticonderoga-class cruisers, although the vessels have as many as 15 years of service life left (even without further overhauls). Maintaining freedom of the seas requires hulls in the water — and the Navy hasn’t even started building the replacements for these cruisers. At present, all we have is a design study called CGX, which may or may not enter production.

 

 

(Snip)

 

Ultimately, the neglect of the United States Navy has been a multi-decade scandal. Romney is to be commended for proposing to rectify this disgraceful situation, although the 313-ship-force level is still only a little more than half the total of the 600-ship Navy that was able to send six carriers to the Persian Gulf for Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm. In this case, Romney’s proposed build-up is a “starter home” for rebuilding the Navy — but much more will need to be done.

 

 

"To be prepared for war is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace."

G. Washington

[Valin]

Obama Can’t Escape Share of Responsibility for Sequestration

Max Boot

10/24/12

 

One of the most puzzling answers that President Obama gave in the third presidential debate concerned the subject of sequestration—the process that will result in across-the-board cuts to spending of $1.2 trillion starting in January, with half that amount being cut from the defense budget. When the subject came up, Obama said, “First of all, the sequester is not something that I’ve proposed. It is something that Congress has proposed. It will not happen.”

 

As it happens, neither part of that short statement is strictly factual. Regarding the president’s claim that he did not propose sequestration—on this score he is flatly contradicted by Bob Woodward who wrote in his recent book, The Price of Politics, that sequestration originated in the White House and was sold to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid by budget director Jack Lew and legislative director Rob Nabors. Woodward now says: “What the president said is not correct. He’s mistaken. And it’s refuted by the people who work for him.”

 

As for the second part of Obama’s statement—that sequestration will not happen—this claim was greeted with befuddlement on Capitol Hill since lawmakers are nowhere close to a deal to stop sequestration and time is running out. The White House, it should be noted, has been entirely AWOL in this effort. What does Obama know that everyone else in Washington doesn’t? Nothing, it turns out. For immediately after the debate White House aides rushed to walk back the president’s remarks, saying, as David Plouffe did, that “everyone in Washington agrees that sequester ‘should not happen.’” From “will not” to “should not” is a big change—and one that confirms that there is a very real danger that sequestration will happen.

 

(Snip)

[Valin]

Barack and Mitt: The War for the U.S. Navy Has Just Begun

Austin Bay

October 23, 2012

 

Monday night's final 2012 presidential election debate included a brief but fierce naval battle. The candidates exchanged close-combat broadsides over the size of the U.S. Navy, then fired provocative salvos in the direction of two complex subjects, the capabilities of modern weapons and the deleterious effects of funding cuts required by sequestration on the defense budget, especially planned ship-building programs.

 

Gov. Mitt Romney opened the engagement. "Our Navy is smaller now than at any time since 1917. The Navy said they needed 313 ships to carry out their mission. We're now under 285. We're headed down to the low 200s if we go through a sequestration." President Barack Obama dismissed Romney's 2012-1917 comparison with a hot-shot jibe that America now deploys fewer "horses and bayonets," arguing that "counting ships" wasn't the issue, but "what are our capabilities."

 

Capabilities matter. One modern U.S. destroyer, armed with "smart" missiles and sensors, arguably outclasses the anti-surface striking power of a World War II U.S. carrier and its escorts -- until the Lone Ranger super-ship all-too-quickly expends its pricey missiles. The destroyer's empty magazine moment is the trenchant instant we realize that former Bush and Obama Secretary of Defense Robert Gates had a point when he said (paraphrasing Josef Stalin), "Mass of numbers has a quality all of its own."

 

(Snip)

[RidesAPaleHorse]

The bayonet makes a comeback in the new Navy and Umbama is forced to eat his words.

 

Texas class Attack Narwhals

[Draggingtree]

Obama's 'Battleship' Argument Has Holes in Its Hull

 

By Jonah Goldberg · October 26, 2012

In the third and final debate, Barack Obama scored huge points with the media, college kids and die-hard liberals -- in other words, his base -- when he mocked Mitt Romney's concern about our historically small Navy.

"But I think Governor Romney maybe hasn't spent enough time looking at how our military works," the president said. "You -- you mentioned the Navy, for example, and that we have fewer ships than we did in 1916. Well, Governor, we also have fewer horses and bayonets because the nature of our military's changed. We have these things called aircraft carriers where planes land on them. We have these ships that go underwater, nuclear submarines."

"And so," he added, "the question is not a game of Battleship where we're counting ships," The question is "what are our capabilities."

This struck me as an example of how thoroughly liberalism has confused sneering for intellectual confidence. It shouldn't be surprising, given that comedy shows often substitute for news programs

http://patriotpost.us/opinion/15197

[Argyle58]

In honest, frank conversations Navy personnel will assure you that the U.S. Navy is under manned and under gunned. As the preeminent method of projecting force throughout the world there is no greater way to maintain peace through strength than a large naval force.

 

The United States became a global force to be reckoned with as a result of Teddy Roosevelt's Great White Fleet, our ability to command the seas won the Pacific Theater during WWII, our naval superiority was greatly responsible for ending the Cold War and in both Gulf Wars naval aviators and gunnery platforms were greatly involved in our dominance of the battlefields.

 

Since the Clinton Administration the Navy has been in declined and our ability to project overwhelming force as a deterrent to open armed conflict has been greatly diminished. IMO, Mitt Romney's commitment to rebuilding that force is one more MAJOR reason for the need to establish him as Commander-in-Chief.

[Pepper]

Obama has a lot of Navy experience, whenever he's eating Cap'n Crunch @Argyle58 @RidesAPaleHorse

 

[Geee]

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[Rheo]

Hey, is that our old Harold Hutchison? Way to go Harold.

[Geee]

I was so pleased to see his name on that article