A Bow Wave that is a Tsunami
Some of our members question why we have taken a position on increasing force structure during a time when we could actually be cutting the budget. When we look at defense dollars, we should not be looking just at our present, but also at our future circumstances. The budget reductions that compelled the drop in military procurement have mortgaged the future. We have further consumed readiness by the cannibalization of scarce parts and by cross-decking critically needed personnel and equipment.
In the Department of Defense, procurement has dropped from $100 billion in FY1990 to $48.7 billion in FY2000. The FY2001 Budget was the first time in six years that $60 billion in procurement was appropriated in the Defense Budget. Many think tanks felt we should have been spending $60 billion Dollars a year over the past five years just to breakeven. Now, some analysts say that the United States needs to be spending $100 billion Dollars per year to slowly recover.
This has presented Force Planners with a tremendous challenge. They know that weapons systems need spare parts and eventual replacement. But they also know that DOD budget requests would not support force planning needs. To satisfy the requirements, new weapons systems were included in the budget but not in the near term. Instead much of this procurement was placed in what is called "the out years."
In the Navy, this accumulation of needed ships; planes, weapons and spare parts have piled up into what is now being called in the Pentagon as the bow wave. Each budget has pushed out additional unfunded requirements into the distant future, and this has become a storm surge with postponed demands flooding on top of other projected requirements.
In order to maintain a 300-ship navy, we need to be building ships at a rate of 9 per year; the current rate that is in the DOD budget is seven ships between 2001 and 2013. Over 30 years, the plan does call for an average build rate of 8.8 ships, but this average is only achieved with increases in ship procurements 13 years from today and beyond.
We are procuring fewer ships now than at any time since 1932. The Navy enters 2001 with a deficit ship procurement rate of 24 ships in sustaining the 300-ship fleet. By 2005, our shipbuilding budgets will have fallen 43 ships behind the level necessary to maintain 300 ships in the Fleet. And the Navy budget documents for the next fiscal year reflect an increase to a 360-ship fleet. Fleet operations and exercise show that today's aircraft carriers/carrier air wing force is 20% too small for the demands thrust upon it. We now have 12 carriers supported by 10 active airwings and one reserve airwing.
This is using figures from a DOD 30- year shipbuilding report, where the average expected service life of naval ships is 35 years of age. To reach this average submarines have a 33-year life, carriers 50 years, small combatants 35 years, amphibious ships 40 years, and logistic ships 35 years. The ships in the fleet today were not designed nor built for a service life of this length. Although not impossible to maintain, the costs of operating and maintenance for such ships go up with age. And the average age of navy aircraft is older than the age of our ships.
Because of the massive reductions in recent years of U.S. air and ground forces based overseas the Navy's forward-deployed fleets have had to assume a greater share of the collective defense burden—which has been made even heavier by "the added responsibilities of peacemaking and peacekeeping" that have been assigned. Despite a 40% decline in military infrastructure, the number of operations has increased. This is why the head of every Armed Service has raised concerns over the impact of OPTEMPO and PERSTEMPO.
A Gallup Poll conducted in May showed that 70% of Americans think it is important for the United States to be Number One in the world militarily. But there is a lack of public/media awareness. A combination of "Cold War burnout" and an expanding economy has left the press and the public with a false sense of security despite America's increased operations tempo. But a Gallup Poll, conducted during the week of August 24th, showed only four out of ten Americans believe the U.S. Military is declining.
Following the tragedy of the Kursk, some analysts reflect that the loss of the submarine confirms that the Russian Military is a hollow threat. A combination of a high percentage of new crewman on board and fettered training are thought to have played a factor in the accident. Some pundits are suggesting that the Kursk incident highlights why the United States does not need a large military; that a real threat does not exist. The fallacy of this argument is the presumption that the Russians are our only adversary in the world; and that our military readiness will not be drowned by the bow wave of need for procurement.