Navy shipbuilding plans run into fiscal reality
The service can't build the 313-vessel fleet it wants unless it substantially increases its procurement budget, or dramatically cuts the cost of building new ships.
"The most serious threat to the U.S. Navy is now the U.S. Navy." That was the damning conclusion of an August 2008 study by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank. In Abandon Ships: The Costly Illusion of Unaffordable Transformation, Hans Ulrich Kaeser wrote, "The Navy's shipbuilding efforts are -- to be charitable -- a triumph of hope over experience." Fundamentally, the service has failed to link its military strategy to realistic procurement plans and budgets, Kaeser wrote: "A strategy that cannot be implemented or resourced is not a strategy, but rather a critical failure in leadership and management. It is nothing more than a statement of hopes and good intentions without credibility."
The subject of Kaeser's study was the Navy's plan to achieve and maintain a 313-ship fleet - the force service leaders say they need to carry out missions worldwide. Kaeser is not some lonely voice on the topic. The Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, Government Accountability Office and many other organizations have analyzed the Navy's plans to expand its rapidly aging fleet of 283 ships. While their prescriptions for reshaping the Navy differ, all have reached the same conclusion: The service cannot build and sustain the 313-ship fleet it wants unless it substantially increases its procurement budget, or dramatically cuts the cost of building ships still on the drawing board.
In the May issue of Government Executive, Katherine McIntire Peters explored the Navy's efforts to get costs under control in order to build the fleet its leaders want.