Admiral sees difficulty meeting goals for fleet expansion

The Navy's top resources official Wednesday said the nation and the service were facing "the most challenging fiscal environment" in decades and it cannot afford to buy the ships and aircraft it wants.

Vice Adm. Barry McCullough, the deputy chief of naval operations for integrating capabilities and resources, gave that grim assessment to a Navy and industry audience while acknowledging he did not know what level of procurement funding the service would receive in the fiscal 2010 defense budget.

McCullough reiterated that Navy leadership regards a 313-ship fleet and a certain number of aircraft as minimum requirements to meet the increasing demand for naval forces. But, he continued, "when you look at the budget, you can't buy them all. There's not enough in the top line to buy them all."

The difference between operational requirements and what the Navy can afford "is where you take the risk," he said. The admiral said the military has been depending on emergency supplemental funding to cover the added costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The challenge for fiscal 2010, he said, is not knowing how much will be in the base defense budget and whether there will be another supplemental.