Road to 350: What Does the US Navy Do Anyway?

[CallumJohn]

In order to take islands and drive an enemy force back to their homeland in continental Asia, you need to get troops, beans, bullets, and fuel to the front lines. In order to fight a protracted war at sea against a peer power, you need to be able to repair your ships and minimize time spent out of the fight. I find your line of reasoning hubristic considering the last time we did that was WW2. The logistics needs of war doesn't change that much and hasn't in the last few thousand years. As always, the enemy has a say in how easily we can do any of these things.


Sure, welfare is great and all but if you want to maintain your place as the global hegemon and enforce the status quo in your favor, then you need to have the military power to do so. Europe largely abdicated that role. We are now at the point where we will need to decide if we like being able to intervene in foreign politics on a whim or not. Just today I read an article where the government projects that Social Security will be completely insolvent by 2033. If we truly expect to be going to war with China in the next 5-10 years, we're going to have to decide whether we want to put our money into recapitalizing our Fleet and military industrial base or put it into maintaining and/or expanding our own social safety nets.

What's happening in Europe is a vicious cycle, import tons of immigrants, more unskilled labor, more billions of tax payer money going towards immigrant housing, immigrants are already poor so they can't pay for university or training to get into a higher income bracket so they contribute more towards society, or they just don't want to. Also causes a lot of teen angst, in combination of the troubles or having a poor immigrant family and the exportation of american "Gang" culture, they turn to crime, so the crime rate spikes, more money goes towards policing, they're really just throwing sponges in their own bath here. Regardless I adovcate for quadrupling the military budget of every country on earth except our enemies. Chuck aaaallllll that 4 trillion in mandatory to the military. 100 more supercarriers!

 

[Randy Daytona]

While most scenarios seem to involve a Chinese invasion, there is also the possibility of a blockade, to starve the island of fuel, food and trade. Of note, the majority of Taiwan’s major ports all face China.

Happened to see this today.

China to inspect ships in Taiwan Strait, Taiwan says won't cooperate

Fujian maritime safety administration launched a three-day special joint patrol and inspection operation in central and northern parts of the Taiwan Strait that includes moves to board ships.

www.reuters.com

 

[wink]

Happened to see this today.

China to inspect ships in Taiwan Strait, Taiwan says won't cooperate

Fujian maritime safety administration launched a three-day special joint patrol and inspection operation in central and northern parts of the Taiwan Strait that includes moves to board ships.

www.reuters.com

More incrementalism. Taiwan is a frog in a pot of increasing hot water. It isn't like they don't know what is happening, but too many Taiwanese and their erstwhile supporters keep adjusting to a new normal, accepting new precedent and allowing the CHYCAPs to chip away at their security little by little. It is easier to defend against rock throwers at a distance then getting sucker punched at less than arms length.

 

[Randy Daytona]

More incrementalism. Taiwan is a frog in a pot of increasing hot water. It isn't like they don't know what is happening, but too many Taiwanese and their erstwhile supporters keep adjusting to a new normal, accepting new precedent and allowing the CHYCAPs to chip away at their security little by little. It is easier to defend against rock throwers at a distance then getting sucker punched at less than arms length.

Good article in Foreign Policy today.

China Is Studying Russia’s Economic Playbook for Conflict

Moscow’s efforts to deflect Western intervention may be applied to Taiwan.

foreignpolicy.com

Also noted that President Lula of Brazil is visiting Beijing. President Xi had “Novo Tempo” - a song of Brazilian resistance - played for President Lula upon his arrival at the welcoming reception.

 

[Flash]

Also noted that President Lula of Brazil is visiting Beijing. President Xi had “Novo Tempo” - a song of Brazilian resistance - played for President Lula upon his arrival at the welcoming reception.

Brazilian leaders of all stripes like to play the field and others are more than happy to accommodate them, like when former President Bolsonaro visited Putin just 8 days before the invasion of Ukraine then declined to condemn the Putin after the invasion.

 

[Randy Daytona]

Brazilian leaders of all stripes like to play the field and others are more than happy to accommodate them, like when former President Bolsonaro visited Putin just 8 days before the invasion of Ukraine then declined to condemn the Putin after the invasion.

View attachment 37983

That is certainly true, but going forward it could also be interpreted as China shoring up important supply chains

 

[Griz882]

What does the road to 350 look like? Well, one step forward and two steps back it seems! Is this just a tragic statement of the LCS class?

 

[Gatordev]

LCS fun fact... Like many other commercial ships, the skin of the hull is so thin there's only a couple of push points where a tug can make contact. This becomes relevant when say, a LCS breaks free from a raft during a hurricane.

Well, you say, they can just man up their watch and get underway! But that would require them to have a working powerplant. Did I mention we were talking about LCS?

Not that this happened...in say, 2017.

 

[Random8145]

I’m amused when folks blame this sort of thing for our supposed ills when these sorts of disputes and issues have existed since our country’s founding. As a great man once said, “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others that have been tried”.


I am not sure that is really the West ‘losing its way’, it seems more following the will of the people and providing for the welfare of their citizens. Sure, I’d like to see more defense spending but promoting the general welfare of the people is kind of what governments are supposed to do. Defense is part of that but so is the other stuff.

I would say the primary purpose of the government is to protect rights. That is the main reason to create a government. Promote the general welfare is a rather arbitrary term that can mean different things depending on one's politics. For example, I would argue that in certain ways, the large social welfare states of the Europeans do not really promote the welfare of the people but rather undermine it, by creating a culture of laziness and entitlement, and in the case of the really left-leaning European nations, outright inhibiting the general welfare by not providing an environment very conducive to free enterprise and commerce.

 

[sevenhelmet]

The preamble of the U.S. Constitution spells out the purpose of our government quite clearly. Unfortunately, 235 years after the Constitution became our national government's official framework, that government has suffered from quite a bit of what we might call "mission creep".

 

[Random8145]

It isn't just the Chinese cranking out ships, the South Koreans and Japanese are as well. As has already been pointed out we have stuff like workplace safety and labor requirements that some of those other countries don't have. I've dealt with some US ships that get serviced overseas because if they come back to the states it'll wreck the budget for them, and the work won't be as good either. We certainly do suffer from a lack of having some sort of coherent national shipbuilding strategy but it would almost certainly take more government direction and/or control (socialism!), funding and consistent attention.

Me personally, I would be fine with this. Our original shipbuilding industry, at least for WWII, developed with a large governmental component. We ought to as a nation invest in rebuilding our shipbuilding industry.

 

[Random8145]

There were ways to prevent those industries from going overseas and keeping them healthy here in America but as @number9 so aptly pointed out, our political leadership in Washington over the last 50 years cared more about shareholder profits, endless GDP growth, "free" markets, and globalizing the labor pool (To suppress wages/labor costs) than they did about protecting the strategic infrastructure and industries that preserve our edge in global competition. As I pointed out before, not only has our industry and maritime capacity been hollowed out, but we also closed critical public shipyards and other bases in order to cut defense spending. We also spent 40 of the last 50 years helping to bring China into the 21st Century to the point where they now are the industrial engine of the world and can outbuild and out-develop us.

This is a perfect storm that has taken 30 years to arrive. We could have stopped it but we chose not to. Now we will reap the consequences.

Another problem I've read was in the 1980s, under Reagan, in IMO what was a mistake of his, they ended the subsidies for our shipbuilding industry. This would have been okay if none of the other countries were subsidizing their own industries, but most other countries with shipbuilding industries do subsidize them, so without the subsidies, our shipbuilding industry fell apart.

We also spent 40 of the last 50 years helping to bring China into the 21st Century to the point where they now are the industrial engine of the world and can outbuild and out-develop us.

We did the same thing with the Soviet Union in the 1930s as well.

 

[Randy Daytona]

From the Commandant.

'I Let Down the Combatant Commander': Marine Leader Regrets His Forces Weren't Available for Recent Crises

The remarks come amid a growing debate in the halls of Congress over how the Navy is meeting the legal requirement to operate 31 amphibious ships for the Marines.

www.military.com

The Marine Corps' top general expressed serious regrets over the fact that Marines were not available to help in two major crises in recent months because of a lack of available Navy ships to position units in nearby waters.

 

[croakerfish]

From the Commandant.

'I Let Down the Combatant Commander': Marine Leader Regrets His Forces Weren't Available for Recent Crises

The remarks come amid a growing debate in the halls of Congress over how the Navy is meeting the legal requirement to operate 31 amphibious ships for the Marines.

www.military.com

The Marine Corps' top general expressed serious regrets over the fact that Marines were not available to help in two major crises in recent months because of a lack of available Navy ships to position units in nearby waters.

Look at that, HMLA doing VERTREP!

 

[Swanee]

From the Commandant.

'I Let Down the Combatant Commander': Marine Leader Regrets His Forces Weren't Available for Recent Crises

The remarks come amid a growing debate in the halls of Congress over how the Navy is meeting the legal requirement to operate 31 amphibious ships for the Marines.

www.military.com

The Marine Corps' top general expressed serious regrets over the fact that Marines were not available to help in two major crises in recent months because of a lack of available Navy ships to position units in nearby waters.

I'm surprised this isn't getting more attention.