Re: A point missing
Posted by Jim Moses on March 16, 2024, 10:34:00, in reply to "
A point missing "
I disagree that “40 years of Navy mismanagement … discarded a sea control strategy.” What happened to us was the “peace dividend.” At the end of the Cold War, those who were ignorant of 50 years of history (and the operational philosophy that underpinned the Maritime Strategy) concluded that we had a "blue water" Navy solely optimized for some sort of cataclysmic engagement with the Soviets somewhere in the mid-Atlantic. Without that "blue water" threat, what had to follow was a new "reality:" we would operate “from the sea” in support of operations ashore. “Littoral” quickly became a budget analyst’s weapon and marketing catchphrase. Pity the program that could not reinvent itself by inserting the word somewhere into its requirement. Notice how quickly AEGIS became theater missile defense. Previous Message Yes very well said but you missed the 40 years of Navy mismanagement that discarded a sea control strategy . Maybe a good face can be put on the lack of numbers and call it distributed lethality or something like that . Previous Message Previous Message Well said (as usual!), Ralph. I would add that a naval strategy that is an element of a well-publicized overall national military strategy is essential before we talk about force levels and funding. A primary reason for the success of the Maritime Strategy of the 1980’s and the force structure it rationalized, besides the tenure of Navy Secretary Lehman, was that it was understood by those who would execute it (the Navy), by those who were paying for it (the American public), and by those who were the objects of it (the Soviet Union). Creating this environment today will be an all-hands effort, but as the Maritime Strategy showed, it can be done.
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