[Steven P Allen]

http://www.usni.org/...e+NI+Newsletter

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Why do we have a Navy?

You have to hunt for it on www.navy.mil, but the official Web site states: "The mission of the Navy is to maintain, train and equip combat-ready naval forces capable of winning wars, deterring aggression and maintaining freedom of the seas."1 In the current political environment, however, a more pointed question is: "Why do we have such a big Navy when we hardly ever use it?"

If that question has not been asked since the 2008 election, stand by. It is certainly going to be posed before next year's midterms. But it is more likely to be phrased as: "What do we get for the hundreds of billions of dollars we pay for having a Navy and Marine Corps?"

Interesting article in this month's Proceedings by Barret Tillman. Focused primarily on the USN/USMC, it also refers to the RN.

Those of you who know me will not be surprised to know that I advocate a continuing strong naval capability. Tillman notes that the question is an inevitable politial topic in the very near future.

What do our esteemed (and even unesteemed) members think?

[Exel]

The question of the utility of a strong Navy can only stem from complete and utter ignorance. There is no other way anyone could start questioning the need for naval power in today's world.

[aevans]

Exel, on Wed 3 Jun 2009 1627, said:

The question of the utility of a strong Navy can only stem from complete and utter ignorance. There is no other way anyone could start questioning the need for naval power in today's world.

Not really true at all. The absence of apparent peer competitors on the sea or in the air does beg the question of why bother with the difficulties and the cost? The answer is fo course that deterring peer competition is probably ultimately cheaper than fighting it--the lack of sea battles and limited aerial engagements in the last half century is a benefit of our power, not evidence that it should be reudced.

But it takes much less than "complete and utter" ignorance to not understand that. It takes a pretty comprehensive understanding of the sources and uses of national military and political power to see it clearly. A lot of people have that knowledge--I would venture to guess the majority of regular contributors here do. But it takes an orientation towards that kind of thought, not just common sense.

[Exel]

The US is ultimately and chiefly dependent on two things for her citizens safety and standard of living: merchant shipping and her ability to project power elsewhere. The flow of supplies in and out of CONUS and the US military might are both essentially dependent on her being able to guarantee the freedom of the seas for her interests. That is not possible without a strong navy, especially when there are many aspiring competitors.

[Jason L]

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Not really true at all. The absence of apparent peer competitors on the sea or in the air does beg the question of why bother with the difficulties and the cost? The answer is fo course that deterring peer competition is probably ultimately cheaper than fighting it--the lack of sea battles and limited aerial engagements in the last half century is a benefit of our power, not evidence that it should be reudced.

But it takes much less than "complete and utter" ignorance to not understand that. It takes a pretty comprehensive understanding of the sources and uses of national military and political power to see it clearly. A lot of people have that knowledge--I would venture to guess the majority of regular contributors here do. But it takes an orientation towards that kind of thought, not just common sense.

There is the corollary to that - which is that it is far cheaper to maintain a minimum base quantity of technical knowledge and expertise in any given field than it is to completely re start a field from scratch.

It takes less than a generation to loose everything once all work and research is halted. The archival data and literature has proved time and time again to be insufficient to jump start something all over again without huge teething pains.

We have actually lost a dramatic quantity of capability and knowledge in various domains since the 60ies, 70ies and 80ies. Also much of the stuff we do is self reinforced truisms because the motivation and purpose for many design features has been lost with their creators and merely propagated indefinitely "because it works".

[aevans]

Jason L, on Wed 3 Jun 2009 1833, said:

Also much of the stuff we do is self reinforced truisms because the motivation and purpose for many design features has been lost with their creators and merely propagated indefinitely "because it works".

Your own specialty, explosives, has relied for many years on rules of thumb that still do work. Recently we've been able to analyze mathematically why they work, but I doubt anybody that can do the mathematical analysis has a clue how the rules of thumb were developed in the first place.

[Jason L]

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Your own specialty, explosives, has relied for many years on rules of thumb that still do work. Recently we've been able to analyze mathematically why they work, but I doubt anybody that can do the mathematical analysis has a clue how the rules of thumb were developed in the first place.

Nah, they still don't have the faintest clue at a fundamental level :lol:

Any engineering has all these rules of thumb or empirical relations.

The scarier stuff is in propellants where they often don't have a clue why various additives are there or what they do. Or turbomachinery which has a long lineage often has various variable geometry orifices and the like which sometimes no one knows why they are the way the are but they just leave em in because its an old robust design.

Its rare that you get some analytical model that is so effective at prediction and captures the basic physics but is easy enough to understand and modify that it gets passed on from generation to generation with various improvements and tweaks.

[Lampshade111]

Oh what in God's name is this nonsense? We don't need a Navy? Yeah we don't need an Air Force either, or nukes, or the Army, because we can all hold hands and sing together with dear leader Obama.

There may not be a foe with a superior Navy to ours, but China has been doing their best to modernize their Navy over past years. Also regarding recent Navy efforts are SEAL team ops, countless tons of air support, and protecting trade routes from piracy/terrorism entirely worthless? Not to mention deterring any action from Iran and providing the capability to quickly project military power.

What is the cause of this insane line of thinking of late?

[Jason L]

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What is the cause of this insane line of thinking of late?

have you looked at your economy lately?

[Lampshade111]

Jason L, on Wed 3 Jun 2009 1846, said:

have you looked at your economy lately?

Yet when it comes time to cut things it always falls on the military first! Tough enconomic times do not mean we should gut our national defense! If we were building more new ships, aircraft, tanks, etc. those are a few new jobs anyway.

[Gunguy]

It's too late. Obama has already spent the money. We will have large cuts coming in the next few years. The military will take it in the shorts. We have what the American people voted for, a socialist nutbag who wants to bring the US down a notch, as it is too big for its britches. Obama has a dislike for American values and wants all of the nationalism to go by the wayside. Oh well, our country has voted. We now get what he proposed while running for office. You just have to hibernate for 4 years and hope someone else becomes our dear leader........

[Ssnake]

Lampshade111, on Thu 4 Jun 2009 0057, said:

If we were building more new ships, aircraft, tanks, etc. those are a few new jobs anyway.

Aren't there cheaper ways to create jobs than building Zumwalts?

[Luke Y]

Its pretty simple, navies are primarily insurance policies for ensuring trade and have been for four thousand years. Their Secondary task is transporting and more recently supporting military expeditionary forces.

If it never fires a shot and trade is flowing, then it is doing its primary job.

[Tony Williams]

Coincidentally, I spotted this on a news channel just now: http://news.bbc.co.u...ess/8050737.stm

[Jason L]

Tony Williams, on Thu 4 Jun 2009 0131, said:

Coincidentally, I spotted this on a news channel just now: http://news.bbc.co.u...ess/8050737.stm

that article is a bit myopic. It fundamentally fails to acknowledge that the base of all economic systems is security. Without security and stability goods do not flow and economies do not grow. Peace industry is a wonderful concept but it ignores the seminal role of military backbone throughout history: the legions, the Mongol empire, European Colonial forces/navies and finally what essentially passes for US + western military hegemony are examples of what enables societies to engage in free economic activity. Of course you need some manner of well ordered society for potent military forces in the first place and so there is a complex interplay at work and definite positive feedback.

As things become prosperous the immediacy and obvious importance of the military security dwindles to the point where some people pretend you don't need it anymore. - I do so love these hippy peacenik theories that completely ignore the complexity of the system of the world. <_<

[TomasCTT]

Jason L, on Thu 4 Jun 2009 1409, said:

As things become prosperous the immediacy and obvious importance of the military security dwindles to the point where some people pretend you don't need it anymore. - I do so love these hippy peacenik theories that completely ignore the complexity of the system of the world. <_<

Ditto. Either they completely ignore it, or are in denial, or are simply just too stupid to understand it. Sometimes, all three of the above. (and yes I've seen it in action in some people....)

[Chris Werb]

I think it's legitimate to question what kind of navy you need in today's world. One thing I really can't envisage is a protracted war in which enemy surface ships and submarines get to make multiple sorties. Either we're simply not going to fight such an enemy (Russia or China) or we're going to hit them so hard and so fast that long term commerce raiding is highly unlikely (North Korea, Iran). In such a world a navy composed largely of capable convoy escorts that are expensive yet have limited versatility and area of influence would appear to make little sense. What I think we need is more of a high-low mix.

This post has been edited by Chris Werb: 05 June 2009 - 0650 AM

[aevans]

You have to read the last few paragraphs to get the point:

"While the U.S. Navy's current status is nowhere as grim as the Royal Navy's, the likelihood of serious cutbacks exists in the current and future political atmosphere.

Whatever the details, whatever the numbers, the service's future rests with those of us who support the idea as well as the institution of the U.S. Navy. We need to be able to answer the question: "Why do we still have such a big navy when we hardly ever use it?"

We ignore that query at our peril. So let the discussion begin."

The article was intentionally provocative. It rasied the arguments that it did in order to stimulate thought about how to refute them.

[Ivanhoe]

Luke_Yaxley, on Wed 3 Jun 2009 2143, said:

Its pretty simple, navies are primarily insurance policies for ensuring trade and have been for four thousand years. Their Secondary task is transporting and more recently supporting military expeditionary forces.

If it never fires a shot and trade is flowing, then it is doing its primary job.

Don't forget the tertiary roles of disaster relief and general-purpose Wave The Flag work. The USN and USMC show up to a lot of disaster zones. And in all sorts of 3rd world countries, when a big USN ship pulls into port, free medical and dental services are provided to long lines of locals.

It can be fairly amusing to read some limp-wristed liberal opinion writer blathering on about how the US isn't doing anything for the 3rd world, and wasting all its tax monies on DOD.

[shep854]

This debate comes up every few decades. It was a big one in the '70s, under Carter. Among other things, his administration was seriously considering doing away with "big-deck" carriers and going with smaller "sea-control" ships, comparable to the RN's Invincible class. Cruise missiles from smaller surface ships and subs were also touted as viable alternatives to CV-launched aircraft. The realities of power projection (the Iran Hostage Crisis helped) and the economics of scale prevailed, and the CVs were vindicated. Much of the Navy's mission is not simply sea control, but power projection ashore. An unfriendly nation can't simply close down a carrier or bar naval aircraft from using their facilities, and most areas that might be of US interest are within range of carrier air (A'stan, for example) though overflight rights can be a sticking point.

During this time, the Marine Corps also came under fire as a "second Army" and had to re-define and justify itself. Hopefully Ken Estes can give insight here.