Sure, China's military isn't as good as its shiny new weapons appear. But I worry that our Navy isn't as good as its shiny historical record based on World War II in the Pacific makes it appear.
I freely admit that China isn't 10-feet tall the way they project. And their shiny, new military isn't as good as it appears. But don't assume this issue only works for America.
I'll not sleep well after reading this:
Is the U.S. Navy ready for war? A new report prepared by Marine Lt. Gen. Robert Schmidle and Rear Adm. Mark Montgomery, both retired, for members of Congress paints a portrait of the Navy as an institution adrift. The report, reviewed exclusively by the Journal, concludes that the surface Navy is not focused on preparing for war and is weathering a crisis in leadership and culture.
The impetus for the report was a series of recent catastrophes—a ship burning in San Diego last year; two destroyer collisions in the Pacific in 2017. Were these isolated events? Or did they indicate “larger institutional issues that are degrading the performance of the entire naval surface force”? The report surveyed active and recently retired service members of various ranks, conducting 77 candid hourlong interviews. A key finding: “Many sailors found their leadership distracted, captive to bureaucratic excess, and rewarded for the successful execution of administrative functions” rather than core competencies of war.
This is exactly what I've been worried about.
Victory in the Cold War was sudden. And in the aftermath, the Navy surface warfare elements forgot that their core task is to control the seas and not merely exploit control of the seas:
At sea, the ships found themselves patrolling in the Arabian Gulf or in the Mediterranean — not in preparation for combat against another nation’s navy but rather awaiting orders to launch their Tomahawk missiles against targets ashore in Iraq or some other nest of terrorists. Respondents within this new report highlight the perception that during the past two decades, the surface Navy stopped being a surface-warfare Navy and instead became a land-attack-from-the-sea Navy. As that happened, the force began to lose its sense of professionalism and fighting spirit.
Let's hope our submarines and naval aviation can hold the line until the surface fleet is fixed.
UPDATE: A sense of urgency to restore a war-fighting culture in the surface warfare officer corps is needed. Lord knows who will drive that when officers fear for their careers if they make a mistake at sea or in the ever-changing woke standards that can cancel them.
UPDATE: And thank you for the Instapundit link.
UPDATE: Thank you to Rockport Conservatives for the link.
UPDATE: Because I noticed it, I moved the meme to the top to be consistent with my current practice.
