Stop the Decline of Our Navy

Mar 12, 2015
Defense Drumbeat

Stop the Decline of Our Navy

Seapower Chair Writes to the New York Times

To the Editor:

Re “Our Navy Is Big Enough” (Op-Ed, March 9):

Contrary to Gregg Easterbrook, the Navy has entered a genuine crisis caused by years of dangerous underinvestment and the folly of sequestration. After peaking at nearly 568 ships in 1987, the fleet now numbers 275 ships.

Adm. Samuel J. Locklear III, the commander of the United States Pacific Command, testified that on its current course, the Navy risks becoming merely a regional rather than a global power.

Regarding the challenge posed by China’s rapid military expansion, the Chinese have spent the last two decades investing specifically in areas of perceived American weakness, developing options like antiship missiles, diesel submarines, and sophisticated antisatellite and cyberwarfare capabilities designed to limit American access to disputed waters.

Beijing does not need to match the United States ship for ship to deny our fleet critical access to the Asian Pacific.

Mr. Easterbrook seems willing to accept the loss of open access to global waters like the South China Sea, which China has claimed as its own. I refuse to accept a world where revisionist powers are able to alter the status quo with impunity because America’s Navy is too weak to resist.

Unless we arrest the precipitous decline of our Navy, the international order that American naval predominance has assured since 1945 is in serious jeopardy.

J. RANDY FORBES

Washington

The writer, a Virginia Republican, is chairman of the House Armed Services Seapower and Projection Forces Subcommittee and co-chairman of the Congressional China Caucus. 

114th Congress