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

[Hair Warrior]

Interesting, and that does sweeten the deal, but I still think there would be a problem with compelling a citizen to do something like this outside of emergency war powers. Unless it was voluntary, it's going to get challenged. Might be interesting to see how other countries have tackled mando conscription, just for perspective.

Even in peacetime, the government (at various levels, fed/state/local/tribal) can compel you to:

• Register with the SSS
• Pay taxes
• Appear for jury duty
• Testify as a material witness in a courtroom by subpoena
• Take action in compliance with “good samaritan” laws, in some places (e.g. Seinfeld finale)
• Sell property for eminent domain
• Other obligations I didn’t remember when I wrote this

We have had a draft in the past. I fully support national service (military or nonmilitary) in exchange for preferential student loans, home loans, etc. It would help current and future generations learn about service and get a dose of reality.

 

[Pags]

This is one of the problems I have with trying to 'quantify' things, some stuff can't be measured effectively no matter how you try and look at it. One of those is forward presence and its effects on 'desired outcomes'. I seriously doubt the author had access to all the latest State, attaché or CCMD reporting on how well things are going with countries X, Y and Z and how well our military engagement is going with each.

Sometimes merely showing the flag, literally, is important as is getting a baseline knowledge and working relationship with various countries. It is those sort of intangibles that you can't measure on an excel spreadsheet or in a quad chart. An excellent example of such intangibles comes from the transcript of a seminar on the Falklands War hosted by the RAF Historical Society and attended by many of the important RAF leaders from the war. Included was the detailed account of the RAF Attaché to DC and how much cooperation he got from his American colleagues because he had a lot of established personal relationships, in addition to the military to military and country to country relationships that existed. Folks went out of their way to help the Brits not only because the leadership directed it but because he was a colleague they knew from years of dealing with him and his fellow countrymen.

I get that there's certainly a soft value to doing presence ops that is hard to quantify. But the cost of doing those ops are quantifiable in the cost of deferred maintenance and increased flight hours on airframes. Is the itch worth the scratch or do we do it to make the fleet look busy? Ships and squadrons with white space on a sked look like they're unused and superfluous so its always important for staffs to make their resources look like they have 100% usage. But the non-underway/airborne time is equally important when it comes to fixing gear and maintaining long term capability.

 

[Brett327]

Even in peacetime, the government (at various levels, fed/state/local/tribal) can compel you to:

• Register with the SSS
• Pay taxes
• Appear for jury duty
• Testify as a material witness in a courtroom by subpoena
• Take action in compliance with “good samaritan” laws, in some places (e.g. Seinfeld finale)
• Sell property for eminent domain
• Other obligations I didn’t remember when I wrote this

We have had a draft in the past. I fully support national service (military or nonmilitary) in exchange for preferential student loans, home loans, etc. It would help current and future generations learn about service and get a dose of reality.

I'm not saying the government can't compel people to do things, just that conscription under less than existential threat scenario would likely get challenged in court. It's a thought experiment, since it's not likely to ever happen.

 

[Hair Warrior]

Concur. Also, there are a lot of intangible benefits of an all-volunteer military.

 

[squorch2]

Randy, where are you going to find the people to man these ships? There aren’t enough (not even close) to properly man what we’ve got. AI isn’t the singular answer, though automation can help. Ships (and squadrons for that matter) are going to see with what amounts to brand new, undertrained skeleton crews - adding more ships could only be made possible by a significant increase in personnel end strength, and that ain’t happening.

Check out CNP’s “War For Talent” brief for metrics showing why, even in the most optimistic scenario, manning is fucked for at least the next five years.

 

[Flash]

I get that there's certainly a soft value to doing presence ops that is hard to quantify. But the cost of doing those ops are quantifiable in the cost of deferred maintenance and increased flight hours on airframes. Is the itch worth the scratch or do we do it to make the fleet look busy? Ships and squadrons with white space on a sked look like they're unused and superfluous so its always important for staffs to make their resources look like they have 100% usage. But the non-underway/airborne time is equally important when it comes to fixing gear and maintaining long term capability.

There has to be a balance to be sure but I scoff at the assertion from the author that they can somehow quantify such ops. And I would argue most of the exercises we do, even the basic ones, are 'make busy' ones but have training value. And there are other things that could be scaled back. But withdrawing from exchanges and exercises on a large scale hurts instead of helps, and I don't think they are the root cause of a lot of the problems.

Finally, I think there needs to be some 'balance' brought back to the fleet in terms of ships. Not everything needs an Aegis but that is all we've got in most cases, LCS could fill some of the gap if it actually worked but it doesn't.

 

[wink]

This sounds a bit like the debate, mostly resolved now, whether police should patrol in vehicles or sit alert dispatching from a station. The argument for dispatching from a station was, as you might expect, mostly cost. And it was hard to quantify the crime rate numbers based on the two alternatives. That was before community policing made a hit and "broken windows" became a successful strategy. Routine deployments, presence ops and FON are the community policing and "broken windows" of foreign policy as implemented by a Navy.

 

[UInavy]

Routine deployments, presence ops and FON are the community policing and "broken windows" of foreign policy as implemented by a Navy.

Wink, are you Jerry Hendrix IRL?

The Navy We Need | National Review

How to respond to China’s challenge at sea.

www.nationalreview.com

(In fairness, Jerry Hendrix, CAPT (USN Ret), Phd has pushed so many varying, and often contrary, ideas over the years that I'd be more surprised to find something he hasn't advocated.)

 

[Hair Warrior]

What’s his game? Trying to sell a book? Does he get paid for all those op-eds and podcast appearances?

 

[Jim123]

This sounds a bit like the debate, mostly resolved now, whether police should patrol in vehicles or sit alert dispatching from a station. The argument for dispatching from a station was, as you might expect, mostly cost. And it was hard to quantify the crime rate numbers based on the two alternatives. That was before community policing made a hit and "broken windows" became a successful strategy. Routine deployments, presence ops and FON are the community policing and "broken windows" of foreign policy as implemented by a Navy.

I used the same analogy talking with my Army NCOs when I was in Iraq. Updating their EW equipment usually took a few minutes so I'd like talking with them about whatever they felt like talking about. When the subject of heavy vehicles vs humvees came up, I told them that counterinsurgency had a lot in common with police work, and one theory was that if you wanted a county to return to "normal" then patrolling in tanks and Brads doesn't usually happen in a place where you'd want to live and raise a family. (Although works in the short term when people are more afraid of the bad guys.) At least I presented that idea, but I didn't express my own opinion one way or the other. I figured they were smart enough to form their own opinions and they were going to do that anyway.

 

[Recovering LSO]

What’s his game? Trying to sell a book? Does he get paid for all those op-eds and podcast appearances?

His game is to measure the political wind (at the moment) and ride it - for the past several years hoping that would lead to a DoD/DoN undersecretary job.

While not outright dishonest, he hams up his operational experience and speaks out of school on most topics related to Naval/carrier aviation.

 

[wink]

Wink, are you Jerry Hendrix IRL?

Oh, that hurts.

 

[Hair Warrior]

His game is to measure the political wind (at the moment) and ride it - for the past several years hoping that would lead to a DoD/DoN undersecretary job.

While not outright dishonest, he hams up his operational experience and speaks out of school on most topics related to Naval/carrier aviation.

I genuinely wonder why he’s been unsuccessful. The current and recent administrations have both been pretty easy to get into. The current one for lots of vacancies, the previous one because they created new Schedule C and Noncareer SES positions out of thin air to give high paying jobs to their young politicos.

 

[Flash]

Without going too far toward Starship Troopers or the Politics Thunderdome (which I try to avoid like leftover ox tail in WR 1), what about mando national service (of varying flavors) in exchange for increased benefits? Such as say, college, student loan forgiveness, decreased interest rates on small business loans, etc.

Then perhaps just take the word 'mando' out of my post. That way, it becomes 'give something to get something'. I'm not talking 'citizen versus civilian' craziness, just the opportunity to reap increased benefits with a term of service to the nation.

What about those who are not able to serve, even in non-combat functions? A significant percentage of Americans can't serve due to physical and other limitations, if they can't reap those benefits only available to those who serve far beyond the current benefits it would likely face legal challenge.

 

[Flash]

I genuinely wonder why he’s been unsuccessful. The current and recent administrations have both been pretty easy to get into. The current one for lots of vacancies, the previous one because they created new Schedule C and Noncareer SES positions out of thin air to give high paying jobs to their young politicos.

It's a lot harder in many cases than you think, especially for the DoD.