That's exactly my point, Brett. I'm saying the political will of our nation is at ever-increasing odds with our needs for defense and power projection around the world. We will never achieve a 500 ship Navy because we lack the political will to do so. If you remember your Clausewitz and Corbett, then you know that you the political and military will of a nation are inseparable.
There isn't the political will in either major party to get to that number for the Navy, if there is even where we should be, but there remains a considerably strong will to maintain a capable military and that has been demonstrated across both parties when in power.
To be frank I think many of the Navy's current issues have more to do with internal Navy and DoD issues than with our budget, with some Navy and DoD staffs doing a poor job of managing the forces we have on hand and not optimizing what we are spending our money on. I've seen some improvements recently but we need to also fix our own house and not just blame our issues on easy targets like our political leadership.
Go to Google and search for the DoD's DIE consultants, instructors, and auditors. They are out there and easy to find. Go see how much they charge for their services. It's a staggering amount.
Diversity & Inclusion™® are an industry now that grifts just as well as any other defense contractor. Somebody has to pay for their doctorates in underwater basket-weaving and all of the attendant student loans. But if you want real numbers, feel free to dig through nearly two decades worth of material wherein
a former Navy SWO O5 has tried to document just how much it has cost us in both monetary and qualitative metrics:
https://cdrsalamander.blogspot.com/search/label/Diversity
Sal has long had an axe to grind about diversity and inclusion stuff in the Navy and DoD but as someone who has had to live through all of the stuff he complains about the last 25 years his is an outsiders view looking in on how he thinks things are and not the reality. He
way overstates the time and effort spent on the stuff he points out when in reality there is very little devoted to either in the grand scheme of things, but his skewed view shouldn't be surprising for someone who has been out of the Navy for well over 10 years now and blogs for a living.
As a civilian and a reservist, double-tapping a considerable amount of the same training along with the diversity and inclusion initiatives, the amount of time I spend on this stuff is miniscule compared to my actual job, and even how much time I spend on this site.
Finally on a personal note, I have seen considerable change in who makes up the sailors and officers in our Navy since the start of my career 25 years ago. My first squadron had a grand total of one female aviator and roughly half a dozen minority male aviators out of about the ~150 or so that were in the unit from the time I showed up to the time I left. My last command, a SWO-centric one, not only was a majority of the sailors minorities but roughly a quarter were female, and around half the officers were minority and/or female. So if there are modest efforts to ensure that those sailors and officers feel as much as part of the Navy as others along with making their concerns are heard and acknowledged, the Navy is that much better for it.
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