Admiral Paul Rohrer: Don't reduce American carrier strength
By: Admiral Paul Rohrer
OpEd Contributor
July 30, 2009
Hot on the heels of President Obama canceling the Air Force's most advanced strike fighter, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) announced this week that we now face a much greater shortfall in Navy and Marine Corps strike fighters than was previously estimated. Last year, CRS predicted a shortfall of 125 navy fighter jets by 2017. They now predict that the shortfall will more be more than 300 jets.
The American people deserve to understand what those shortages really mean.
On the surface, President Obama's defense budget calls for cutting the Navy's aircraft carrier strike groups from 11 to 10. But a closer inspection reveals that Obama's program delays and budget cuts will do terrible harm to the readiness and capability of our carrier groups.
Although America does have 10 carrier groups, we cannot deploy all 10 at any given time. Both personnel and equipment require shore time for maintenance, rest, and training. Along with the carrier groups that are temporarily rotated out of service, the worsening shortage of fighter aircraft is reducing the number of ready carrier groups even further.
Obama's defense budget is cutting back production of F-18 Hornets and Super Hornets -- the Navy's top fighter aircraft - long before the new F-3Mark Tapscott:26406784:26406784:Mark Tapscott Joint Strike Fighter is ready to deploy. Conservative estimates are that the new F-3Mark Tapscott:26406784:26406784:Mark Tapscotts won't be operational for another six years, leading to what CRS now estimates to be a 300-plane shortfall.
A carrier group typically sails with 50 strike fighters on board. If the F-18 inventory shortfall climbs from 125 to 300, as the CRS now predicts, then you have a shortage of six carrier groups worth of jets.
Submitting a budget to Congress that simply ignores an anticipated shortage of six aircraft carriers worth of fighters is, to put it mildly, no way to provide for fleet readiness.
Rendering our carrier strike groups unready for deployment will leave America less capable of defending ourselves and our allies against rogue nations around the world. And, such a show of weakness unnecessarily encourages adversaries to test our will.
Retired Admiral Paul Rohrer served in the Navy for more than four decades, retiring as a rear admiral. He currently resides in McLean, Va.
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