With U.S. military analysts anticipating a Chinese attack on Taiwan sooner rather than later, possibly within a
2023-2027 window
, the U.S. urgently needs more warships, submarines and long range missiles. The size of the People’s Liberation Army and the short 80 mile distance between China and Taiwan means that U.S. forces would be out-scaled badly in any war.
Unlike Japan
, however, Taiwan’s own defensive measures
remain absurdly inadequate
. Making matters worse, the U.S. military faces two key obstructions to its increased readiness for war.
First, Congress and the Navy are making bad investments.
While Congress has moderately boosted the Navy’s shipbuilding budget,
the cronyism of politicians
such as Rep. John Rutherford (R-FL) has prevented the Navy from retiring warships that have no utility against China — beyond, that is, their prospective service as seabed graveyards for U.S. sailors. Five Littoral Combat Ships were saved in the latest defense act, wasting hundreds of millions of dollars. Those retained ships will also further stretch the Navy’s overwhelmed crew and maintenance capacity.
THE UK AND JAPAN JUST BOOSTED DETERRENCE OF CHINA
At the same time, the Navy continues to rely on carrier strike groups as the foundation of its battleforce. The problem with this strategy is twofold. First, the aircraft carriers will have to stay far away from the East China Sea or risk being annihilated by dozens of independently targeted Dongfeng ballistic missiles (Nimitz-class carriers carry 6,000 Americans). Second, the carriers’ aviation wings are centered on
F-35 jets
, which lack
the range, munitions payload
, and value for money to effectively contest saturated PLA forces.
Only the U.S. Marine Corps
shows the necessary seriousness
in face of China’s threat. What the U.S. military needs is a lot
more long range missiles and survivable ships
that can destroy PLA forces in high intensity battle. But that leads to the other key obstruction: industrial capacity and the delivery of quality products on time.
The Navy’s Fleet Forces Commander Admiral Daryl Caudle showed righteous anger this week when he lamented the failure of shipbuilders. As
DefenseNews
reports, Caudle observed that “We are spending large amounts of money with these companies… when they don’t deliver, that impacts the national security that we provide this country … In five years, instead of delivering 10 fast attack submarines, I got six. Where’s the other four? My force is already four submarines short.” DefenseNews notes that “The Navy is buying two submarines a year, but industry is only delivering at a rate of 1.2 a year.”
This is good stuff from Caudle, reflecting a rare but harsh military rejection of the defense industry’s penchant for deflecting blame, hiring retired flag rank officers, and then demanding more money to address its own failings. Take the Virginia-class attack submarines to which Caudle referred. They are built by General Dynamics and Huntington Ingalls. But both companies have failed to adequately prioritize staffing and resources to get the submarines built on time. The result: these companies are good at offering excuses, less good at delivering boats on time.
Benefiting from their lobbyists and the Pentagon-Congress penchant to throw more money at such problems, the companies have become arrogant.
Announcing
the Oct. 2019 construction of a submarine, for example, Huntington Ingalls’ Vice President Dave Bolcar offered no mention of delays. Instead, he lauded how “Our team of shipbuilders continues to perform at a high level, and nothing makes us prouder than delivering one of the most mission-ready submarines to the fleet.”
While Huntington Ingalls gloats amid failure, China surges production of exceptional warships such as its Renhai-class air defense destroyers and its Luyang III-class multirole destroyers (five are under construction
at just one facility
). But it’s not just a problem with the submarines.
Bath Iron Works, which builds the Navy’s Arleigh Burke class destroyers, has also failed. Its management bears significant blame. But Congress should be taking a much harsher stance — with legislative action if necessary — against shipbuilder unions such as IAM Local S6. In June 2020, that union
went on strike
in protest at Bath Iron’s attempt to hire subcontractors to help address shipbuilding delays. Facing the now-grave threat of a war with China, any union willing to hold the nation’s defensive power hostage deserves to be busted.
Yes, the U.S. needs significant boosts to its military-industrial capacity. It needs a lot more munitions plants, shipbuilding facilities, technicians and engineers. But it also needs to prioritize better where investments go and how defense contractors are compensated. Where deliveries are on time and of quality, defense contractors should be rewarded with lucrative long-term contracts. But where products are delivered late or are inadequate in quality, Congress must be prepared to impose punitive financial penalties. If that causes short term disruption and harm, so be it. The stakes are too high now to tolerate the status quo.
