Our Modern Navy

Three days ago, on January 10, 2009, America's newest, and last, of ten Nimitz-class aircraft carriers was commissioned as the USS George H. W. Bush, CVN-77 at Hampton Roads, VA. She is 95,000 tons, with a 4.5 acre-flight deck and a nuclear power plant. She will replace the aged and venerable USS Kitty Hawk (CV-63), which will be de-commissioned on January 31 at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton, WA.

The new carrier is the only new carrier built in the last seven years. The next new carrier to be built for the US Navy will be of an entirely new design and class, the CVN-78 Gerald R. Ford. During these next two years, the US Navy will operate with just 10 operating aircraft carriers.

Interestingly, as reported this morning in Investors Business Daily, by law, the US Navy is required to maintain an 11-carrier fleet. But with the present budget restraints, the Navy has been granted a reprieve.

Operating an 11-carrier fleet requires a new carrier to be built every 4 years, and the maintenance of an adequate shipbuilding infrastructure. Per the IBD article, some 2,000 supply companies in 46 states, employing 100,000 workers contributed to the construction of the George H. W. Bush.

Additionally, the US navy operates 282 ships right now. By many estimates, it needs a minimum of 313 ships to adequately maintain current national commitments overseas. Current plans will add only 7 new ships in fiscal year 2009.

Back in the 1980s, the US Navy swelled to include a fleet of 568 ships. I was an officer aboard one of those ships, the now de-commissioned USS Richmond K. Turner (CG-20). I find it shocking to read today that our fleet size in now smaller than it was in the years immediately before World War I.

Granted, today's ships and crews are far more sophisticated, and are capable of executing a myriad of missions. But no amount of training and high-tech weaponry can overcome a lack of numbers. By contrast, if the Congressional Quarterly is right, China's navy will have more ships in 2015. It already has nearly twice as many submarines at sea as the US Navy.

As the IBD rightly puts it, President-Elect Obama might find a renewed shipbuilding program to be a smart stimulus, both economically and strategically.