Image source: topwar.ru
How many warships should there be in the U.S. Navy? This issue has turned into an occasion for heated political discussions in the American leadership today. Representatives of Congress, the presidential administration and the Pentagon have different points of view on this issue. Therefore, the US Congress is going to create a special commission that should determine the necessary number of ships in order for the American fleet to be combat-ready and able to solve the tasks assigned to it.
The National Commission on the Future of the Navy will be established on the basis of the National Defense Authorization Act this year. She will be given 18 months to complete the work. During this time, experts will have to calculate how many ships are needed for the fleet and what financial capabilities the United States has to ensure its naval power. In addition to ships, recommendations will be given on the composition of aircraft, helicopters and unmanned aerial vehicles of naval aviation of the US Navy.
The bill outlines numerous factors that the commission should consider, ranging from officer requirements and the Navy's plan to modernize four state shipyards to shipbuilding industrial facilities and related maintenance programs. In fact, the Congressional working group will have to take into account all conceivable factors, as well as correlate them with the financial capabilities of the American budget.
The work of the commission, as expected in Congress, will put an end to the constant disputes between representatives of the Navy, the Ministry of Defense, the finance Department and the presidential administration over the number of personnel, the number of ships, planes, helicopters and drones in service with the US Navy.
However, some experts are not very happy with the creation of the commission. Retired Fleet Admiral James Foggo claims that a new layer of bureaucracy is the last thing the American navy needs. The appearance of the commission, Admiral Foggo believes, will not help in any way to really increase the combat capability of the fleet. The US Navy needs additional funding and targeted missions, and new congressional structures will not change the situation, the expert is convinced.
It should be noted that recently the United States has been paying more and more attention to the modernization of its naval forces. If we take into account the prospect of a conflict with China in the Asia-Pacific region, the importance of the fleet increases many times. Moreover, the PRC is not asleep, but is constantly increasing the number of ships and submarines, making its fleet more and more combat-ready and turning it into a serious potential competitor to the American naval forces. One of the directions is the development of a new generation of submarines and at the same time the incessant fuss with the Zumwalt project, which eats tens of billions of dollars and whose output is unknown what should happen - either a stealth destroyer with an electromagnetic cannon, a coastal zone ship, or a carrier of hypersonic missiles.
