US Navy Fleet Should Return to 300 Ships by Decade End, Mabus Says

The ever-changing global security environment makes the worldwide presence of naval assets more important than ever, U.S. Navy Secretary Ray Mabus told the Senate Armed Services Committee yesterday.

Mabus testified alongside Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jonathan W. Greenert and Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James F. Amos about the current state of the Navy and Marine Corps.

“In today’s dynamic security environment, naval assets are more critical than ever,” Mabus said. “In military terms, they provide presence worldwide.”

This presence, the secretary said, provides immediate and capable options for the commander in chief when a crisis develops anywhere in the world.

The secretary explained four “key factors” that have made that global presence and action possible — people, platforms, power, and partnerships.

“In these fiscally constrained times, we’ve used these priorities to help balance between the readiness of the force, our capabilities, and our capacity. In compensation, we’ve increased sea pay to make sure those sailors and Marines deployed aboard ship are appropriately recognized,” Mabus said.

The secretary noted this budget also seeks to control the growth in compensation benefits, which “threatens to impact all the other parts of our budget.”

On platforms, Mabus said shipbuilding and other platforms remain key elements of maritime power.

“The number of ships, submarines and aircraft in our fleet is what gives us the capacity to provide that global presence,” he said.

“While we have the most advanced platforms in the world, quantity has a quality all its own,” Mabus said. “I think it’s important to understand how we got to our current fleet size.”

On Sept. 11, 2001, the U.S. Navy stood at 316 ships, he explained, and by 2008 that number had dropped to 278 ships.

Mabus said in the four years before he took office, the Navy put 19 ships under contract, but since then, he has added 60 ships under contract.

“By the end of this decade, our plan will return the fleet to 300 ships,” he said. “We’re continuing our initiatives to spend smarter and more efficiently.”

The Navy is driving down costs, Mabus said, through things like competition, multi-year buys and driving harder bargains for taxpayer money.

In today’s complex security environment, Mabus said partnerships with other nations, evidenced by interoperability, by exercises, and by operations, continue to increase in importance.

“The Navy and Marine Corps, by nature of their forward presence, are naturally suited to develop these relationships, particularly in the innovative, small footprint ways that are required,” he said.

Mabus said the fiscal year 2015 budget submission seeks to provide the Navy and Marine Corps with the necessary equipment, training, and tools needed to carry out the services’ missions as expected.

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Press Release, March 28, 2014; Image: US Govt