Grounded: Nearly two-thirds of US Navy’s strike fighters can’t fly

[Guest]

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I have been hearing about this for a while now. This situation is bad across all the various military commands world wide. Right now the US military is not capable of sustaining a long conventional war! There is a reason we keep having helicopters crashing all over the place. It bothers me greatly because our forward deployed military are having to do without.

 

 

 

Washington – The US Navy’s F/A-18 Hornet and Super Hornet strike fighters are the tip of the spear, embodying most of the fierce striking power of the aircraft carrier strike group. But nearly two-thirds of the fleet’s strike fighters can’t fly – grounded because they’re either undergoing maintenance or simply waiting for parts or their turn the aviation depot backlog.

Overall, more than half the Navy’s aircraft are grounded, most because there isn’t enough money to fix them.

 

There isn’t enough money to fix the fleet’s ships, and the backlog of ships needing work continues to grow. Overhauls – “availabilities” in Navy parlance – are being cancelled or deferred, and when ships do come in they need longer to refit. Every carrier overall for at least three years has run long, and some submarines are out of service for prolonged periods, as much as four years or more. One submarine, the Boise, has lost its diving certification and can’t operate pending shipyard work, and leaders claim that if more money doesn’t become available five more will be in the same state by the end of this year.

The Navy can’t get money to move around service members and their families to change assignments, and about $440 million is needed to pay sailors. And the service claims 15 percent of its shore facilities are in failed condition – awaiting repair, replacement or demolition.

 

The bleak picture presented by service leaders is in stark contrast to the Trump administration’s widely-talked about plan to grow the Navy from today’s 308-ship fleet goal to 350 ships – now topped by Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson’s new Force Structure Assessment that aims at a 355-ship fleet. Richardson’s staff is crafting further details on how the growth will be carried out -- plans Congressional leaders are eager to hear. It seems to many as though the Navy will be showered with money to attain such lofty goals.

Yet for now, money is tight, due to several years of declining budgets mandated first by the Obama administration, then Congress, and to the chronic inability of lawmakers to provide uninterrupted funds to the military services and the government at large. Budgets have been cut despite no slackening in the demand for the fleet’s services, and the Navy, to preserve shipbuilding funds, made a conscious choice to slash maintenance and training budgets rather than eliminate ships, which take many years to build and can’t be produced promptly even when funding becomes available.

 

In 2017, Congress failed for the ninth straight year to produce a budget before the October 1 start of the fiscal year, reverting to continuing resolutions (CRs) that keep money flowing at prior year levels. CRs have numerous caveats, however, and many new projects or plans can’t be funded since they didn’t exist in the prior year. There is widespread agreement that CR funding creates havoc throughout the Pentagon and the industrial base that supports it – often substantially driving costs higher to recover from lengthy delays. Yet, like the proverbial weather that everyone talks about but no one can change, there seems to be little urgency in Congress to return to a more business-like budget profile.

The current continuing resolution through April 28 marks the longest CR since fiscal 1977 – outstripping 2011 by only a couple weeks, noted Todd Harrison of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, posting on Twitter. This also marks the first CR situation during a presidential transition year.

 

And while the talk about building dozens more ships grabs headlines, it is not at all clear when or even whether Congress will repeal the Budget Control Act – sequestration – which if unabated will continue its restrictions to 2021.

Meanwhile, some details are emerging of the new administration’s efforts to move along the budget process. In a Jan. 31 memorandum, Defense Secretary James Mattis described a three-phase plan that included submission by the Pentagon of a 2017 budget amendment request. The request would be sent to the White House’s Office of Management and Budget by March 1.

Under the plan, the full 2018 budget request is due to OMB no later than May 1.

The third phase of the plan involves a new National Defense Strategy and FY 2019-2023 defense program which “will include a new force sizing construct” to “inform our targets for force structure growth,” Mattis said in the memo.

 

The services will make their case to Congress this week, when the vice chiefs of the Air Force, Army, Navy and Marine Corps testify in readiness hearings before the House Armed Services Committee on Tuesday and the Senate Armed Services Committee the following day.

The vice chiefs are expected to make their pitches for money that can be spent right away, rather than funds for long-term projects that, with only five months left in the fiscal year even if Congress passes a 2017 budget, can’t be quickly put to use.

“If we get any money at all, the first thing we’re going to do is throw it into the places we can execute it,” a senior Navy source said Feb. 2. “All of those places are in ship maintenance, aviation depot throughput – parts and spares – and permanent changes of station so we can move our families around and fill the holes that are being generated by the lack of PCS money.”

 

The backlog is high. “There’s about six to eight billion dollars of stuff we can execute in April if we got the money,” the senior Navy source said. “We can put it on contract, we can deliver on it right away.”

Even if the budget topline is increased, Navy leaders say, the immediate need is for maintenance money, not new ship construction. A supplemental Navy unfunded requirements list for 2017 sent to Congress in early January and still being revised made it clear maintenance needs are paramount.

“Our priorities are unambiguously focused on readiness -- those things required to get planes in the air, ships and subs at sea, sailors trained and ready,” a Navy official declared. “No new starts.”

 

The dire situation of naval aviation is sobering. According to the Navy, 53 percent of all Navy aircraft can’t fly – about 1,700 combat aircraft, patrol and transport planes and helicopters. Not all are due to budget problems – at any given time, about one-fourth to one-third of aircraft are out of service for regular maintenance. But the 53 percent figure represents about twice the historic norm.

The strike fighter situation is even more acute, and more remarkable since the aircraft are vitally important to projecting the fleet’s combat power. Sixty-two percent of F/A-18s are out of service, 27 percent in major depot work and 35 percent simply awaiting maintenance or parts, the Navy said.

With training and flying hour funds cut, the Navy’s air crews are struggling to maintain even minimum flying requirements, the senior Navy source said. Retention is becoming a problem, too. In 2013, seventeen percent of flying officers declined department head tours after being selected. The percentage grew to 29 percent in 2016.

 

Funding shortfalls mean many service members are unable to relocate to take on new assignments. So far in 2017, the Navy said, there have been 15,250 fewer moves compared with 2016.

Under the CR, the senior Navy official said, another 14 ship availabilities will be deferred in 2018 – 1 submarine, 1 cruiser, 6 destroyers, 2 landing ship docks, 1 amphibious transport dock, and 3 minesweepers. Programs seeking to buy items that were not included in the 2016 budget can’t move forward, including CH-53K helicopters, JAGM Joint Air-Ground Missiles, LRASM Long-Range Anti-Ship Missiles and littoral combat ship module weapons. Many more programs that planned to increase 2017 buys over 2016 levels can’t do so.

And with only five months left in fiscal 2017 even if a budget is passed in late April, there is some talk about a year-long CR – a prospect at which the senior Navy official shook his head.

 

“The full CR is not a good situation at all,” he said.

 

[Guest]

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This article sums up some of the things my now husband has told me since I met him. I spoke of situations of Naval Flag Officers that can't seem to be able to keep their zippers zipped last night in chat. The truth hurts, I don't like some of the tone of this article but I agree with it.

 

 

 

Have sailors lost themselves in an ethical Bermuda Triangle?

President Donald Trump has called for the biggest expansion of the U.S. Navy since the Cold War. According to Trump, America’s military — and its Navy specifically — is weak and in drastic need of revitalization.

“Our Navy is the smallest it’s been since World War I,” he said during a speech on Oct. 21. “My plan will build the 350-ship Navy we need. This will be the largest effort at rebuilding our military since Ronald Reagan, and it will require a truly national effort.”

In fact, the U.S. has by far the most dominant military on the planet. And the Navy is the most powerful the world has ever seen.

Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean it’s not in trouble.

But the rot at the core of the U.S. Navy is of a variety that no amount of cash can cure. Over the past two decades, the American military in general, and especially the Navy, has experienced an unprecedented number of ethical failures. Flag officers fall to corruption scandals with frightening regularity and the 7th Fleet — the single most powerful naval force on the planet — is in the middle of a scandal that is unprecedented in scope.

To fix the Navy, we don’t need more ships. We need ethical reform.

Trump’s goal is to grow America’s already massive Navy from 282 ships to 350 ships in the next 30 years. Politicians of every political stripe have long been in favor of increasing the naval fleet, but the cost to the American taxpayer would be billions. To pay for the expansion, Washington will need to go deeper into debt or cut back spending elsewhere.

 

Meanwhile, the idea that our Navy is the weakest and smallest it’s been since World War I is misleading. It’s true America has fewer ships than it once did, but those ships are far bigger and more technologically advanced than the battle cruisers and destroyers that plied the seas 100 years ago. Even in terms of raw numbers, America outclasses the nearest competitors. It fields 10 aircraft carriers. The next closest country, India, has only two. The U.S. dominates the ocean.

To be clear, America does need to fund the Navy and build ships to replace aging vessels. Russia and China are rapidly growing their naval forces, and we have to keep up. But more ships won’t make a lick of difference if the sailors serving on them don’t know right from wrong.

An example: Over the past 25 years, Glenn Defense Marine Asia did business with the U.S. Navy throughout the Pacific. The contractor operated ports throughout the region and provided ship husbanding services to some of the biggest and most powerful ships at sea.

It all came crashing down in 2013 when the U.S. Justice Department arrested GDMA’s CEO Leonard Glenn Francis, better known as “Fat Leonard.” The Malaysian playboy had bilked the American taxpayer for years by overcharging for basic ship husbanding services in the Pacific. He maintained his criminal enterprise by buying off dozens of U.S. Navy personnel.

Francis enticed Navy officials with cash bribes, luxurious trips, hookers and in one case Lady Gaga tickets, all while reveling in his criminal lifestyle. The list of those indicted includes an NCIS officer, a captain and a rear admiral. Even Vice AdmiralTed Branch lost his security clearance amid allegations of his involvement — not a great look for the Navy’s top intelligence officer.

Justice thinks that might just be the tip of the iceberg. Investigations into Francis’ bribery scheme are, after more than five years, still ongoing. In fact, the feds keep pushing back the playboy’s sentencing date so it has leverage over him to pursue more corruption cases against Navy officials.

The Fat Leonard case is the biggest ongoing Navy corruption scandal, but it’s hardly the only one. In 2015, officials relieved the captain of the USS Lake Erie of duty, citing a “poor command climate” aboard the ship. That same year, a cheating scandal rocked the Navy Surface Warfare Medical Institute. The Navy kicked out 31 sailors from the school, discharged 13 more and fired two leaders.

During the investigation into the cheating scandal, investigators revealed text messages between students who planned to corrupt as many fellow classmates as possible. “If [we’re] all dirty, no one will snitch,” one text read.

The U.S. Navy is a Bermuda Triangle of integrity, where sailors’ moral scruples mysteriously vanish without a trace. The Pentagon spends too little time teaching ethics and morality to its Naval officers. To keep scandals at bay and keep the Navy strong, this has to change.

“There’s a rigorous ethics curriculum that’s part of the U.S. Naval Academy and West Point,” Pauline Kaurin, professor of philosophy at Pacific Lutheran University and a military ethics expert, told Task & Purpose. “There’s also segments of training in the officer candidate school, but the focus tends to be on leadership and personal morality.” What’s needed, she said, is a greater focus on objective ethics and the Navy’s core values.

Kaurin literally wrote the book on military ethics and she sees these problems as indicative of a culture of of personal virtue that puts the focus on the individual during training but fails to follow up later on.

“All the Military branches have core values, and once that training is complete there’s an idea that you’re in charge of your own ethical development,” she explained. “The idea is that you should focus on developing your own core values and that those should match up, somehow, with the Navy’s core values.

“There isn’t a lot of discussion about ethics,” she added. “And there’s a distinction there. Ethics is reflecting upon what your moral commitments are, where they came from and how they’re reflected in your community. So there’s an critical [intellectual] element to ethics. The problem is that the Navy understands ethics in terms of personal morality.”

Kaurin explained that the high-level leadership at the Navy tends to use this focus on the individual as a tool to distance itself from offenders during ethical scandals. “They’ll say it’s just one bad apple or they’ll say [the offender’s] own personal moral choices led to this. There’s rarely a discussion about the greater ethical and moral environment.”

That conversation is critical. Officers don’t become corrupt in a vacuum. “We are what we repeatedly do,” Kaurin said, quoting Aristotle. “Excellence is not an act but a habit. The odds are that this behavior is just the tip of the iceberg. We have to look at the culture in the Navy and ask the question, ‘How did this person get to this position while being so deeply morally flawed?’”

Kaurin said real progress will only come with a systemic approach. “The culture in the Military tends to disproportionately put the focus on leaders and it assumes that if someone achieves a certain position, the morality will come with it,” she explained. “History proves that’s not the case.”

 

She’s right. A focus only on individual morality lends itself to corruption, because psychology shows us that even deeply held personal values are more flexible than people think and heavily dependent on the circumstances in which we find ourselves. Moreover, virtues often come into conflict — for instance, our sense of loyalty to peers can overcome our adherence to rules, leading us to protect a friend rather than expose malfeasance. When the culture is rotten, very few individuals can maintain their own moral compass. And the problem may be compounded in the Navy due to the physical isolation in which sailors often find themselves and an institutional focus on strong leaders.

“It’s hard to go outside the chain of command because of your physical location,” Kaurin said. “So having these isolated ships, carriers and submarines where the captain is in charge and everyone is physically isolated has led to a certain kind of culture within the Navy. That has contributed to the culture of corruption.”

America’s Navy is strong, but it’s commitment to teaching ethics beyond personal morality is terrible. When the focus is on the individual sailor, with no follow-up and no reflection, the sailor is free to shape their morality to fit the culture in which they find themselves — often to the detriment of the Navy’s core values.

 

[Koach]

Interesting articles. Thanks for posting.