Welcome to the CavasShips Podcast with Christopher P. Cavas and Chris Servello…a weekly podcast looking at naval and maritime events and issues of the day – in the US, across the seas and around the world. This week…we build on our conversations about navigation plans and shipbuilding and discuss how to pay for a larger and more capable fleet. Is the old way of doing business still effective or should we look for new and creative ways to grow the Fleet? We will discuss in our next segment.
Please send us feedback by DM’ing @CavasShips or @CSSProvision or you can email chriscavas@gmail.com or cservello@defaeroreport.com.
This Week’s Naval Round Up:
The Japan-based carrier USS RONALD REAGAN returned to Yokosuka August 19 after a three-month patrol in the western Pacific. The cruise ranged through the South China Sea to Singapore and the Philippines and took place during period of heightened Chinese military activities in the region. With the return on August 11 of the carrier ABRAHAM LINCOLN to San Diego, there are no US carrier groups deployed in the Pacific at this time. In the Atlantic, the newly-deployed USS GEORGE H W BUSH is en route to the European theater where she will relieve the USS HARRY S TRUMAN in the Mediterranean.
The destroyer USS BULKELEY DDG84 arrived at Rota, Spain August 17 to shift homeport from Norfolk, Virginia to the US Navy’s Forward-Deployed Naval Forces Europe. The move completes a swapout that began in 2021 of the four US destroyers based in Spain. The Biden Administration has announced that an additional two destroyers will be transferred to Europe but the specific ships and a timeline for that plus-up has yet to be announced.
The littoral combat ship USS SIOUX CITY arrived in Sicily August 8 after just over two months operating in the Central Command / US Fifth Fleet operating area. The ship is making the first-ever European and Central Command deployment of a littoral combat ship, SIOUX CITY will operate for an unspecified time with the US Sixth Fleet in the European area of operations.
The air and missile defense exercise Pacific Dragon 2022 wrapped up August 15 after ten days of maneuvers and missile shoots on the Pacific Missile Range Barking Sands facility and off the coast of Kauai, Hawaii. The biennial exercise included warships from Australia, Canada, Japan, Korea, the US Navy along with the US Missile Defense Agency. The 2022 exercise featured the first Pacific Dragon live-fire intercept of a short-range ballistic missile using a Standard SM-3 Block IA missile.
The British frigate HMS LANCASTER left Portsmouth, England August 15 to begin a three-year deployment to the Mideast. The Type 23 frigate will be based at Manama, Bahrain on the Persian Gulf, where she’ll relieve sistership HMS MONTROSE.
A Navy T-45C Goshawk jet training aircraft crashed August 16 while on approach to Naval Air Station Kingsville, Texas. The pilot and only person aboard the aircraft ejected and survived the crash. The aircraft came down in an empty field on Navy property and there were no other injuries.
Servello Squawk:
Expanding on the conversation of the last segment…it’s time for something different when it comes to building and operating our Navy.
The thinking, leadership and business practices of the last two decades will not keep us safe in the next two. The sooner we realize this the better.
Earlier this week, friend of the pod and noted naval advocate Commander Salamander wrote on his substack:
“We lost an entire generation of naval developments with programs like CG(X) that failed to launch, programs like DDG-1000 that failed to transition, and programs like LCS who exist only to mock our claim to be the world’s premier naval power.”
He goes on to write “Navalist institutions have failed their moment and we are drifting rudderless into a minefield while those with the charter to provide and maintain a navy remain at their cocktail parties reminding each other how wonderful and influential they are in a potlatch-esque onomastic orgy of feather-nesting – the future be damned.”
Strong forwards from Sal…but hard to argue.
I have zero confidence in the Navy’s ability to unilaterally conceive, articulate, budget for and defend the force needed to deter…and God forbid, fight China in the next 10-15 years.
The good-idea well is dry as bone…and the Navy needs help.
This sad, but truer and truer fact is why I believe Representatives Gallgher and Luria have it exactly right when they call for a congressional commission to dig deep into the problems plaguing our Navy and right its course before it heads further into harm’s way.
If Gallagher’s co-lead Cyber Security Solarium is any indication, a congressionally mandated commission has the potential to bring together the right people to identify the problems, the creative solutions needed and help draft the policies and laws necessary to make immediate change.
Waiting for DoD and the traditional Congressional committee structure to get around to fixing the problem will cost us time, money and lives. None of which is acceptable.
The Gallagher-Luria commission made it through the House NDAA process, but was not part of the Senate bill that passed earlier this summer. That means it must be added to the conference version of the bill if it is to become law when the Act is passed later this year.
I ask all of our listeners to reach out to lawmakers that are part of the House and Senate conference process and encourage them to support the inclusion of the Naval commission in the joint version of the Bill.
Such a commission may be the only way to break the rudderless status quo and pluck the feathers of those giving bad advice for personal gain and profit. But more importantly, it may be the only way to ensure we maintain our maritime superiority.
