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…the Russian War on Ukraine is now in its third year and grinds on and on. George Galdorisi, a long-time observer of the conflict who predicted in writing a lot of what we’ve been seeing, joins us for an update discussion on what we’ve seen so far and what might still be to come.
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 News:
Tit-for-tat actions in the Red Sea continued this past week as Houthi forces launched more unmanned aircraft and surface vessels and missiles at merchant shipping in the region, and US and British forces struck multiple Houthi military targets on the ground in Yemen, US Central Command reported. A Greek-owned bulker, the motor vessel LAAX, reported on May 28 it had been hit by three small missiles but continued on its voyage without injuries. US forces striking at Houthi targets in Yemen included aircraft flying from the carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower.
The pier in Gaza constructed by the US Navy and Army broke up May 28 in rising sea states, sending several sections and smaller craft onto the beach. The breakup took place only 12 days after the pier was declared complete and after about 1,000 tons of aid had been moved ashore, according to the Pentagon. The damaged portions of the pier were taken to the Israeli port of Ashdod for repair, and the Pentagon said May 30 the pier would be reassembled and put back into operation.
A nearly-new F-35B Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter on a flight to California from Lockheed Martin’s Fort Worth, Texas factory crashed in New Mexico on May 28. The pilot of the single-seat jet ejected and was hospitalized, Lockheed Martin said in a statement. USNI News reported the pilot was employed by the Defense Contract Management Agency. Although most U.S. F-35Bs are operated by the US Marine Corps, the aircraft, Lockheed said, “was a developmental test jet equipped with Technology Refresh 2 (TR-2) and was transferring to Edwards Air Force Base in California for additional test equipment modification.”
In US personnel news, retired Admiral Robert Burke was arrested May 31 and charged with bribery by the US Department of Justice. DoJ, in a press release, said Burke, a submariner who served as the US Navy’s Vice Chief of Naval Operations from 2019 to 2020, attempted to steer Navy contracts to an unnamed company, whom he then went to work for after retiring. Two other individuals – the top two executives at a company called Next Jump – were also arrested and charged in the case. Next Jump is a New York-based company specializing in training methods.
The French aircraft carrier CHARLES DE GAULLE and its task group returned to port May 26 after a month-long deployment to the central Mediterranean, where the group, for the first time, operated under NATO control for a series of multinational exercises.
In New Ship News, Austal USA on May 30 received a $516 million contract from the US Navy to build T-AGOS 25, the first of up to seven new Ocean Surveillance ships to be built in the Alabama shipyard. The yet-to-be named ship, which features a small waterplane area twin hull, or SWATH, hull configuration on a displacement of over 9,000 metric tons, will be the first new US Navy ocean surveillance ship since 2000.
Servello Squawk:
This week U.S. Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi, the highest-ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, released a significant defense investment plan to rebuild the U.S. military and defense industrial base.
Wicker points to the emerging Axis of Aggressors of China, Russia, Iran and North Korea as undermining U.S. interests across the globe and draws the conclusion that the current defense investment does not meet the moment. In his words…”our defense industrial base is underfunded and unprepared for the wars of today, tomorrow, and the foreseeable future.”
Titled “21st Century Peace Through Strength: A Generational Investment in the U.S. Military”, Wicker’s report provides recommendations about where DoD, the White House, and Congress need to work together to quickly bring new capabilities online and shore-up those currently in the arsenal.
His recommendations encompass a wide array of platforms, domains, and strategic concepts across more than 20 focus areas.
Under the heading “Restoring U.S. Navy Supremacy, Fleet Readiness he lays out five points:
- Get industrial base on a footing to deliver a 355-ship fleet
- Strengthen shipyard capacity to get submarine industrial base to three attack submarines per year
- Create large-scale industrial base program for surface combatant industrial base
- Establish preliminary design for guided missile patrol coastal craft; lock in multi-year procurement for amphibious warships
- Accelerate unmanned underwater vessels and unmanned surface vessels procurement
Under the heading Finalize U.S. Marine Corps Force Design 2030 Success, he lists two:
- Accelerate competition of Force Design 2030
- Encourage major USMC investments in sophisticated contested logistics
Given our collective experience, our travels and the regular conversations that we have with public and private officials, it’s hard to argue against his findings.
Look none of this is rocket science and in many cases Wicker has simply aggregated what strategists and defense thinkers have been saying and writing for the last decade. That said it’s hard not to be impressed with the plan, how it was rolled out and the lack of political jabs taken at the other side in his analysis and recommendations.
I’m not ready to dub him the next Carl Vinson or become overly optimistic that even half of this will be enacted, but given today’s political climate it’s hard not to be impressed with the effort.
BZ to the Senator and his staff…this is good work. This list of recommendations gives uniform and political leaders lots to agree on. Perhaps this is the beginning of a new found effort that gets serious about not just recognizing threats, but actually working across government and across the aisle to do something about them.
