Resistance to risk-taking and change for the military can also be found among members of Congress.
Leadership on Pentagon budgets on Capitol Hill is dominated by lawmakers from shipbuilding communities like Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss. The industry directs tens of millions of dollars of campaign contributions to key lawmakers and mounts lobbying campaigns pushing the Navy to build more ships.
Capt. Alex Campbell of the Navy, whose job this year has been to find ways to buy cheaper, faster, more innovative technology, said the amount of money that had been allocated to the effort so far was minuscule.No one is arguing that the Navy no longer needs traditional warships; in fact, a large fleet of fast-attack submarines would be particularly vital in any conflict with China.
Commanders who are comfortable with decades-old tactics and concepts are having a hard time accepting the need for changes, several recently departed Navy officials said. But Adm. Michael M. Gilday, who until last month served as the chief of naval operations, conceded that the Navy had been taking only cautiously measured steps.
The problem is that despite their awesome power, these types of destroyers, like certain other traditional warships, are increasingly vulnerable — especially in a conflict with China over Taiwan, according to repeated war game exercises conducted by the Pentagon, its contractors and outside consultants.
“We lose a lot of people, we lose a lot of equipment, we usually fail to achieve our objective,” David A. Ochmanek, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense who now works at Rand, said during a public discussion of some of the research, a summary he reiterated in a recent interview. Instead, the debate in Washington remains largely focused on protecting and expanding traditional platforms. The Pentagon this year proposed delaying the purchase of one of the ships, known as an amphibious transport dock, that Huntington Ingalls builds at its Pascagoula yard, citing the rising cost.
Shipbuilders and other contractors that provide equipment installed on these ships have also flooded lawmakers with campaign contributions, totaling more than $90 million just in the past five years. Some of the largest chunks of that money went to lawmakers who lead the budget and Pentagon oversight committees, including Wicker.
One, the T-38 Devil Ray, which can reach speeds of up to 90 mph — faster than just about any other vessel in the Navy — was awaiting its next assignment. Alongside it was the Ocean Aero Triton, whose solar-power system allows it to operate for three months at a time without any need to refuel. “We are trying to improve Navy power, but we need to do more than that: We need to re-imagine Navy power,” he said in an interview this summer, just after retiring from the Navy. “We’re kind of at a pivotal point in history. It is vital that we throw off old conventions.”
Many of the new breed of vessels and drones do not carry weapons, but their sophisticated cameras, mine-sensing devices and other sensors allow the Navy fleet based in Bahrain to keep watch over a larger chunk of the waters it patrols. Given that war games had demonstrated the need for thousands of unmanned devices for surveillance, interdiction and attack purposes to prepare for any conflict with China, Selby pushed colleagues at the Pentagon to figure out a way to rapidly buy thousands of similar devices for the Navy to use worldwide.
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