Roughead: Decisions based on costs - Navy News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Navy Times

Roughead: Decisions based on costs

The costs of both weapons programs and manpower dominate future thinking at the top of the Navy, according to Chief of Naval Operations, Adm. Gary Roughead.

“When I look at some cost projections, we need to have a fundamentally different way of acquiring things,” he said Monday morning at the first event of the Navy League’s three-day Sea-Air-Space Exposition outside Washington.

He added, “We don’t take into account the cost of people. At the end of the day, it’s all about people.”

He noted that the personnel picture is further complicated today by the poor economy, which has pushed retention “off the scale,” by sailors trying to stay in.

Roughead, who spoke during a panel discussion on “Seapower and America’s Security,” noted that costs were behind the decision last year to cancel the third and fourth littoral combat ships.

“In my view,” he said, “the costs were taking off at an uncontrollable rate.”

Also on the panel was Commandant of the Marine Corps Gen. Jim Conway, Commandant of the Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen and the acting head of the Maritime Administration, James Caponiti. The panelists covered a range of topics, from countering commercial ship hijackings to retrofitting icebreakers.

With piracy off Somalia in global headlines, Allen and Caponiti talked about the safety of merchant ships transiting the waters off the Horn of Africa.

Allen said a code of conduct for civilian mariners is being developed. Caponiti said his agency is firmly opposed to arming civilian crews to fend off pirates because of legal and liability implications.

“We do not want to arm mariners in any event,” he said. “The issues are very, very significant before we go down that path.”

Conway spoke of the Corps’ loss off its seagoing nature because of land wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He said only 10 to 15 percent of Marines today has done a traditional embark in the fleet.

“For the U.S. Marines, that’s almost unheard of,” he said. “That’s where we are, that’s what’s taking place, and we’re concerned about it.”

Conway also said that as the military goes through the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review and assesses what kind of gator fleet is needed, the question should be “how much amphibious capability becomes too little,” not too much.

The expo is an annual event that shows off the latest in naval and military hardware and technology, and provides a podium for defense leadership.

READ MORE FROM SEA-AIR-SPACE 2009:

• First Navy JSF to be finished this summer

• Mullen: IAs still needed as forces leave Iraq