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Navy League: Obama on path to 240-ship fleet

The Obama administration has quietly ditched the Navy’s former goal of building a fleet of at least 300 ships and is now on course to field a fleet of only 240, the head of the Navy League has charged.

In a January message to members, Navy League president Daniel Branch said that during the 2008 campaign, then-Sen. Barack Obama’s team responded to the Navy League’s questions about fleet size by saying “the current force structure is adequate to support the Navy’s missions,” referring to the fleet at the time of about 283 ships.

“Every president since World War I has made it clear that a Navy of more than 300 ships is essential to keep the peace, defend our shores and safeguard America’s global interests,” Branch wrote. “Clarification is needed from the current administration regarding its support for this important issue.”

The Navy League is urging its members to press their representatives in Congress to support a larger fleet, he wrote — just in time for the Navy Department to submit its budget amid a flurry of other updates and reports, including the Quadrennial Defense Review, due in February. The precedent set last year won’t cut it, he wrote.

“To maintain a Navy of at least 300 ships, the U.S. must fund and build at least 11 or 12 ships per year,” requiring as much as $27 billion per year, Branch wrote. “However, the administration submitted a budget of only $14.7 billion for ship construction in fiscal 2010. For this administration, there is a question as to budget priorities.”

His voice added to the chattering around Washington in advance of this year’s budget, which some observers fear will include deep cuts that could not only reduce today’s fleet, but also kneecap the Navy’s shipbuilding and aircraft-buying plans.

“In reality, everybody knows a 313[-ship] fleet is a pipe dream based on defense investment — the numbers indicate the president of the Navy League is right,” said Mackenzie Eaglen, a defense analyst with the conservative Heritage Foundation. Top officials in the Pentagon and Congress spent so much time working on a formal fleet goal, they never built deep enough support for it, she said.

Still, Navy officials said the official goal is still at least 313.

That target was the product of then-Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Mullen, who unveiled it early in 2006 — after what he said was extensive analysis — and told Congress later that same year he expected the Navy to hit it by fiscal 2012. Mullen’s successor, Adm. Gary Roughead, said he wanted 313 as a “floor,” with the final number being even higher.

But in early 2009, when the Navy unveiled its budget request for the new fiscal year, Rear Adm. T.J. Blake said everything, including the 313-ship goal, was “subject to change” in the QDR and other Pentagon studies. And although the Navy was required by law to submit 30-year shipbuilding and aviation plans with its budget, it didn’t.

Since then, Roughead has reaffirmed his goal of 313 or more ships. As of Jan. 7, the Navy’s official count of its fleet was 287 ships.