Special Fund Could Save Billions On New Nuke Subs: Forbes, CBO

Special Fund Could Save Billions On New Nuke Subs: Forbes, CBO
Special Fund Could Save Billions On New Nuke Subs: Forbes, CBO

WASHINGTON: Paying for the Navy’s new nuclear missile subs through a special fund with special authorities “could potentially save several hundred million dollars per submarine,” according to a recent Congressional Budget Office study. House Armed Services seapower subcommittee chairman Randy Forbes, father of the National Sea-Based Deterrence Fund, is unsurprisingly touting this little noticed conclusion…

More Ships Can’t Save Overworked Navy; Basing Ships Abroad Can: CSBA

More Ships Can’t Save Overworked Navy; Basing Ships Abroad Can: CSBA
More Ships Can’t Save Overworked Navy; Basing Ships Abroad Can: CSBA

CAPITOL HILL: The Navy and Marines are deploying at a pace they can’t sustain, says a report released today.And no feasible defense budget can build a big enough force to solve the problem, the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments says. Even the Navy’s famously optimistic 30-year shipbuilding plan — denounced by House seapower chairman Randy…

House Divided: Budget Deal Passes, But HASC Leaders Split

House Divided: Budget Deal Passes, But HASC Leaders Split
House Divided: Budget Deal Passes, But HASC Leaders Split

UPDATED Deal passed, Forbes voted “no” WASHINGTON: With hours to go before the House vote on the budget deal — assuming it doesn’t get derailed — the Republican caucus is deeply divided. A central selling point is the deal ups the defense budget, but one leading legislator on national security issues, House seapower subcommittee chairman Rep.…

Mixed Messages? Navy Welcomes Chinese In Mayport, Deters In Pacific

Mixed Messages? Navy Welcomes Chinese In Mayport, Deters In Pacific
Mixed Messages? Navy Welcomes Chinese In Mayport, Deters In Pacific

WASHINGTON: Are we giving Beijing mixed messages? On the one hand, the US Navy is getting ready — maybe — to challenge Chinese claims around their artificial islets in the South China Sea. On the other hand, the Navy’s also preparing to welcome three Chinese warships at Naval Station Mayport in Florida two weeks from…

Carriers Crucial In War With China – But Air Wing Is All Wrong: Hudson

Carriers Crucial In War With China – But Air Wing Is All Wrong: Hudson
Carriers Crucial In War With China – But Air Wing Is All Wrong: Hudson

UPDATE with Forbes statement WASHINGTON: At $4.7 billion over budget, Ford-class aircraft carriers have taken a beating in Congress. This morning, though, the House Seapower subcommittee chairman will roll out a report from the conservative Hudson Institute that’s a ringing defense of the carrier — but which also contains a stinging indictment of the aircraft that fly…

US Hasn’t Challenged Chinese ‘Islands’ Since 2012

US Hasn’t Challenged Chinese ‘Islands’ Since 2012
US Hasn’t Challenged Chinese ‘Islands’ Since 2012

UPDATED: Adds House Letter To White House CAPITOL HILL: Defense officials acknowledged today that the US has not directly challenged the sovereignty of China’s artificial islands in the South China Sea for at least three years. US aircraft have not flown over the artificial islets. Nor have US ships sailed within 12 nautical miles of one…

Why America Needs The Long Range Strike Bomber: Rep. Forbes

Why America Needs The Long Range Strike Bomber: Rep. Forbes
Why America Needs The Long Range Strike Bomber: Rep. Forbes

As the Pentagon prepares to announce the winner of one of its most significant  contracts since the F-35 contract award in 2001 — the Long Range Strike Bomber — it faces a myriad of challenges and very high expectations. A Boeing-Lockheed Martin team is competing against Northrop Grumman, builder of the B-2 bomber, for the $25 billion prize.…

China’s More Worried About Own People, Says GOP Hawk

China’s More Worried About Own People, Says GOP Hawk
China’s More Worried About Own People, Says GOP Hawk

WASHINGTON: Randy Forbes pretty much looks like a hawk. The House seapower subcommittee chairman has fought for a bigger battle fleet with long-range drone bombers, called for China to be kicked out of the international RIMPAC wargames and blasted the Obama administration for its lack of a tough Pacific strategy. But does that mean China…

Forbes: White House Has No China Strategy; Here’s Mine

Forbes: White House Has No China Strategy; Here’s Mine
Forbes: White House Has No China Strategy; Here’s Mine

WASHINGTON: What’s the strategy for coping with what everyone on Capitol Hill and inside the Obama administration agrees is an increasingly assertive China? The White House can’t answer, Rep. Randy Forbes says, “because they don’t have it.” So, it’s fair to ask: what is Forbes’s strategy, then? The House seapower chairman’s outline for a “winning strategy” boils down…

Do Marines Have To Hitchhike At Sea? The Real Story

Do Marines Have To Hitchhike At Sea? The Real Story
Do Marines Have To Hitchhike At Sea? The Real Story

WASHINGTON: Is the US Navy really so short of warships that Marines must catch a ride on foreign vessels, like heavily armed hitchhikers? The answer is, well, sort of. Where there’s smoke, there’s often fire — the Marines definitely could use more amphibious warfare ships — but on this story, politicians, lobbyists, and some of…

Aegis Ashore: Navy Needs Relief From Land

Aegis Ashore: Navy Needs Relief From Land
Aegis Ashore: Navy Needs Relief From Land

CAPITOL HILL: Take my mission — please. The armed services are notorious for overselling their capabilities and grabbing turf to justify budgets. But when it comes to ballistic missile defense, the Navy feels so overburdened that it is talking up land-based alternatives as superior to its vaunted Aegis ships. [Click here for Part I of this…

Aegis Ambivalence: Navy, Hill Grapple Over Missile Defense Mission

Aegis Ambivalence: Navy, Hill Grapple Over Missile Defense Mission
Aegis Ambivalence: Navy, Hill Grapple Over Missile Defense Mission

WASHINGTON: Sometimes success is its own punishment. Shooting down ballistic missiles is one of the Navy’s most high-tech, high-profile capabilities — and it’s one of the most popular with Congress as well. But as demand for missile defense increases at what the Chief of Naval Operations has called an “unsustainable” pace, it’s an ever-greater burden…

From Skywarrior To UCLASS: Back To The Future Of Carrier-Based Strike?

From Skywarrior To UCLASS: Back To The Future Of Carrier-Based Strike?
From Skywarrior To UCLASS: Back To The Future Of Carrier-Based Strike?

WASHINGTON: Overstretched as they are, the Navy’s 10 aircraft carriers remain unequalled icons of American might. But the ugly truth is they’re not as mighty as they might be. The maximum range of carrier-borne strike aircraft has eroded over the last quarter century. Even the Navy’s future fighter, the F-35C, will have an unrefueled range of about 600…

Forbes Leads House Battle For Ohio Replacement Fund

Forbes Leads House Battle For Ohio Replacement Fund
Forbes Leads House Battle For Ohio Replacement Fund

UPDATE: Forbes’s amendment passed the House Wednesday night, by 321 votes to 111. WASHINGTON: Two powerful committees are headed for a rare House floor fight over a controversial fund to build new nuclear missile submarines. Rep. Randy Forbes and Rep. Joe Courtney, the chairman and top Democrat of the House Armed Services subcommittee on seapower,…