Elevating the mission by modernizing the E-2D to keep threats at bay
The E-2D Airborne Command and Control surveillance platform provides prime protection of nations, including land-locked ones.
The Trump defense budget takes significant steps to move from a focus on regional conflicts and counter-insurgency to a focus on great power conflicts. But the Army, Navy Air Force and Marines clearly are struggling with this balance.
By Mark Cancian
CAPITOL HILL: Amidst a bipartisan lovefest of a confirmation hearing, Navy Secretary nominee Richard Spencer quietly and consistently downplayed the idea of a 355-ship fleet. The Navy now has 276 ships from supercarriers to minesweepers, President Trump promised 350 on the campaign trail, and the Chief of Naval Operations has officially assessed that he needs 355.…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
WASHINGTON: All hands, brace for disappointment. The president’s promised naval buildup won’t begin in the 2018 budget out next week — or maybe ever. Sure, before the election, candidate Donald Trump promised a 350-ship Navy. Sure, just this morning, House Speaker Paul Ryan repeated the 350 figure. Sure, this week the Chief of Naval Operations…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
NATIONAL HARBOR: How much firepower can fit on the Navy’s smallest warship? With the Chinese and Russian navies on the rise, American admirals want more “distributed lethality” from everything in the fleet, especially the controversial Littoral Combat Ship. Here at the Navy League’s annual Sea-Air-Space conference, the manufacturers of the two very different versions of…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
WASHINGTON: Light carriers. Robot PT boats. Unmanned subs. A congressionally chartered study, the Alternative Future Fleet Platform Architecture Study, “does not represent any official Navy position,” but offers a surprisingly bold vision for the future of the US Navy. The study, by a “Navy Project Team” of officers, civil servants, and contractors free to brainstorm without…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
WASHINGTON: The Navy needs a vastly larger fleet — 414 warships — to win a great-power war, well above today’s 274 ships or even the Navy’s unfunded plan for 355, the think-tank MITRE calculates in a congressionally-chartered study. That ideal fleet would include: 14 aircraft carriers instead of today’s 11; 160 cruisers and destroyers instead…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
Orbital power: Shaping national security from space
Northrop Grumman is one of the only companies with expertise and capability to design, build and operate systems across an array of orbits.
UPDATED with McCain praise WASHINGTON: The Navy needs a bigger fleet of smaller ships than envisioned in its official Force Structure Assessment, says a congressionally-chartered study from the Center for Strategic & Budgetary Assessments. CSBA emphatically agrees with the Navy that the focus needs to shift from day-to-day counter-terrorism and presence operations to deterring (and if need be,…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
Planning for a 21st century Navy of unmanned vessels, distributed operations, and great power competition has collapsed. Trapped by a 355-ship force goal, a reduced budget, and a fixed counting methodology, the Navy can’t find a feasible solution to the difficult question of how its forces should be structured. As a result, the Navy postponed…
By Mark Cancian and Adam Saxton