Wicker-McCain Bill To Ease Navy O&M Rules On Collision Course With Appropriators

Wicker-McCain Bill To Ease Navy O&M Rules On Collision Course With Appropriators
Wicker-McCain Bill To Ease Navy O&M Rules On Collision Course With Appropriators

UPDATED with Harrison & Hunter analysis WASHINGTON: To prevent a repeat of last year’s lethal accidents, Senate authorizers Roger Wicker and John McCain want to give the Navy unprecedented flexibility to retain experienced officers and spend readiness funds. But the provision to let the Navy spend Operations & Maintenance money as late as in the fiscal…

Reviewing The Navy’s Strategic Readiness Review: What’s Right, What’s Missing

Reviewing The Navy’s Strategic Readiness Review: What’s Right, What’s Missing
Reviewing The Navy’s Strategic Readiness Review: What’s Right, What’s Missing

The Navy’s new Strategic Readiness Review lays out a bold program to fix the fleet after a summer of deadly collisions. Commissioned and championed by Navy Secretary Richard Spencer, the SSR (as it’s already initialized) will shape the debate in the Pentagon and in Congress for 2018. So we asked submariner-turned-thinktanker Bryan Clark to review…

SecNav Spencer Seeks Repeal of Sen. Inouye Statute After Pacific Collisions

SecNav Spencer Seeks Repeal of Sen. Inouye Statute After Pacific Collisions
SecNav Spencer Seeks Repeal of Sen. Inouye Statute After Pacific Collisions

WASHINGTON: Navy Secretary Richard Spencer has asked legislators to repeal an obscure statute that he says hinders Navy readiness in the Pacific, where accidents this summer killed 17 sailors. Armed Services committee leaders seem receptive, but it’s the appropriators who’ll have to change the provision in question, which was written by their late, great chairman…

SecNav Spencer Seeks Goldwater-Nichols Changes After Deadly Collisions

SecNav Spencer Seeks Goldwater-Nichols Changes After Deadly Collisions
SecNav Spencer Seeks Goldwater-Nichols Changes After Deadly Collisions

PENTAGON: Navy Secretary Richard Spencer wants to change the law that’s governed the armed forces since 1986, the Goldwater-Nichols Act, to restore more autonomy to the services. Only by letting the Navy say “no” to joint combatant commanders’ insatiable demands for deployments can the fleet get adequate training, ship maintenance, and crew rest, argues the…