Littorally?

It’s called a Littoral Combat Ship (LCS), and it is a U.S. Navy boat that was designed to move fast near shorelines (read: shallow waters), making it theoretically effective against potential Iranian mining and fast attacks in the area around the vulnerable Strait of Hormuz or perhaps honing in on the malignancy of Somali pirates on the prey. Theoretically. And theoretically, “It adds a relatively small and technologically advanced ship — part of what former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld envisioned as a lean, proficient military — to America’s traditional blue-water Navy of aircraft carriers and destroyers.” New York Times, April 5^th.

But is this expensive “maybe” addition to our fleet capacity yet another budget-busting cost-overrun? “One of the two $700 million ships completed so far has had a major leak and crack in its hull, while the other is at sea, testing equipment that is failing to distinguish underwater mines from glints of light on the waves. More ominously, a report late last year by the Pentagon’s top weapons tester said the ship ‘is not expected to be survivable in a hostile combat environment.” NY Times. Great! A combat ship that is not built to withstand combat?!

In these deficit reduction times, the LCS was one of those boats that would allow our Navy to do “more with less.” Able to operate alone and not part of a large fleet, this LCS was suppose to allow the new, leaner, meaner naval future to progress. “For a Pentagon that must make deep budget cuts — about $450 billion over the next decade, and possibly up to $1 trillion if Congress does not make alternative reductions — the shallow-water ship is a priority. Relatively inexpensive, at least compared with a $2 billion destroyer, it remains critical to the Navy’s goal of reaching a 300-ship fleet, assuming that all 55 littoral combat ships are built as planned. Right now the Navy has 285 ships, making it, as Mitt Romney, the leading Republican presidential candidate, points out, the smallest Navy since 1917.” NY Times.

Look at the numbers above. $2 billion for a destroyer?! An aircraft carrier costs two-and-a-half times more. How about a cool new plane, the F-35 that is going to replace a whole pile of our existing aircraft facing obsolescence: The government now projects that the total cost to develop, buy and operate the Lockheed Martin Corp F-35 Joint Strike Fighter will be $1.51 trillion over the next 50-plus years, according to a Pentagon document obtained by Reuters….The new baseline forecasts the average cost of the F-35 fighter, including research and development (R&D) and inflation, at $135 million per plane, plus an additional $26 million for the F135 engine built by Pratt & Whitney, a unit of United Technologies Corp.” Reuters, April 2^nd. Hey, a trillion here and a trillion there, and sooner or later, you are talking real money.

We don’t have to worry about terrorists destroying our country or a nuclear attack from Iran or North Korea. We’re destroying ourselves in a deficit frenzy that will allow national bankruptcy to do us all in. We are addicted to being the world’s policeman. We are infatuated with attacking nations and then insisting on regime change and our boots on the ground. We just have this self-control spending problem. I guess we can just print more money!

I’m Peter Dekom, and I never cease to be amazed at how seldom common sense is a factor in these decisions or how somehow cost containment of a military that spends almost half the world’s military budget is remotely un-American.