Romney plans Navy buildup

[nadinbrzezinski]

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney wants to buy three more submarines over the next three years as part of his plan to boost shipbuilding to 15 ships per year, he said Monday in a speech at the Virginia Military Institute.

Romney also plans to add an 11th aircraft carrier wing, build more Marine Corps amphibious ships, F/A-18 Super Hornets, a missile defense ship and a frigate.

The Republican spoke in detail about his plans to grow the Navy while adding few details about the other services in his speech to VMI Keydets billed as a national security address. Chris Cavas, Defense News’ naval ace, broke the story of Romney’s naval plans following an interview with John Lehman, a top Romney national security adviser and former Navy secretary.

http://www.dodbuzz.com/2012/10/09/romney-plans-navy-buildup/

Well, this is the second coming of Reagan... tell me why does the USSR come to mind?

[SingleSeatBiggerMeat]

1. John Lehman? Are You Serious?

What's the matter, Mitt couldn't get Bob Dornan to return his calls?

The last time I saw Lehman, he was the "Special Guest Speaker" at the VFW Post #653 in Flint Michigan for their annual Pig Pull.

That's funny.

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. Who did Lehman work for?

[SingleSeatBiggerMeat]

3. He was the "Boy Wonder" Secretary of the Navy under Reagan who was going to be President someday.

Now he is doing Denny Openings and VFW Speeches.

[nadinbrzezinski]

5. Why my reference to the second coming of reagan

Welcome to DU by the way

[lpbk2713]

4. Mittens doesn't want to be left out.

If Ford, Raygun and Poppy Bush can have A/C carriers named after them, well by golly Mittens will
have one named after him too. And if the law won't allow it he will just have the law changed.

[nadinbrzezinski]

6. Yup, to think they thought Carter would be insulted by a sub

But Carter served, in the Sub service. I am sure the perceived insult went over heads of chickenhawks

[Missycim]

10. I just hope the next Aircraft Carrier will be

called the Enterprise

[Angleae]

21. They've already named the next one.

USS John F Kennedy. After that it will be yet more politicians.

[HubertHeaver]

7. Mitt will not be able to sucker that many people into the Armed Farces.

He will have to institute a form of draft. Something along the lines of "jail or basic training" for young offenders (say 16 to 21 years of age) who have been identified as offenders in his "school to prison charter system for poor people".

Note to the easily offended. I am a veteran, '68 to '72. I worship neither the armed services nor the individuals in those services.

[nadinbrzezinski]

8. depends on where the economy is

we have been having an econ draft... oh and that is actually going on

[HubertHeaver]

18. very true. But he will need far more than those conditions will provide.

The Navy can barely crew the vessels they already have. Mitt wants to add 11 more?

He would also need the people to work in the shipyards. More Big Government spending.

And he wants to cut taxes.

[nadinbrzezinski]

19. Oh no doubt

we also have a lot of formerly done by military stuff, kp comes to mind, done by contractors. That does not help

[haele]

9. So, is this his grand plan to get employment numbers up? Subsidize a socialist system?

How does his "administration" plan to man and maintain all these military toys? It takes a lot of training and dedication to maintain a military - and you don't want mercs and hourly techs manning your carriers and other military weapons - and holding your military secrets - you want a disciplined workforce who have a vested interest (i.e. - commissioned and enlisted) in doing so.

Otherwise, it will become an army sold to the highest bidder. (Not that the US military isn't used as a Corporate weapon on a regular basis anyway, but at least the vast majority of them believe they are supporting the US and are doing their "patriotic" duty.)

Your other option to man this GOP boondoggle is to require a minimum military service of 4 - 6 years to qualify for citizenship, beginning either out of high school or at age 18.

The other thing that isn't discussed in this plan is how they are going to handle the rising costs of military benefits - when someone "puts their life on hold" to serve the military, it cannot be handled the same as hiring someone to work at Fed-Ex for hourly wages. The requirements for the constant training and re-enforcement to be able to react properly in an un-anticipated combat situation alone would require a significant amount of "on the job" hours that no private business could make a profit putting the majority of their employees through. You can't privatize the military and keep the quality of the product up. Even Vietnam era draftees required thousands of dollars and a couple months of training before they could be deployed. And the cost of the support and logistics to keep them going - if companies don't want to provide health benefits now, do you think a "privatized" military would get significant benefits from their companies?
Rumsfeld was wrong implying "Soldiers are fungible" - while the tasking numbers in the military doing a specific task might be fungible, the individual soldier or sailor isn't. You can't break a trained soldier and replace him or her without significant waste and costs. While the majority of the time a soldier or sailor that isn't deployed is "wasting time twiddling their thumbs" doing drills, cleaning, basic maintenance, and hopefully getting training, when they're deployed, it's a far different story of overwork and the stress of being constantly alert for the next potential major event they'd need to react to.

That's why the US military is so socialized, spending the time and money to provide so many benefits for it's members and their families, even though it has a strict hierarchy and the time actually "doing military things" may be limited. If you don't take care of the troops, there's no reason for them to follow your orders and maintain the discipline critical for a loyal fighting force.
There will be more of them who will go through the thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of training, but walk off and take that training to work somewhere else once they get disgusted, that will sell anything they can get their hands on to anyone to pay the basic bills, or just frag your ass for attempting to make them do something they just might not want to do, no matter how critical the tactics or strategy in your orders may be for the safety of the US.

Honestly, the majority of the military is much saner - they do not drool at the thought of serving Neo-Con aspirations, but they joined either for for actual patriotism or for opportunities to advance themselves. And most don't want to sit around waiting for the next conflict, twiddling thumbs with mercenaries for low wages and no benefits.

Haele

[nadinbrzezinski]

12. you expect that chicken hawk to know that?

This said, quite a bit of the military is already privatized, logistics comes to mind, as well as CONUS based maintainance

[haele]

15. The privatization is in flux - after 10 years, the Pentagon has been noting where it doesn't work -

and are directing the program offices to in-source a lot of work they used to outsource - if it's 40 hr. year in/year out regular work that requires an understanding of the system, a military background and/or life-cycle understanding. Especially in Program Management and Acquisition. "At notice" logistics, facilities maintenance, trouble desks for commercial-based systems, R&D - most of that can still be privatized, but the military is leaning more to a career-based workforce in areas that corporations used to claim they could do cheaper - but with not as much quality and follow-on support (which ended up making it far more expensive to privatize over the years).

The Acquisition/Life-cycle world in the DoD is changing pretty rapidly. That might be why some of the Neo-Cons and their Corporate Investors are panicking - the majority of the military itself doesn't want to be used as a welfare vehicle for investment firms anymore. Yes, you'll still get a few Pentagon types who want to be part of Carlyle Group, or on the rotating BoD of the big 10, but even then - there's only so many spots open at those levels, and most of the retired 3- and 4-Star types who got themselves placed in those positions over the past 10 years aren't going to be leaving any time soon.

It just isn't as worth it to sell out as it used to be. Most of the "Birds" and "Stars" are figuring out they'd have a better chance at retired wealth if they double-dip in Federal service than fight the entrenched fight with the Rumsfeld era Neo-Con syncophants for corporate power positions or "think tanks" - hence, another reason to stop outsourcing to private companies.

Haele

[nadinbrzezinski]

16. Good points

i know it was a disaster during the war, no pun....story to follow

[Yavin4]

17. Here's The Republican Answer to Your Post

Promise incoming recruits the moon. Promise them generous benefits and bonuses to get them to enlist. Then, when it comes time for them to collect, you screw them over by saying, "sorry, we spent all of your benefit money on tax cuts for the wealthy".

[Earth_First]

11. He had better install a bigger bathtub...

'cause he won't be floating any new ships as Commander in Chief

[alcibiades_mystery]

13. Too broke for health care, but we need three more submarines

Gimme a fucking break. What are the submarines going to do, protect consulates in Benghazi?

[nadinbrzezinski]

14. Of the whole plan that makes SOME sense

and that has to do with the uptempo in the Subforce. They are actually short, chronically, for what they have been asked to do. Also early LA class boats are near the end of their operational life.

After that coockoo with your coockoo puffs

(And no this is not Benghazi, think Beijing, why the Navy has seen a huge transfer of assets to the Pacific)

But... this could be done with the sequestration that is coming, albeit over three to five years for a single boat

No what Romney wants to do is the 600 Ship Reagan Navy

[underpants]

20. The Navy in particular is a cash cow for the South (read:Virginia) but WE MUST DEFEAT THE SPANIARDS

[sarcasmo]

22. With middle class taxes.

[nadinbrzezinski]

23. But of course

and this reminds me of the USSR.

[Zalatix]

24. Would be nice if Obama had revitalized the space program

Go for a massive drive for space colonization. Of course many people say that's impossible. But then putting a man on the moon was impossible for Europe when Isaac Newton wrote his laws of gravity.