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| For
Immediate Release: March 30, 2004 |
Contact: |
Harald Stavenas |
Statement of
Chairman Roscoe Bartlett
Subcommittee Hearing on Navy Projection Forces
This afternoon we will receive testimony from witnesses representing the Department of the Navy, the Congressional Research Service, and the shipbuilding industry on the President's fiscal year 2005 budget request for the Navy's shipbuilding program and force structure.
Before we proceed, I want to commend our men and women serving in all of our military services throughout the world, coalition personnel, and those supporting them, for their dedication and professionalism.
The security challenges confronting our nation today are complex. We face the necessity to balance the expenditures to meet today's military requirements with the investment for the future through research and development. We also face the necessity to reach the proper balance between required capabilities and maintaining the shipbuilding industrial base, within our constrained resources.
Our purpose today is to ensure that, for fiscal year 2005 and beyond, the Navy and Marine Corps continue to be provided the proper resources to achieve the right balance of force structure and capabilities to meet new challenges that surely lay ahead.
Fundamental to this issue is determining what the present and projected threats are, and deriving from the best available information what capabilities are required to meet those threats. As was demonstrated in both Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom, any future conflict will require the contribution of all the military services. This means, as we seek to determine what capabilities are required by the Navy and Marine Corps, we must also bear in mind the contributions of the other Services.
In my mind, we have no peer adversary now and I question if we will have one in the foreseeable future. Lacking a major threat, in my opinion, this nation should increase emphasis on research and development of truly innovative capabilities for the future rather than rushing to field the next generation capability immediately.
Secretary Young, I am very pleased that you have agreed to be with us today. I want to continue our dialog from our recent hearing on research and development to gain a sense that the Navy's emerging force structure results from valid, realistic requirements and new concepts of operation rather than seeking an arbitrary number of ships in the force structure.
I have a number of concerns. To mention a few:
In my view, given state-of-the-art technology available, we have too many people on our ships. Further, we seem to have a new plan every year for how many and what type of ships we want to build. Finally, costs seem to be an independent variable - ship costs seem to grow dramatically with each year's budget submission.
Secretary Young, I look forward to your testimony and comments, and those of the other witnesses, on the details of the process that gets us to the mix of ships - numbers, size, missions, etc., that are assumed in this budget.
As we begin this hearing today, the U. S. Navy now operates a combat fleet of about 291 surface ships and submarines, although the recent Quadrennial Defense Review recommended a force structure that equates to approximately 310 ships.
The budget request includes a forecast of a low of 290 ships in fiscal year 2005, before rising to 309 by fiscal year 2009. While some argue that the end of the Cold War and the improved combat capabilities of today's modern warships permit a much smaller Navy than would have been required only a decade ago, it's important to note that the Navy's peacetime forward presence requirements have not changed significantly since the end of the Cold War. Indeed, in some respects, those presence requirements for today's smaller Navy have increased as illustrated by continuing large-scale presence missions in the Mediterranean, the Western Pacific, the Indian Ocean, and most recently in the Persian Gulf region during Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom.
For fiscal year 2005, the Navy's shipbuilding budget request is $11.1 billion. This year, the budget request includes nine new ships. From fiscal years 2005 through 2009, 48 new construction ships are planned. To accomplish this objective, we will need to overcome challenges to the increased costs of new construction such as those in the Virginia Class submarine and LPD-17 programs.
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