There is some reality here. To start with, US Navy ship procurement has turned into chaos. There are far too many individuals with a say in ship design, and there is no design stability, which drives the cost of ships through the roof.
Imagine how expensive a car would be if at intervals during its assembly, a half dozen major changes were made to its engines, power train, body, electrical system, interior design, and even wheels. You would end up with a million dollar Frankenstein monster that was a technical mess.
There has to be design and budget finalization. This means that any new changes or modifications must be made to the next ship design, as the current ship design and budget are frozen, and must be built to existing specifications and the budgeted cost. And *then* to start to actually build the ship.
This being said, to put it bluntly, the US Navy needs more expendable ships. As Gates pointed out, sending billion dollar ships to police up some pirates is not cost effective. By using “cheap ships” to do that work, that are low cost to build, low cost to maintain, and low cost to use, the good ships are kept in reserve.
An excellent comparison is the Air Force’s B-52 bombers. Cheap, easy to maintain, reliable. Even though we have advanced bombers, the B-52s still do most of the work, because we just don’t need all the expensive high tech bombers, with expensive maintenance, and expensive use, to do ordinary and boring jobs. We should keep them in reserve for when they are needed, and save a fortune.
Now here’s the real zinger. Our potential enemies #1 enemy is the US Navy. And naval strategy tells us that the first engagement with your enemy will often determine the outcome of the war. But if our peacetime front line are “cheap ships”, it is a problem for the enemy.
If they hit our “cheap ships”, it would be as if the Japanese had hit a different Hawaiian port, and blown up a bunch of tugboats. They would have wasted their attack, and the US Navy would have really nailed them.
With most of our “high quality” navy in Reserve, to attack our “cheap ships” would be insane. And yet such ships would be just fine for doing the ordinary, boring jobs, like policing pirates.
This being said, to put it bluntly, the US Navy needs more expendable ships. As Gates pointed out, sending billion dollar ships to police up some pirates is not cost effective. By using “cheap ships” to do that work, that are low cost to build, low cost to maintain, and low cost to use, the good ships are kept in reserve. That is not what those ships are built for. When the balloon goes up, those billion dollar ships are the ones that will be protecting our CVN's from air power and submarine threats.
In the 1940's, when the Japanese caught America flat-footed in both Pearl Harbor and the Phillipines, the 1940's style of war allowed America the luxury to spend years building up its might from nearly scratch.
In the 21st Century style of warfare, you have no such luxury. The entire war may be decided in a couple of hours in the first major engagement.
With most of our “high quality” navy in Reserve, to attack our “cheap ships” would be insane. And yet such ships would be just fine for doing the ordinary, boring jobs, like policing pirates.
The only thing that you need to "police pirates" is the political will that the Russians showed last week. Right now, somewhere off the coast of Somalia, an inflatable boatful boatful of pirates is slowly dying of thirst, cast adrift by the Russian Navy.
Once you have the political guts to kill them, dealing with pirates requires nothing more high tech than tramp steamers fitted out as Q-Ships.
