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Posted on 07/12/2021 10:06:57 PM PDT by MAGA2017
A new report prepared by Marine Lt. Gen. Robert Schmidle and Rear Adm. Mark Montgomery, both retired, for members of Congress paints a portrait of the Navy as an institution adrift. The report, first reported by the Journal and commissioned by Sen. Tom Cotton, Reps. Mike Gallagher, Dan Crenshaw and Jim Banks, concludes that the surface Navy is not focused on preparing for war and is weathering a crisis in leadership and culture.
The impetus for the report was a series of recent catastrophes—a ship burning in San Diego last year; two destroyer collisions in the Pacific in 2017. Were these isolated events? Or did they indicate “larger institutional issues that are degrading the performance of the entire naval surface force”? The report surveyed active and recently retired service members of various ranks, conducting 77 candid hourlong interviews. A key finding: “Many sailors found their leadership distracted, captive to bureaucratic excess, and rewarded for the successful execution of administrative functions” rather than core competencies of war.
“I guarantee you every unit in the Navy is up to speed on their diversity training,” said one recently retired senior enlisted leader. “I’m sorry that I can’t say the same of their ship-handling training.”
Adm. Montgomery told me in an interview over the weekend that when he was a junior officer in the 1980s there was “an intense focus” on a likely confrontation with the Soviet navy—learning about classes of ships or the missiles aboard. After decades without a peer adversary at sea, “the same focus is not permeating the Navy today.”
The report also details a deep culture of risk aversion: If the missiles start flying, will a destroyer captain be ready to make quick decisions and take calculated risks, even if his communications are jammed and he can’t reach his superiors?
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
You betcha we’ll be ready!
We’ll have more trannies than any other navy in the world. Every seaman will be thoroughly trained in Critical Race Theory and will know that America is irredeemably racist. We will have the best maternity flight suits for female aviators.
Well, that depends. Are they stocked up on rainbow flags and glitter?
Commanders have less authority but brutal accountability. In the report, sailors expressed “near universal disdain” for a “one mistake Navy” that defenestrates leaders who make an error. It’s a “drag on retention, lethality and morale.” Former Navy Secretary John Lehman ticks off in the report the five-star admirals who won World War II and their mistakes: Bill Halsey “was constantly getting in trouble for bending the rules or drinking too much”; Chester Nimitz “put his first command on the rocks”; Ernie King was “a womanizer.” They were punished at times, but Navy leadership always realized “these were very, very promising” officers. None, he concludes, could have made it past captain in today’s Navy.
Note also an illustration that captured this mentality in practice from a recent piece in Proceedings magazine. During an overseas exercise (the article doesn’t say when), a U.S. destroyer and a British frigate “traded some paint,” a minor run-in. “The next day at a gunnery exercise, the British ship was on the gun line, and the U.S. ship was headed to port to embark the investigation team.”
Then there is the unhealthy fear of bad publicity. After negative news stories, the report found, “the senior ranks are perceived as quick to sacrifice junior personnel” to save their own tails. Discipline is “bent to the unsteady whims of public perception, not the Navy’s own standards and regulations.”
A command master chief told sailors to “clap like we’re at a strip club” when Vice President Mike Pence came aboard the carrier. He resigned, his 30-year career ending after one misjudgment. Admirals “hide in foxholes at the first sight of Military.com and the Military Times,” said one intelligence officer.
China will be the big topic when Carlos Del Toro, President Biden’s nominee for Navy secretary, appears before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday. Perhaps Mr. Del Toro, a former destroyer captain, can shake the Navy awake. As the new report notes in closing, there isn’t much time for learning once war is under way.
They’ll be terribly outequipped in the rubber phallus category, they need to rush order more to maintain parity!
My immediate response to that question is: “Don’t Ask!”
...meaning Heck No, we won’t be ready, certainly not a ground war anywhere. Biden’s Navy is far too worried about PC-BS.
As soon as Heels Up is the Commander in Chief we’ll find outt.
I suppose that our bunch of homos and tranny’s will just scare the hell out of them. OH! Sorry! Is that “hate speech”?
Prepared? Not likely. Appears they need to sort out their preferred genders and pronouns, etc.
Back then we had the Soviets. We didn’t really have anyone to worry about the past 30 years. Now would be a good time for China to seize Taiwan. Let’s be honest. Will our navy be able to beat China? I think that’s going to be a question mark. 5 years ago, I would say no way because we are that much more advanced. But we’ve gone insane since then so China would win by default (assuming nuclear weapons are off limits).
I don’t think any branch of the military or division or company needs to worry. There aren’t really enough white supremacists around to mount that much of an offensive. We have already won the next war.
Heaven help us if the enemy has good gaydar!
Today’s navy under SlowJoe is much more about semen than seamen.
That’s what the glitter’s for. Chaff.
Personally, I think one of the biggest national defense questions is not about conventional warfare. It’s “Will the PRC have any ethical restraints precluding its use of biological warfare?”.
Unfortunately, I don’t think it will. Further, I don’t think we’d use a nuclear response - and they probably don’t think we would either.
Don’t drop the soap.......
Read about the Doolittle reforms after WWII. It left our military badly prepared for combat. We paid a heavy price in the early part of the Korean War. This PC nonsense is even worse.
No, they will not.
The military has to follow orders. Democrats are fighting the last war, and using the military
as a social experiment.
We Americans need to prep for the next War.
Democrats are our biggest enemies. Chinese
will be a walk in the park.
American hegemony ends when we lose our first nuclear aircraft carrier.
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