It takes chutzpah to blame a failure of basic seamanship on the need for more taxpayer dollars. Sounds right out of the military-industrial complex lobbying playbook. Maybe we should spend more on the Navy. But before we blame these collisions on that, why not first look at the leadership aboard these two ships. Was Sanchez the right man for captain or could the Navy have chosen someone better? How was he selected and did diversity play a role?
Chances are that the University of Puerto Rico in San Juan (the skipper's school) doesn't have courses in seamanship. And I'll bet the Exec's school at the University of Bayamon doesn't either. Also makes me wonder if the two Sanchezs (Skipper and Exec) are related? Seamanship 101!
Nailed it. The reason it sounds right out of the lobbyist playbook is that we have some prime choice DC swamp-critter lobbyists quoted in the article, e.g. Bryan McGrath, deputy director of the Center for American Seapower at the Hudson Institute in Washington.
Or this guy Bryan Clark, "former special assistant to the chief of naval operations, the Navy’s highest ranking military officer." - “It can all be taken back to this major root cause, which is supply not being able to keep up with demand,” adds Mr. Clark, who is now a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA).
This is prime deep-state stuff here.
Problem is fixing lack of seamanship is a matter of personnel training conducted by leadership, including a lot of time at sea, providing ship maneuvering drills. Takes time, not lots of acquisition system money or even better, inside the beltway contractor support, which is where the big slice of pie is going these days.