Free Republic

Over lunch at the Four Seasons during a hectic week in New York, a former secretary of the Navy, John Lehman, shared his alarm about America's security. "We're building only five ships a year; we're on the way to a 150-ship Navy" he says. In his view, that is courting disaster. "That is not enough to cover our security requirements," he says. "Seventy-percent of the world is covered by water. We no longer have basing rights around the world. If you have combat operations going on you need air cover and support 24 hours a day, seven days a week,...