I won’t bother to critique or even excerpt this article at RealClearDefense by James Holmes advising the Biden Administration not to skimp on the U. S. Navy’s budget. All I will say is that our strategic position is that we’re the only country in the world with Atlantic and Pacific ports it can use year-round. We would be very, very foolish not to capitalize on that competitive advantage. Not only does it enable the U. S. to apply force anywhere in the world, it allows us to deploy manpower and materiel anywhere in the world. We underresource the Navy at our peril.
There are lots of other places to reduce military spending. Reducing the size of the flag and general officer corps would be a good place to start.
And the number of wandering civilian employees, contractors etc.
As to policy, a Navy capable of keeping the sea lanes open and destroying the Enemy. Anything else is superfluous.
Ship building from design to cutting steel is a way to stimulate reopening factories if wwe remember to leave China out of the supply chain.
Our budget deficit for FY 2022 is projected to be $1.8T. Thereafter it falls to $1.4T, but it stays at that level indefinitely. There is no money for an enlarged defense budget.
China and Russia are not running deficits. China’s ship-building capacity is 10 times ours, and even land-power Russia can build more ships than we can. Moreover, our ships are poorly maintained, undermanned, and deploy for excessive amounts of time. SecDef Austin’s racial vendetta is not helping, either.
So, it looks like we are about to become the second most powerful navy in the world, with no ability to catch up. At some point, there will have to be a reprioritization of our naval deployments. One thinks that cruises in the Baltic, Black, and East and South China Seas should be reevaluated.