News

As China continues with its policy of expansionism in the region, combining military intimidation and economic inducements toward its neighbors, we publish in 3 parts an instructive interview by the Sankei Shimbun’s Washington bureau chief, Yoshinari Kurose with Dr. Toshi Yoshihara. Yoshihara is a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, an independent, non-profit think tank based in Washington, DC. The center specializes in US defense planning, budget, and strategy.

Jan Van Tol, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments in Washington, D.C., said numerous lookouts should have alerted the McCain’s crew to any danger.

A senior defense analyst warns that the Army needs to “proceed with urgency” in closing capability gaps with potential adversaries. “To be blunt, I do not believe we are ready for the challenges that exist today,” said David E. Johnson, a retired Army colonel and senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments who teaches at Georgetown University and the Modern War Institute at the U.S. Military Academy.

A procurement tax would provide Navy leadership with money to reallocate to programs that realize they need additional funding after the budget is finalized, Bryan Clark, senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments told Inside the Navy Aug. 18. "The problem you could run into is if you're too rigorous in [the] 5 percent, 10 percent [cut] for every program line no matter what, then you could end up with a problem . . . which is a program that was close to bone that says, 'I'll cut 10 percent but that means my thing's delayed for two years or I'm about to break a contract," he said. To avoid a schedule or contract breach the Navy would need to work on a case-by-case basis, Clark continued. Clark said typically when a tax like this is imposed the assumption is this is a CNO slush fund. In reality, it usually ends up being the fund that is used to fix problems with programs, he added.

The details of how the collisions occurred remain unkown, but incidents such as those with the McCain and Fitzgerald incidents are troubling, said Jan van Tol, a retired commander of three war ships who now serves as an analyst with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

“Navy destroyers are remarkably nimble and responsive, including rapid acceleration ability, thus should certainly be able to get out of the way of almost anything approaching ‘too close,’” van Tol said in an email.

“Such close quarters situations should NEVER be allowed to develop without various watchstanders and watchteams being well aware that they are developing,” he said.

Between 1998 and 2015, the Navy shrank by 20 per cent to 271 ships, while the number of vessels deployed overseas remained at about 100 ships, Bryan Clark, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessment, wrote in a 2015 article for The National Interest. Clark concluded that each ship has to work 20 per cent more to meet demand.