Bryan Clark, a senior fellow at Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, disagrees with the CSIS findings about flat funding for training. The current budget request for Fiscal Year 2018, Clark said, increases training funding to $977 million, or roughly $3.5 million per ship.

In 2010, the People’s Liberation Army Navy began operating at a greater pace and further afield than in any time in their recent history, which prompted the U.S. Navy to pour more assets into the Western Pacific, Bryan Clark, a naval analyst at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments and former aide to retired former Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jonathan Greenert, told USNI News.

Naval analyst Bryan Clark, of Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessment, states, “As the total number of ships operating over the last decade has gone down, the operational tempo has remained the same or increased. Fleet training has been reduced 20 to 25 percent over the last decade. There is a systemic problem overall that the surface Navy is getting worked a lot harder than its been designed to do.”

In the past two decades, the number of Navy ships has decreased about 20 percent, though the time they are deployed has remained the same, according to a 2015 report by the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a Washington research group funded by the Defense Department. The increased burden has fallen disproportionately on the 7th Fleet.

There have been other, more recent reports. The Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments said almost two years ago that the “demand signals” have too long exceeded the resources available to meet them.

In the past two decades, the number of Navy ships has decreased by about 20 percent, though the time they are deployed has remained the same, according to a 2015 report by the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a Washington research group funded by the Defense Department. The increased burden has fallen disproportionately on the Seventh Fleet.