Aegis Ambivalence: Navy, Hill Grapple Over Missile Defense Mission

[unhappycamper]

http://breakingdefense.com/2015/06/aegis-ambivalence-navy-hill-grapple-over-missile-defense-mission/



Aegis Ambivalence: Navy, Hill Grapple Over Missile Defense Mission
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr. on June 30, 2015 at 4:27 PM

WASHINGTON: Sometimes success is its own punishment. Shooting down ballistic missiles is one of the Navy’s most high-tech, high-profile capabilities — and it’s one of the most popular with Congress as well. But as demand for missile defense increases at what the Chief of Naval Operations has called an “unsustainable” pace, it’s an ever-greater burden on a fleet that has plenty of other missions. If the Navy met every theater commander’s requests for ballistic missile defense, it would take 77 Aegis cruisers and destroyers — out of a total fleet of 84.

“Would I love to give this to somebody else?” Rear Adm. Peter Fanta, the Navy’s director of surface warfare, asked rhetorically in a recent conversation with reporters. “It would greatly alleviate the pressures on my budget — but I also understand everybody is under those same pressures.”

Within that tightening budget, the Navy has set priorities that put it at odds with powerful players on the Hill. Now ballistic missile defense has gotten entangled with one of the most contentious naval questions before Congress: the Navy’s plan to take 11 of its 22 aging Aegis cruisers out of service (temporarily) for a multi-year modernization. Five of those ships have BMD capability now — but they won’t have it when the upgrade’s done.

“That’s purely a fiscal decision,” Fanta said: The Navy can’t afford BMD on those ships.


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'A Global Force For Good'? Not really.

You're bitching that you can't take Ticonderoga-class cruisers (built in the 1990s) out of service to upgrade them. And then you bitch that you can only build new $2 billion dollar destroyers but you don't have the money.

me a fucking river.