2008.11.18
Getting carried away
Virginia politicians are up in arms about the U.S. Navy's preliminary decision to shift a nuclear-powered carrier from Norfolk to Mayport, Fla. They're making much - too much - of the economic impact to the Norfolk region and the rest of the state. Not that moving the carrier, its thousands of personnel and the support facilities won't have an economic impact. It's just that such an impact should be secondary or tertiary to the decision.
In an editorial for later in the week, we'll argue that the No. 1 priority for the Pentagon in making this decision needs to be national security. How much security sense does it make for the entire East Coast carrier fleet to be based in one location? The next priority should be the impact on the federal budget. After those have been taken into consideration, then, perhaps, the Pentagon should consider the local economic impact.
But, even in tough economic times, the Pentagon is not a jobs program. Well, it shouldn't be, anyway.
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Having grown up in Hampton Roads, I always wondered why so much brute force was centralized like that. I always felt it made an ideal target for a terrorist act because of how much equipment and personnel was located there and how widespread the damage could be to the defense capability of the country with just a single, well-planned attack. Spreading the forces out to multiple locations makes mroe sense from a security standpoint, but less from a logistical one sometimes, because of the financial savings that can be realized by co-locating resources in a select few locations. But since Mayport already has several ships (although they would have to construct new facilities to handle the nuclear carrier), the primary impact of the move is mostly the local economic impact, although there could be some readiness impacts too depending on where the other ships in the carrier group are based. Honestly, reading the article sort of smacks of politicians wanting a trophy for their states, with each of them vying for the carrier as the ultimate mantle-piece to display.
Comment by Other John — November 18, 2008 @ 2:06 pm
The Navy force structure is currently 283 ships. On any given day 45-55% of those ships are underway/out of their homeport, so they are well dispersed on a regular basis (see http://www.navy.mil and look at Status of the Navy).
The Navy cannot currently meet its shipbuilding requirements to get to what they describe as the floor - a 313 ship Navy, nor do they have funding to overcome the looming strike fighter aircraft shortage.
The Navy EIS says the infrastructure construction requirements at Mayport will cost $671M (in today's dollars) and then there is still the added costs of dredging 5.2 million cubic yards to deepen the channel - another $50M. We also need to acknowledge there are significant personnel relocation/move costs, and so on.
This year the Navy's unfunded requirements list is $4.6 B (billion).
To spend nearly $1B more to create excess infrastructure at Mayport when in the last five years the Navy has spent $400M at Naval Station Norfolk upgrading and improving the piers is wasteful and not how the American taxpayers should approve of their money being spent - to accommodate the political desires of the Bush administration.
Comment by Frank Roberts — November 19, 2008 @ 5:03 pm