By Spencer Ackerman
On the surface, Mitt Romney’s proposal to inflate the Navy is seaworthy. The ex-Massachusetts governor and GOP presidential frontrunner wants to build six more ships every year to meet the increased demands that the U.S. military will likely face in the big, blue Pacific Ocean.
Naval analysts generally like the idea, which they say is needed to fill a whopping hole in the U.S. fleet, come 2030 or so. Just a few problems, the seapower wonks say: Romney has given no indication of what kinds of ships he wants built; he doesn’t explain what they should do; and his proposal might give a deficit-obsessed D.C. sticker shock.
Shipbuilding is a major national-security priority for Romney. In an Oct. 7 speech at the Citadel and his campaign’s big national security white paper, he pledged, “I will reverse the hollowing of our Navy and announce an initiative to increase the shipbuilding rate from 9 per year to 15.” It’s the most specific, declarative statement on defense Romney’s made in the campaign thus far.
Independent naval analysts don’t know how much Romney’s proposal will cost, since nowhere in the white paper does Romney specify what ships make up his expanded fleet. (The Romney campaign didn’t respond to Danger Room’s requests for clarification on what ships the candidate wants built.) That complicates any analysis, since ships aren’t interchangeable. “Fifteen ships a year sounds good,” says Frank Hoffman, who recently left the policy shop at the Navy Department, “but what kind of ships? For what strategy?”
But judging by the Navy’s current wishlist (mostly, more destroyers and attack submarines) the analysts guesstimated that Romney’s plan would most likely cost about $7 or $8 billion a year, on top of the Navy’s estimated $19.8 billion shipbuilding budget. Since the Defense Department budgets for five years at a time, that would add $35 to $40 billion to the shipbuilding budget at a time of austerity.
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/10/romney-shipbuilding/