http://www.geostrategy-direct.com/geostrategy-direct/secure/2010/06_23/ba.asp?

Other nations taking note of USA's shrinking Navy

The chief of naval operations said last week that the U.S. Navy is the smallest it has been since 1916 despite being asked to do multiple missions and that further cuts in naval forces are likely.

Adm. Gary Roughead, the CNO, said in a speech to a strategy conference at the Naval War College that he continues to seek a strategy of “cooperation” despite the fact that China’s navy is a growing threat and Beijing has shown no willingness to cooperate with the U.S. Navy.

In fact, Chinese naval vessels have stepped up harassment of U.S. survey ships in recent years in actions the Pentagon has called provocative.

The guided-missile frigate USS Crommelin (FFG 37) transits the Pacific Ocean with Mt. Fuji in the background on Nov. 21, 2009.

Roughead said that keeping and developing friends and allies required “credible military power.”

“And I say credible because if you don't think those other countries around the world are monitoring and tracking and studying what we are doing, I urge you to read many of the academic journals and the white papers that come from countries from around the world,” Roughead said, without mentioning China.

“They pay attention to what we do, what we say, and how we invest in our Navy and in our military.”

Credible naval forces require capabilities for six core missions outlined by Roughead as forward deployment of forces, credible naval power to deter aggressors and conflict; ocean patrolling; power projection; maritime security operations; and responses to natural disaster.

“And even as the global order changes and the nations and non-state entities change, these fundamentals will not change significantly,” he said.

Roughead said the challenge for the Navy to is to deal with shrinking defense budgets and a growing demand for naval power.

Past budget cuts were not as damaging as the current period, Roughead said. "But in this downturn, it is different. This time it is different because we are the smallest Navy that we have ever been since 1916,” he said.

The Navy’s fleet has decreased in size and yet there is a “strategy of engagement of being out and about, a strategy that requires us to be at more places in the world,” he said. Also, high-technology threats are growing at a faster and faster rate and U.S. industrial bases have decreased sharply from six major shipbuilders to two.

Roughead’s comments come as Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has launched a major defense cutting spree, sharply reducing spending by billions of dollars and canceling many programs, including Navy shipbuilding.

Roughead told the conference that “we have to ask if we believe that our naval forces today are and will remain sufficient to influence the emerging world order — either through networks, through partnerships, or when needed for us to act alone.”

“Our Navy is very different than the larger U.S. navies of the past. And while our Navy is very different, and much smaller, we are also facing a new emerging order that I believe requires more naval power,” he said.