Navy Budget Cuts

Budget cuts will have drastic effects on the U.S. Navy to include overworked ships requiring extensive and expensive unplanned maintenance, extra-long deployments, and most importantly, losing quality Sailors due to a decrease in morale caused by overwhelming stress and days underway. Senior Enlisted Leaders must understand the effects that budget cuts will have on personnel and also understand the effects that this will have on projecting power and deterring conflict around the globe. This paper will identify the effects budget cuts have on U.S. Navy equipment and weapon systems, explain the driving and restraining forces behind the cuts, and provide a strategy to implement a solution.
Problem
The U.S. is approximately $18 trillion

has gradually accumulated substantial debt and continues to grow larger. In an effort to decrease the national debt, and avoid raising the ceiling again, proposals to decrease the military budget were made. As a result, the U.S. Navy would be effected in several ways when told to operate and maintain assets with $4 billion dollars removed from their annual budget. Effects would include decreased Strike Group deployments, aircraft flight hours reduced, the halting of deployments to Latin America and naval presence in the Pacific reduced. Other include indefinite extensions to Carrier Strike Groups (CSG) and truncating training cycles for other CSG’s, and the cancellations of 23 ship overhauls (Budget Crisis Impact Laid Out By U.S. Navy, 2013). These effects will have subsequent effects on mission readiness, material readiness, and morale. In 2013, the CNO’s number one priority was to get ship’s entered into maintenance overhauls. Without these maintenance periods, material readiness will be less than optimal potentially causing delayed or even cancelled deployments such as what happened to the USS Harry S. Truman in 2013. Shortened training periods provide a substantial liability to the ship and her crew. When a ship deploys it is expected to be able to fulfill a number of missions that a deployment plan requires. A DDG for example is expected to battle adversarial ships, engage hostile aircraft, launch tomahawk missiles, or even intercept ballistic missiles. Specialized training and skills are required to successfully carry out these missions (Fewer Ships At Sea, Fewer Missions, Less Training: CNO’s Sequestration Damage List, 2013). Cutting the budget will not permit crews to become fully proficient to successfully carry out the required missions leaving the U.S. Navy vulnerable in the event of conflict at sea. Now that the driving and restraining forces have been explained, a solution will be