Navy League National President John R. Fisher has announced that the League's "Sea Power Ambassador" program, initiated last year in cooperation with the American Shipbuilding Association (ASA), has already proven to be "a strong success" and is being extended "for the indefinite future."

The program started as a short-term joint NLUS/ASA effort to educate the American people, the media, and elected officials at all levels of government about the importance of maintaining a strong, flexible, globally deployed Navy in times of peace as well as war. Former U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps leaders and other Navy League members with significant experience and expertise in national defense "rallied to the cause almost immediately," Fisher said, "and in their roles as Sea Power Ambassadors have given numerous speeches throughout the country about the continuing need not only for strength at sea, both naval and commercial, but also for a strong domestic shipbuilding base.

"The response has been superb," Fisher continued. "Reports received at NLUS Headquarters from our nearly 350 Sea Power Ambassadors have thoroughly validated the program and the need to continue it for at least several years to come. The reaction is almost always the same: disbelief that our naval forces are already very hard-pressed to carry out all of their peacetime missions and in time of war might be unable to protect some of America's most important political and economic interests overseas.

"Most Americans believe that we have the strongest and best-equipped Navy in the world--and that is correct. For that reason, the American people also believe that all is well--but that is not correct. People are shocked to learn that the Navy's shipbuilding rate is the lowest it has been since the Depression years of the 1930s, and that the number of ships in the active fleet--fewer than 320-- is the lowest it has been since 1931."

According to the Clinton administration's own Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), Fisher pointed out, the Navy requires an active fleet of no fewer than 305 ships, including 116 surface combatants, 12 carrier battle groups (CVBGs), and 50 nuclear-powered attack submarines (SSNs). Those numbers were considered "absolute minimums," Fisher emphasized. However, since the QDR's principal findings were made public, he also pointed out:

(1) The Joint Chiefs of Staff have testified before Congress that a minimum of 15 CVBGs are needed to maintain a credible and continuous presence in the three most likely crisis areas of the world (the Mediterranean and Adriatic, the Taiwan Strait and the waters off the Korean Peninsula, and the Persian Gulf). Because not enough carriers are available, the Navy has had to adopt a "gapping" strategy that leaves one crisis area or another without a CVBG for weeks and sometimes months at a time.

(2) A new study by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, already submitted to Congress, has determined that at least 68 SSNs are needed to meet the combat needs of the regional commanders in chief.

(3) The administration's annual defense budget proposals have, for several years in a row, included funding for only 6 to 8 ships per year--even in the so-called outyears of the FYDP (future-years defense plan). That rate is sufficient, according to a CRS (Congressional Research Service) study by Ron O'Rourke, to maintain a fleet of only 200 to 250 ships (depending on the parameters used), a total well below the "absolute minimum" mandated in the QDR.

"There is a very modest increase in defense spending in the fiscal year 2001 budget proposal that President Clinton sent to Congress last month," Fisher said, "but that increase, welcome as it might be, is far from what is required to maintain the active fleet at the level needed to carry out the Navy's worldwide commitments. Unless something drastic is done to wake up the American people and our elected representatives to these somber facts, we will see a dangerous retrenchment of our naval forces to a level totally inadequate to protect U.S. interests worldwide.

"What is needed at this point is an immediate lifting of the current defense budget 'top line' agreed to by the White House and Congress--and that should be followed by a significant increase in procurement and acquisition funding sufficient to maintain the fleet at the numbers needed." The Navy League's concern about ship numbers, Fisher said, "also applies, of course, to aircraft and a broad spectrum of sensors and avionics and electronics systems."

Fisher said that additional Sea Power Ambassadors "are still needed to help spread the word--in every forum available to us--and to make our fellow citizens aware of the true state of our national defense infrastructure. This is probably the most important mission the Navy League has at this critical junction in our nation's history."

Editor's Notes: (1) A full report on the FY 2001 defense budget proposal and the 2001­2006 FYDP (future-years defense plan) will be included in the April Sea-Air-Space issue of Sea Power. (2) Additional information on the Sea Power Ambassador program is available on the Navy League's Web site at www.navyleague.org. Anyone interested in serving as a Sea Power Ambassador is requested to call the program's coordination center at 1-800-435-8228.