San Diego, Calif. – The San Diego Union-Tribune published an op-ed by Dale Lumme, a member of The Spectrum Group’s Navy Team, entitled “U.S. should resolve to reclaim command of the seas“. Lumme argues that U.S. command of global maritime power will require long-term strategies that are difficult to successfully implement under current budgetary practices.
Lumme, a retired Navy captain, is the president of the Navy League of the United States, National Capital Council, and previously served as chair of the Navy League of the United States’ Maritime Policy & Resolutions Committee.
An excerpt of Lumme’s op-ed appears below. The full piece can be found here.
As we transition to a new administration, it is important for Americans to resolve that the United States is in need of a new and revised national maritime strategy.
Some of our recent budget iterations have come from tactical reactions to threats from terrorists, pirates, or rogue nation-state extremists. Long-term national and maritime strategies are required. While the new force structure assessment informs a potential new fleet architecture, understanding where naval forces will operate in the future is essential to understanding the acceptable risks and why they must continue to be there in numbers. That understanding must be derived from a national strategy that drives budget. Our nation needs to move past our sequestered budgets that have driven our strategies.
Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Alpine, chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation, has stated in multiple hearings that the strategic planning processes that determines mission priorities, based on risk, need to be updated to better allocate resources for the maritime services to meet their national and homeland security missions.
The outgoing chairman of the House Armed Services Seapower and Projection Forces subcommittee, Chairman Randy Forbes, R-Virginia, warned of the perils of defining acceptable risk based on budgets versus a thoroughly debated national security strategy. When it comes to maritime security, there is an urgent need for intra-governmental officials to develop and articulate a national maritime strategy as threats continue to grow and the world becomes more volatile.