The Long-Term Costs of Naval Forces

In response to threats posed by the former Soviet Union, the Reagan Administration advocated building a 600-ship Navy. In reality, the Navy never exceeded 570 ships. As the Soviet threat declined, the Bush Administration proposed a fleet of 450 ships, including 13 aircraft carriers (12 deployed and 1 for training). Recently, the Clinton Administration has recommended that the naval fleet be reduced to 413 ships by 1994. The new Administration will not submit a long-term plan for naval or other military forces until later this year or early next year. Press reports suggest, however, that the Navy is considering a further reduction in the size of the fleet to about 330 ships, including 12 carriers, by 1999. Although the size of the fleet is declining, the Navy is still developing expensive new aircraft that it will begin purchasing in the late 1990s and the next decade. For 1994, the Navy has requested $1.4 billion to finance development of the F/A-18E/F multirole aircraft and $400 million for the A/FX medium-attack aircraft. The Navy will probably develop a new attack submarine and a new surface combat ship, which would be purchased primarily after the turn of the century. These expensive new weapons will have to be financed out of budgets that most likely will be considerably smaller than those of the 1980s. How much will it cost to buy the weapons now being developed? Will enough funds be available to pay for them while also providing adequate support for smaller, but still substantial, naval forces? This memorandum examines the question of affordability in the next decade, when the Navy's large bills will come due. It does not try to estimate costs over the next few years. Nor does it assess whether planned naval forces are appropriate in view of the changing threats to U.S. security. The answers to those questions should emerge from the review of forces and weapons now under way in the Department of Defense.