HOW MANY NAVY STRIKE/BATTLE GROUPS DO WE NEED?

The world monumentally changed in 1991 when the Cold War ended.  All of a sudden, there was no Soviet Union, and the threat of a nuclear war disappeared.  

What about China?  Well, they have one aircraft carrier (ACC), and this is a refurbished Russian ship.  Their first Chinese-designed nuclear ACC is planned for 2020 (see below).  Hard to get too excited when they have a defense budget about one-sixth that of the USA.

The fact of the matter is that we have no mortal enemy anymore, and nothing on the horizon.  You would have thought that our defense funding should have gone down since 1991, but it has actually increased both in inflation value and as a percent of the GDP:

Republicans in Congress are overly influenced by the Military Industrial Complex (MIC--keep in mind, if you clicked, that President Eisenhower was a Republican and army general), which protects the budget of the Department of Defense because this is where companies get their major profits.  Foreign companies cannot compete for military projects.

The recent deficit problem forced the hand of the U.S. Congress, and it appears that there will now be some real reductions into the coming years.  While this will be challenged by the MIC, let's face it, there are only a few thousand serious terrorists, a punchless Russia and a China that the MIC has ballyhooed as the ultimate enemy of America.

So this leads to the coming retirement of the USS Enterprise (left), our first nuclear ACC, commissioned in 1961, 51 years ago.  She deserves some R&R.  By the way, the Enterprise remains longer than all the newest ACCs in our fleet.

There are 22 ACCs in world operation, with one for China, one for Russia and the USA with eleven.  The next generation ACC for the U.S. will be commissioned in 2015.  Including all costs, the price tag will be $14 billion.  The Enterprise cost $0.45 billion.  Nine more are planned.  I should further add that there is the newly built USS George H.W. Bush already ready to take the place of the Enterprise.  Keep in mind, too, that the tonnage of our U.S. Navy is about the same as the cumulative weight of the next 13 countries.  

I should finally add that the Navy also has something called the Expeditionary Strike Group.  There are 12 of them, each armada led by a ship called an amphibious assault ship.  You know what these look like?

This is the USS America to be ready next year, and, boy, these look like aircraft carriers to me.  So you do the math with 11 Carrier Battle Groups and 12 Expeditionary Strike Groups.  How many do we need to hold off a rag-tag bunch of terrorists?

So build the USS Gerald R. Ford (right), but do we really need the next, the USS John F. Kennedy?  These 23 Battle/Strike Groups can easily be whittled down to, say, six.  The CBGs each cost $1.5 billion/year to operate.  

What do you do with all those ships?  Well, perhaps we can convert them into Blue Revolution grazing plantships, all powered by ocean thermal energy conversion.  They won't be able to sink that futuristic Chinese carrier you now and then see in fantasy blurbs:

But China is not interested in conquering the U.S.  It will have enough problems of its own over the next decade just to keep from becoming the next fractured Soviet Union.  Why not begin transitioning the U.S. Navy into the next great opportunity for Humanity:  THE BLUE REVOLUTION.

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The Dow Jones Industrials went up 38 to 12,960, with world markets mixed.  Gold fell $11/toz to $1702, with the WTI crude at $107/barrel and the Brent Spot at $125/barrel.

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