Is the US Navy up to snuff?

0:00 Speaker 1 What is today’s Doctor William J. Parker a longtime navyman, former CEO and president of the East West Institute and now he is running the Maritime Technologies. Mister Parker, Doctor Parker, you’re a longtime navyman. There was an articles in a few magazines how did the Navy spend their money in the last ten years? And it points out crappy ships.

0:37 Can you respond to this and tell the American people the truth?

0:42 Speaker 2 Absolutely? I always tell the American people the truth. And first of all, I would say that I don’t represent the Navy. But here’s here’s some insights on it. I think that LCS as a big picture is a bit of a distraction over the bigger issue of shipbuilding. But let’s get into CS for a minute. So numbers matter,

1:02 and LCS could have been in an expensive stop gap while a new class of ship was built. That was the plan, more modern than the Arly Burk destroyer, which is currently our workhorse. But then the Zoomwalk class was cut.

1:16 Originally it was planned to build thirty two and then they only built two of those that are active today. So what’s that do to you? Well, it says that you’ve got these fourteen active and sixteen completed LCS, and they had a lot of problems. Part of that was because we built them in two shipyards, two different classes

1:37 of ship within the litoral combat system. Part of it was because we tried to slap a whole lot of things on them and make them things that they weren’t. But they did have some value. They were able to be a stop gap for some of the while some of the other Arly works were built. That said, when

1:56 you look at the cost of them, they were about one third the cost of the DD fifty one, so they cost about five hundred million. Arley Burke costs about five on a one point five billion, So you know, we continue to build the Arly Burke H and LCS has has a lot of problems. I will tell you

2:13 that every class of ship that you build has problems when it’s first built. So when the Arly Birke class Arley Burke destroyer was first built, they called it the already been broke class UH and it was. It had a lot of new systems that had never been tested at sea before, and the Navy got it right pretty quickly.

2:31 And that was not the case with LCS. So I think it’s good that the folks are out there writing about this and saying, what the heck, why are we spending all this money on ships that don’t work and now we’re getting rid of them. I think it’s a very valid point.

2:45 Speaker 1 Wow, I mean, and it hasn’t made headlines until now. And can any of these ships would stand the if the enemy shoots hypersonic missiles at it? Is there a defense against hypersonic missiles yet?

3:07 Speaker 2 Well, there is defenses against hypersonics and just about every other weapons system that the ships have. But remember, lotoral combat ship was really built to do very specific plug and play things. So you build this LCS and then you were going to be able to plug in a surface warfare component or an anti submarine warfare component, or

3:26 a missile component specific to a specific mission. So they were smaller supposed to be plug in play vessels. So numbers matter for sure. The capability matters a whole lot too, And so you have the capability in the Arley Burke destroyers.

3:42 You have the capability for sure, also in the zoom Wall class, but they’re significantly more expensive, and so there’s kind of the trade between the two. The bigger issue to me, mister Cassintee, is that China currently has two hundred and thirty two times the shift building capacity that the United States did. I didn’t misquote that. They are

4:06 capable of building ships two hundred and thirty two times what the United States can. And they can build combatants more than two hundred times the capability that we have. So they have a huge advantage in that capability. And remember, during World War Two, a big part of our success was the fact that we were able to build ships.

4:28 As a matter, we were building liberty ships at a liberty ship a day at the peak of the war, a liberty ship a day. And now China has a merchant marine force that’s seven thousand, three hundred and sixty or so ships. The United States has a merchant marine force of about one hundred and seventy eight. The Chinese

4:48 now have a much larger navy than we do. So numbers.

4:52 Speaker 1 Say those numbers again, because I know that’s your I could say those numbers again.

4:58 Speaker 2 I’m going to give you those numbers agown. Chinese have a shipbuilding capacity that’s two hundred and thirty two times the shipbuilding capacity to the United States. I run a technology company, shift building technology company in the United States and can tell you it is not our focus right now and it needs to be. I mean, at Parker

5:17 Maritime we’re constantly going to you know what we think are the right folks and saying are you interested in like building shifts and getting a point again, the reality is that the Chinese can build combatants at a capacity of two hundred times what the United States can, and they can build ships writ large at two hundred and

5:40 thirty two times what the United States can. You take that in addition to every commercial ship that’s built in China that’s going to operate in China or Chinese waters, they make sure that they are built in military standards so that they can carry military equipment, that they have the right roll on roll off capability, the right tie downs, etc.

6:02 In case they go to war. We’re not focused on that.

6:06 Speaker 1 Wow, all right, that’s uh, that’s a lot of information. And uh, I think we we got to let it, let it sink in a little bit. And uh are we I’m sure we’re capable of catching up, but.

6:23 Speaker 2 At what point, John, we are capable of catching up? And quite frankly, it shows like yours that will allow people to understand what’s going on out there. So when you think of the fact that ninety percent by volume, in eighty five percent by value of everything that moves around the world goes by sea. If we make that assumption,

6:44 which is a fact, by the way, and we make the assumption that we are still going to be a maritime nation in the future, we have got to get our shipbuilding capability back on track, and we have to do it quickly. And as a matter of fact, i’d ask your listeners right now, go walk around wherever they are,

7:03 walk around your room, reach around inside your car, wherever you are. Pick the first ten items that you can reach, and see how many of them are made in the United States. And I think you will be I would be surprised if more than two or three of them are.

7:20 And we have got to get back to building things in the United States of America again. If we do that and we get our ship building capacity back up, we will be able to fix this other issue, because it’s a national security issue not to be able to build enough ships and not to be able to build

7:36 the capacity that we need.

7:38 Speaker 1 Doctor William J. Parker, thank you for your service in the Navy. Thank you for everything you’ve done, and thank you for continuing to speak out for the United States of America. And we’ll catch up with you again real soon.

7:52 Speaker 2 Thank you. It’s always a pleasure to be on your show. Johnny