Budgeting for Naval Forces: Structuring Tomorrow's Navy at Today's Funding Level
Abstract
In the view of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the U.S. Navy will have trouble carrying out its current acquisition and modernization plans without a substantial increase in annual funding over the next 20 years. If such an increase does not occur, how could the Navy structure itself to perform its missions in the coming decades? The Navy's strategy has evolved since the Cold War-from combating a large Soviet fleet in the world's deep oceans to confronting smaller, regional powers in coastal (littoral) areas. Nevertheless, although the size of the Navy has shrunk dramatically during the past decade, its composition has largely remained the same. The service continues to buy many of the same weapons that it did during the Cold War. In addition, it plans to build a more-modern version of each major type of vessel it uses. But CBO estimates that carrying out those plans-and sustaining the Navy at its current size of about 300 ships will cost $105 billion annually (adjusted for inflation) through 2020. That amount is about $17 billion more per year than the service receives now. Without more funding, the Navy will face trade-offs in terms of which missions it can perform or how well it can perform them. This study presents four alternative force structures, each of which emphasizes one of the Navy's current missions. Each of the alternative fleets would cost roughly $90 billion per year (in today's dollars) through 2020.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Oct 01, 2000
- Accession Number
- ADA383973
Entities
Organizations
- Congressional Budget Office