This administration is lost at sea.
FRANCIS P. SEMPA writes in The American Spectator:
Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro just released “Climate Action 2030,” a 32-page report which identifies climate change as an “existential threat” to the U.S. Navy and the nation. In the report’s Foreword, Del Toro writes that climate is “the focal point” for his tenure as Navy Secretary, and notes that both President Biden and Defense Secretary Austin share that view. The Navy Department, Del Toro writes, will be an “environmental leader” that takes “bold climate action.” We have come a long way since Alfred Thayer Mahan, the great sea power strategist and historian, with the full support of Navy Secretary Benjamin Tracy, steered our naval leaders to focus on sea command, strategic chokepoints, and sea lines of communication in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. And we have come a long way since Navy Secretaries like James Forrestal contributed to the geopolitical strategy of containment in the late 1940s, and John Lehman and Jim Webb promoted a 600-ship navy and maritime strategy for winning the Cold War.
The Navy Department report establishes two performance goals: to “build climate resilience” and “reduce climate threat.” Del Toro’s stated goal is to have the Navy Department “reduce its greenhouse gas emissions,” “stabilize ecosystems,” and “achieve … net-zero emissions by 2050.” Compare that to the goal of our nation’s most threatening naval adversary — China’s PLA Navy — which is to become the world’s leading naval power by 2049.
The Navy Department report is filled with color photographs of hurricanes, floods, electric vehicles, military families participating in an “oyster castle installation,” naval installations with solar panels, naval officers helping with disaster relief efforts, employees at a naval base planting salt marsh plants, electric-powered amphibious assault ships, and naval officers helping to install “mosquito surveillance and control equipment.” There are no photos of naval warfare, no references to Mahan, no discussion of the challenge posed by the PLA Navy.
https://spectator.org/bidens-navy-secretary-the-existential-threat-is-climate-change/
Check out the full article here.
HT/Climate Depot
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Mahan. The Influence of Sea Power upon History: 1660–1783
Hmmm…
Yeah.
So ignoring for the moment that the association of ‘Climate Change(tm)’ and ‘existential threat’ should immediately be followed by the question of ‘what drugs are you on?’, let us talk briefly about Mahan.
Mahan was INCREDIBLY popular and influential, but was he actually correct?
I will paraphrase, but the core premise of Mahan’s theory was that naval power should be directed towards the traditional massive ‘fleet’ action. You would – hopefully – win this decisive battle and then, based on your clear superiority, win the war.
Now a decisive action can be very useful (assuming you win of course) as without the need to worry about the enemy fleet you are free to do other naval activities without significant hindrance.
What are these activities? Basically two. Protection/suppression of seaborne trade and conducting/countering amphibious operations. (support of ground operations – ie shore bombardment – fits into here).
Post Mahan we can add the direct power projection of carrier based airpower, but that is post Mahan and unfair to consider when discussing him.
Now these operations are important and should be worked towards if you are planning naval strategy.
However the problem with Mahan is that by placing so much importance on the decisive sea battle, Mahan and his supporters lost sight of the end game (trade and amphibious) and the battle itself became the desired objective.
His theories were supported by the Battle of Tsushima in 1905 where the Japanese utterly destroyed the Russian 2nd Pacific Fleet in a ‘decisive battle’ between two fleets in the traditional ‘gun’ manner.
What is forgotten is that by this time the war was basically over with the Japanese ground forces having defeated the Russians and captured Port Arthur. Also bemusingly, despite clearly losing the war, the Russians managed to win the peace and apart from the loses in land and material, basically ended up having to give the Japanese – who were hoping to force Russia to pay for the war – nothing.
This led observers to conclude that Mahan was right and that if you lacked ‘Battleships’ (and later ‘Dreadnoughts’ you were not remotely a world power. There were naval arms races, fleets were built, bunting was bunted and then came the Great War.
And… Yes there were a few fleet actions (Jutland being the clear stand out) of various sizes but the vast majority of naval combat ended up being protection or attacking of merchant shipping.
This is where Mahan completely missed the boat. The reason the German High Seas Fleet needed to be constantly observed was not because they might sink elements of the Grand Fleet, but because if left unchecked the Germans could raid up and down the North Sea coast. Battlecruisers raided Britain in 1914 and the public outrage was significant even if the material damage was minor. Aside from the ability for the Germans to conduct more raids and/or utterly shut down British ports there was NO need to seek a decisive Mahan style fleet battle.
Broadly speaking – Mahan was wrong.
Probably 😛
An interesting viewpoint , but on a historical note there was surely a decisive battle , almost exactly 80 years ago – Midway. To quote from one of the many internet sources :
The U.S. Navy’s decisive victory in the air-sea battle (June 3-6, 1942) and its successful defense of the major base located at Midway Island dashed Japan’s hopes of neutralizing the United States as a naval power and effectively turned the tide of World War II in the Pacific.
I’m not sure if it is accurate to call Midway a naval engagement. All the fighting was done using planes. None of the ships got close enough to see each other, much less fire their guns at each other.
The naval portion was using floating air bases to get planes in position to attack, and other ships to protect the floating air bases.
There was one ship on ship action that I forgot about.
A US sub was detected and attacked by a Japanese destroyer. The sub got away. However while the destroyer was racing to re-join the Japanese fleet it was spotted by a flight of American planes. The commander of the flight decided to fly in the direction that the destroyer was sailing, and was able to find the Japanese fleet.
His influence may have been a problem during the war of 1812 as, when tasked with commerce raiding, US warships instead got distracted with hunting down and engaging British warships. This was a winning strategy for the British fleet (who had many more ships and men) and very few merchantmen were lost to US commerce raiding at the time. I broadly agree with your conclusions, probably!
And this guy is in charge of the Navy. Pathetic. Certainly not a meritocracy.
The existential threat is fools like Del Toro.
Hopefully Carlos Del Toro is going to replace the ‘approximately’ 420 diesel powered US Naval Ships with Electric (/s) long before 2030. I’m sure China will help them achieve this goal!
Reminded by the pic that Ukrainians sank the Moskva for us
Yep, holed and sunk a 43 year old ship. Yay!
As bad as this is, I’m not sure anything can top what I heard an Air Force general say in a radio interview some years ago. He considered climate change to be an existential threat because in his words, “you can’t land an airplane on a runway that is under water”.
Because float planes haven’t been invented yet.
Well they have but the air force wants nothing whatsoever to do with them.
But, but, but…existential crisis!
How many Air Force bases are located within 20 feet of current sea levels?
“We have come a long way” since military leaders were actual leaders and were military experts rather than political cronies.
One has to fear for the lives of those in uniform with fanatical idiots like this running things.
everything in our government has gone stupid.
That being said a note to the author, that’s not an American ship in the picture its Russian
Looks like a Slava-class guided missile cruiser…
I’m also not sure it’s actually the Moskva either – the Marshal Ustinov and the Varyag, both Slava class cruisers as well, have been deployed in the mediterranean recently. Could be any of them – without pennant numbers they all look very much the same.
I knew it was Russian, but didn’t have time to go see which class. The big missile launchers on the side are a dead give away. No US ship has them.
Those big missile bins are a giveaway at that size as well. Very few cruisers have those massive missile arrays down each side. The pic that David Middleton has put up is probably of the Marshal Ustinov, brother to the sunk Moskva. Ironically enough, I think it was the Moskva (under her previous name of Slava) that was offered to the Ukraine Navy after independance but they couldn’t afford to buy it.
It is the Marshal Ustinov.
Russian warships look deadly. US warships are deadly… 😉
We always considered Russian warships to be structurally slightly weaker than western ones but over-endowed with weapon systems, often 30% to 50% more firing tubes; the thinking was that Russian inaccuracies in guidance meant more warheads fired at a target to ensure the same hits.
Vertical launch systems are more dense and less visible as well
Good catch – reminded me of the VLS system on the Kirov class.
Typical political incompetent. Can’t fix real problems so they “fix” imaginary problems to show that their “not incompetent.”
I don’t get it. I thought that when the glaciers melt and make the oceans larger that meant a bigger role for the Navy. Every port (post-melt) will be in a tropical clime that sailors will love for shore leave. What is the problem here?
The Biden administration has a remarkable staff selection process which routinely identifies the least-capable person available to fill each role in its ranks.
One wonders what marvelous technical modifications he will implement, to permit naval vessels to cope with our rapidly rising oceans. (Something from China, I suspect.)
Obviously if sea levels continue to rise, he’ll worry that rising water may go over the side of the boats – so raising the heights of the boat sides would have to be a priority! sarc (I doubt if it’s needed but some people…..)
This definitely seems to be the theory they have been using to fill positions in D.C.
This man is too stupid to be Secretary of anything except his local food stamp club.
Though the Navy Secretary has an engineering degree and served in the navy for 22 years he has essentially been on the government teat ever since. Engineers working in the real world tend to view things differently.
It is convenient to release a report about climate being an existential threat to the navy by say 2030 when he will be nearly 70 and not held accountable for spouting nonsense. Nor will president Biden, who will likely be pushing up daisies by that date.
Until they act to end the invasion by the nacro-republic of Mexico’s cartels at the southern border the US military is just one more useless bureaucracy.
I assumed you meant narco? Actually drone minisubs carrying drugs are a big problem that the US coastguard has to deal with, I only realised recently.
our navy has become an international eyesore . our ships are out there with rust streaks streaming down their topsides and looking generally like third world vessels . sailors don’t want to chip and paint and no one seems to care . while the chinese fleet looks shiny and new .
google : rusty US navy ships to see what our fleet looks like
Most of the Chinese fleet IS shiny and new – it wasn’t even built when most of the US surface fleet was launched!
The enemies of our nation, and the free western world, have gotten a huge bargain in the investment in the current administration. Aided by the administration prior to Trump, they have not only managed to restart the “transformation” of the US, but also established the religion/cult of “climate change” worldwide.
This SecNav is just an example of what a “useful idiot” looks and sounds like. Doubtful that any of them realize what the end game truly is. Once the utopia is achieved, they will be eliminated first and quickly. Their success is their downfall and extinction by those they raise to power.
Maybe its just me who sees this as the final act in this tragedy. Maybe. If true that makes the folks we see occupying their positions of influence not so smart after all.
“We have come a long way…”
Yes. From fully capable and competent to full retard and weak is a long way.
In the wrong direction.
#climatecult
Row, row, row your boat…
Yes Biden fired all Trumps senior military personnel. Replacing them with woke goose greens to defend the US against .. not China, not Russia, not South Korea, but … the Winged Pegasus – Global Warming. Meanwhile, here in Australia we get an early start to the ski season with massive snow dumps across NSW and VIC. Not an Al Gore or John Kerry or Flip Flop Albo in sight
Carlos Del Toro is a MORON.
This is not the military I recall from my time.
And I can’t even imagine what my father (WWII) would have to say about this.
When a nation’s military loses sight of its primary objective of defending the country from hostile forces, how long before the end?
Why does (box)Car load Del Toro seem to describe this dude so well ?
Priorities, we don’t need no stinking priorities. We have climate agenda directives to manage.
When does the USS Solyndra launch anyway?
After a 8 year delay and 3 billion dollar cost overrun…
with grants and loan guarantees for the contractor