By Nick Simeone
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, April 7, 2014 – The Navy and Marine Corps need
to think about how to be more innovative, including leveraging experiences
learned from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, in the face of budget challenges
that could become more acute, acting Deputy Defense Secretary Christine H. Fox
said today.
“Whether sequestration returns or not, the reality is we’re
counting more than ever on your leadership and innovation to solve problems and
meet new and often unfamiliar challenges to our nation’s security,” Fox told
students at the U.S Naval War College in Newport, R.I., in one of a series of
addresses she has delivered in recent days at war colleges around the nation.
In each, Fox’s theme has reflected warnings senior defense
officials have been making since last year’s budget sequester and the
likelihood of further spending cuts to come: that the Pentagon is going to have
to re-examine priorities, reduce overhead and shrink the force while finding
ways to continue vigilance in what officials describe as an increasingly
unpredictable global environment.
“Our Marines have excelled at everything we’ve asked of them
in the [counterinsurgency] fight, … and they continue to do so in Afghanistan
today,” Fox said. “So even as we make this transition, we need to capture as
much of these hard-won experiences as possible, because we’ll undoubtedly need
it again in the future.”
Fox also challenged the students to rediscover their
service’s core capabilities, “even as you build from the lessons of the
immediate past to take on new missions.”
“There are now many young, battle-hardened Marines who have
spent little time inside of a ship, much less practicing to conduct an assault
from sea,” she said. “As you regain your sea legs, I also hope you will work to
innovatively update your amphibious concepts of operations.”
Regarding the Navy, Fox said, “we need to confront the
reality that there’s more demand for ships than budgets allow, and I don’t see
this changing any time soon,” emphasizing that no one is expecting the end of
the Iraq war and the winding down of the conflict in Afghanistan to yield a
peace dividend.
“Our naval forces need to think creatively about how to
provide presence, getting more out of the ships we currently have,” she said.
Fox challenged the audience to determine whether to change deployment concepts
and keep ships deployed longer. “There must be some innovating approaches out
there that people like you, our future leaders, can find and adapt,” she added.
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel is in the Asia-Pacific region,
and just announced the addition of two ballistic missile defense ships to
Japan, Fox noted. “What other opportunities like that are out there that would
help us meet the needs of our strategy?” she asked the students.
Ultimately, Fox said, it’s not about numbers but
capabilities.
“We need to make the financial and intellectual investments
in technology and modernization programs now,” she said, “before we no longer
have the massive technological advantages we’ve enjoyed over the past 60
years.”
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