Smooth sailing is not in the Navy’s forecast for the next year.The service faces big decisions on major programs, and we can expect clashes between Navy plans, congressional politics and budgetary realities on three of the biggest: the upgunned Littoral Combat Ship, the UCLASS armed drone, and the jewel in the Navy’s crown, the nuclear aircraft carrier.
The fate of all three programs — and countless others — is tied up with the looming budget cuts known as sequestration. But this isn’t just another sequestration story. Each program carries its own unique controversies that may doom it regardless of whether the sequester is solved.
For the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) and the Unmanned Carrier-Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike (UCLASS) drone in particular, the debate is less about funding than about warfighting, and ultimately about the odds of war with China. Congress, especially House Republicans, want weapons built first and foremost to survive and win a high-end fight in the West Pacific — or better yet to deter one altogether. The Navy, backed by the Obama administration, has proposed more modest capabilities and lower costs for a wider range of missions.
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