The problem of naval planning and procurement is highly complex: not just how many ships overall, but what mix of types (destroyers, supercarriers, submarines, etc.), and what mission capabilities to emphasize for each type -- anti-submarine, anti-surface, anti-air, amphibious assault; mid-ocean major engagements, power projection through enemy littorals (near-shore areas) and onto and across contested land, or homeland defense. Having a few warships, big and expensive, or many ones, smaller and cheap, is another dimension to the issue that, in almost so many words, dates back centuries. And we mustn't neglect that crucial planning dimension, time. Analysis and decision-making have to take a multi-year or even multi-decade forward looking view.

Two historical examples will help explain what's truly at stake in getting the answers to these questions right.

Example 1: Soviet Admiral Sergei Gorshkov, head of (and some say, almost father of) the USSR's fleets at the height of their strength in the early 1980s, stated openly how critical it was for sizes and numbers of total naval vessels to achieve a proper balance vis a vis two contradictory factors: external threats real or potential, and domestic limits on affordability. Faced with the superior technology and budgetary might of Reagan-era capitalism -- with its stated goal of a 600-ship U.S. Navy -- the Soviet's evil empire bit by bit melted away.

Example 2: In the early 1800s, President Thomas Jefferson opted for many small coastal gunboats instead of a handful of ocean-going sailing ships of the line. This proved to be a major miscalculation. America couldn't protect its commerce from the ravages of hostile armed vessels way out in blue water, nor could it prevent its own coast from being menaced by unfriendly frigates or huge three-deckers that could (and did) come close inshore with near-impunity. Jefferson's resulting Embargo Act, which confined all U.S. merchant shipping to port as the only solution, was economically disastrous. The fiasco at sea was a major contributor to the conflicts with Great Britain that caused the War of 1812. The devastation of maritime businesses in New England, caused by a commander-in-chief whose perspective was deeply rooted in the landsman's values of the agrarian South, laid open the earliest cracks in a growing fissure that decades later helped trigger America's bloodiest war, the most-uncivil War Between the States.

The recent news items on naval affairs prove that the problems of structuring navies are still very much alive:

News item 1: Secretary of the Navy Gordon England said in a public speech recently that the Global War on Terror calls into question how many ships the United States needs. He noted, quite rightly, that other naval assets -- air wings, Marine Corps brigades, advanced electronic systems -- are also important, both as major tools of warfighting and as competitors for finite budget money. I would add that buying a ship involves much more that merely its price tag at the shipyard. That warship must be provided with a series of well-trained crews and captains for its entire useful lifetime; it must be replenished constantly with stores and munitions of many kinds; and it requires periodic trips into dry-dock for maintenance and upgrades. All of this costs a great deal of money. However, as Mr. Jefferson and a youthful America both found out the hard way, and to paraphrase Teddy Roosevelt, "Battleships are cheaper than battles." How does a country strike the proper tradeoff between dollars spent on defense today, against dollars and blood spent fighting in combat tomorrow? Weak deterrents, and a mixture of seagoing platforms unsuitable for wars of unimagined forms now lurking beyond the horizon, could turn into very false economies. Right now the U.S. Navy has 294 ships and submarines in commission; SECNAV England declined to say how many he thought was enough.

News item 2: Canada for years debated whether to acquire one or more nuclear submarines, but decided they were simply too expensive for that country's needs. Instead, after negotiation, Canada purchased from the Royal Navy four mothballed diesel subs of the Upholder class -- which Canada redesignated the Victoria class. (The U.K. had decided, for its own strategic reasons, to make its fleet of submarines be all nuclear powered.) Tragically, shortly after the last of the refurbished subs to change hands set sail for home (to Halifax) across the Atlantic Ocean from England, she suffered a serious fire -- some reports say two separate fires. The HMCS Chicoutimi, as she is now called, was badly damaged, and one crewman died from the effects of smoke inhalation. Boards of inquiry are convening between British and Canadian officials. Already questions are being raised in the open media about the physical state upon delivery of the ex-Upholders, said by some news reports to have been troubled by leaks, corrosion, faulty equipment, and even a large dent in one hull. But bigger questions are coming out as well: Should the $900 million Canadian dollars spent to buy the four Victorias have been invested in the Canadian military in some other, better way than acquiring submarines? And if subs were the things to be bought, why weren't more modern, more capable vessels purchased, say, from Germany? Germany exports state-of-the-art diesel subs that include air independent propulsion systems, allowing the sub to run deep and quiet for much longer than a conventional diesel boat like the Upholders ever could. I wonder, was the prospect of a British Commonwealth nation buying what amount to next-generation U-boats somehow culturally unpalatable, given ghosts from two Battles of the Atlantic long past? If this was indeed a factor, should such retro thinking be allowed to cost more lives, or even (conceivably, in a future big shooting war) be permitted to cost a nation its freedom and sovereignty via seapower failures?

News item 3: This one also has to do, coincidentally, with submarines. The U.S. Navy and the Swedish Navy are now in discussions for the U.S. to have a Swedish diesel sub, with air-independent propulsion as mentioned above, home-ported for a while in San Diego. The specific purpose of this arrangement would be to let U.S. nuclear submariners practice and test tactics against a highly-skilled target "terrorist sub." The Swedish Gotland A-19 class boat would intentionally lurk along the American West Coast shore, amid the hectic commercial shipping, islands and shoals, oil and gas drilling platforms, and other sonar and physical clutter for which littoral zones are infamous. (The Swedes have demonstrated superb abilities in such undersea environments, chasing numerous Soviet subs away from their home waters and naval bases during the Cold War.) This arrangement has not yet been approved by either country, but it's already creating political and public relation problems. Sweden right now operates only five submarines in its Navy. As respected naval commentator A. D. Baker III has pointed out, to rent a fifth of your submarine strength to another country, for prolonged use two oceans away, might call into question whether the other four-fifths of your submarine fleet is really needed. The proposal is also raising for the umpteenth time the question of why doesn't the U.S. Navy buy diesel subs instead of nuclear subs, since the diesel boats are cheaper (starting around $300 million, compared to over $1 billion). The short answer is that diesel boats, even with air-independent propulsion, badly lack the cruising range and sustained speed required to protect American strategic interests globally. One indirect proof of this, perhaps, is that the Swedish sub would be transported to San Diego about a heavy-lift surface ship, of the same sort that carried the damaged destroyer USS Cole home from Aden for major repairs, at Ingalls, on Mississippi's Gulf Coast.

Deciding on a total defense budget, agreeing on how much should go toward buying new equipment and platforms, then splitting that cash between branches of the armed forces, and splitting it again into different types of weapons systems within each branch, is the subject of politics, statecraft, lobbying, military doctrine, and national strategic vision. All of these are controversial matters, to say the least. They're simultaneously top-down and bottom-up, intermingled confusingly. They amount to something of a zero sum game, too, meaning there are winners and losers among different programs -- just like there are winners and losers in war. Guidance can come from computer models and wargame simulations, but these are only as good as the assumptions that users put in and the conclusions that interpreters and referees take out. Ultimately, to get things right may call for the wisdom of Solomon, something I've yet to hear a single participant in the military-industrial budgeting process ever claim to have. That being said, our nation and our navy will have to do the best they can with what they've got, and with what more they can get in the near-term. But asking the right hard questions is a good start.

JoeBuff.Com / Joe Buff Inc. Joe Buff, President Dutchess County, New York E-Mail readermail@JoeBuff.Com