Building a 600-Ship Navy: Costs, Time, and Alternative Approaches
1982
Once the indisputably dominant power at sea, the United States has seen this dominance erode over the past two decades as a result of steady growth in Soviet naval capabilities and declining force levels in the U.S. Navy. Between 1970 and 1980 the total number of ships in the U.S. Navy fell from 847 to 538 and uniformed personnel strength declined from 675,000 to about 525,000. Although the remaining ships are newer and more capable than those retired, the Navy now has substantially fewer ships with which to sustain its peacetime commitments or to conduct wartime operations. One result has been an operational pace in recent years nearly unprecedented in peacetime. The Chief of Naval Operations recently testified that "the Navy has been at virtually a wartime operating tempo since the beginning of the Vietnam conflict and has never stood down."
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