Was the 600-ship navy a chimera? Budgets, force structure, and the political realities behind Reagan-era naval strategy

ABSTRACT

In 2018, Secretary of the Navy John Lehman admitted that the daring Ocean Venture operation of 1981 – when U.S. and Royal Navy ships as part of a wider NATO exercise proceeded north of the Arctic Circle and penetrated within bombing range of Soviet naval bases – was in fact a ‘bluff’ because various technologies necessary for U.S. naval forces to operate deep in Soviet waters were not yet ready. They eventually were, but what about the fleet that would use them? The Reagan Administration championed the construction of a 600-Ship Navy with fifteen aircraft carrier battlegroups as central to its defense buildup, but Lehman recognized that the fleet was only viable if he implemented reforms to limit rising weapons costs. The planners responsible for long-term analysis of the Navy’s budget countered that Lehman’s plans were unrealistic and pressed him to ask Congress for more money. This was impossible because it would have run contrary to the Reagan Administration’s wider defense policies, which focused on the defense of Central Europe, and upset the delicate budgetary truce between the U.S. military services. Ultimately, political and budgetary realities were as important as strategic imperatives in shaping the size and composition of the U.S. Navy during its 1980s ‘renaissance’.

KEYWORDS:

• Strategy
• Reagan Administration
• cold war
• political economy
• defense budgets

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

¹ I could not have written this article without the insights of a number of public servants, including (but not limited to): Arthur (Trip) Barber, Roger Barnett, David Chu, John Lehman, William Manthorpe, Daniel Nussbaum, David (Dave) Oliver, Bruce Powers, George Sawyer, Peter Swartz, Harlan Ullman, Francis (Bing) West, and Stephen Woodall. I am also grateful to Laura Waayers for facilitating my indispensable archival research at the Naval Heritage and History Command (NHHC). D.C. Adamic, Travis Adams, Michael Dennis, Peter Dombrowski, Nicholas Murray, Chris Nelson, and David Painter were all kind enough to comment on this article; and Brian Donlon, Nate Packard, and Sam Tangredi provided essential support. Finally, the views expressed here are my own and not necessarily those of the U.S. Government.

² The best overviews of the Maritime Strategy are: John Hattendorf, The Evolution of the U.S. Navy’s Maritime Strategy, 1977–1986 (Newport: Naval War College 2004); and Christopher Ford and David Rosenberg, ‘The Naval Intelligence Underpinnings of Reagan’s Maritime Strategy’, Journal of Strategic Studies 28/2 (2005), 379–409. The declassified texts of the strategy are in: John Hattendorf and Peter Swartz, ed., U.S. Naval Strategy in the 1980’s (Newport: Naval War College 2008). For the pros and cons, see: Steven Miller and Stephen Van Evera, Naval Strategy and National Security (Princeton: Princeton University Press 1988), esp. 16ff and 47ff. The most-influential journalistic account from the period (and highly critical) is: Jack Beatty, ‘In Harm’s Way’, The Atlantic Monthly, 01 May 1987. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1987/05/in-harms-way/665356/.

³ John Lehman, Oceans Ventured: Winning the Cold War at Sea (New York: W.W. Norton 2018), xv-xviii, 65–88.

⁴ Lehman, Oceans Ventured, 96–7.

⁵ Richard Allen interview.

⁶ John Lehman, Command of the Seas (New York: Scribner’s 1988), 151ff; and John Lehman interview.

⁷ The Pentagon uses the term ‘acquisition’ as a catch all to include both the development and purchase of systems and ‘procurement’ only in specific contexts. Congress, however, appropriates money for procurement or for R&D. For the sake of clarity, I shall use the term procurement when referring to all Navy purchases and acquisition to the development of new systems.

⁸ Frederick Hartmann, Naval Renaissance: The US Navy in the 1980s (Annapolis: Naval Institute 1990).

⁹ H-Diplo Article Review 958 (18 June 2020): https://issforum.org/reviews/PDF/AR958.pdf.

¹⁰ Philip Pugh, The Cost of Sea Power: The Influence of Money on Naval Affairs from 1815 to the Present Day (London: Conway 1986), esp. chapters 4–5, 9–13; G.C. Peden, Arms, Economics and British Strategy: From Dreadnoughts to Hydrogen Bombs (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), esp. 1–16.

¹¹ Joseph Bolten, et al., Sources of Weapon System Cost Growth: Analysis of 35 Major Defense Acquisition Programs (Santa Monica: RAND 2008). https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/monographs/2008/RAND_MG670.pdf; Congressional Budget Office, Long-Term Implications of the 2023 Future Years Defense Program: https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/2023–01/58579-FYDP.pdf. Dave Oliver, the former Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Chief Operating Officer of Airbus’s U.S. subsidiary, pointed out that this is the ‘conventional wisdom’. If costs increase in the private sector, say because of inflation, firms do not simply have to accept it and raise prices on their consumers, or they will risk losing market share. When Oliver was running Airbus’ U.S. subsidiary, if costs increased, he pressured subcontractors to find efficiencies to so that he would not have to raise Airbus’ prices. Dave Oliver interview.

¹² e.g. Eric Lipton, ‘Faced with Evolving Threats, U.S. Navy Struggles to Change’, New York Times, 04 Sept. 2023. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/04/us/politics/us-navy-ships.html.

¹³ George Wilson, ‘The Birth of a Spending “Bow Wave”’, Washington Post, 28 Nov. 1982. https://washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1982/11/28/the-birth-of-a-spending-bow-wave/5790343d-e207-486f-9e16-ec2ffbeb514c/.

¹⁴ For further background on the Navy’s challenges in the early 1970s, see: Rosenberg (OP-965), ‘Project 60: Twelve Years Later’, 23 July 1982, Naval War College Archives, Papers of John Hattendorf, Box 233; Elmo Zumwalt, On Watch: A Memoir (New York: Quadrangle 1976), 59ff.

¹⁵ The following discussion draws from: Lehman, Command, 196ff, 228ff, 431–3.

¹⁶ David Chu interview. See also: Charles Nemfakos, et al., The Perfect Storm: The Goldwater-Nichols Act and its Effect on Navy Acquisition (Santa Monica: RAND 2010). https://www.rand.org/pubs/occasional_papers/OP308.html.

¹⁷ Lehman, Command, 115ff; idem, ‘Getting Back on Top: How to Build the Navy’, Proceedings, Jan. 2022. https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2022/january/getting-back-top-how-rebuild-navy.

¹⁸ Lehman, Command, 100–101.

¹⁹ Richard Hegmann, ‘Reconsidering the Evolution of US Maritime Strategy, 1955–1965’, Journal of Strategic Studies 14/3 (1991), 299–336.

²⁰ James Tritten, ‘The Trident System: Submarines, Missiles, and Strategic Doctrine’, Naval War College Review 36/1 (1983). https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/nwc-review/vol36/iss1/8/

²¹ Roger Barnett interview; Hattendorf, Strategy, 71.

²² Summarized in the EPA. See fn. 46.

²³ To aid war planning and budget preparation, the Joint Staff tabulated both the existing and future requirements of U.S. field commanders. The Joint Strategic Capabilities Plan (JSCP) tallied the list of existing forces available to unified and specified commanders. The Joint Strategic Objectives Plan (JSOP) was an estimate of service requirements (initially for the next three years, later for seven), but because of inter-service bickering, it made no effort to rank priorities or de-conflict between competing theaters, which meant it was a purely aspirational document with no relevance to actual planning. The JSPD was the replacement for JSOP in 1978/9 but it soon proved just as useless as the JSOP. Steven Rearden, Council of War: A History of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (Washington: Joint History Office 2012), 112, 136, 246–7, 393, 541.

²⁴ Norman Friedman interview and Friedman, The US Maritime Strategy (Annapolis: Naval Institute 1988), 80, 200.

²⁵ Lehman interview.

²⁶ Ryan Peeks, Aircraft Carrier Requirements and Strategy, 1977–2001 (Washington: Department of the Navy 2020), 54.

²⁷ See, e.g., this recent Pentagon press release: Jim Garamone, ‘Austin Says Budget Request Protects U.S. Today and in Future’, 11 May 2023, https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/3392933/austin-says-budget-request-protects-us-today-and-in-future/.

²⁸ See, e.g.: Jim Lacey, Keep from All Thoughtful Men: How U.S. Economists Won World War II (Annapolis: Naval Institute 2011).

²⁹ Ronald O’Rourke, ‘US Forward Maritime Strategy’, Navy International (Feb. 1987), 121.

³⁰ J.M. Keynes, ‘How Much Does Finance Matter?’ 23 Apr. 1942, in: Donald Moggridge, ed. Collected Writings of John Maynard Keynes: Vol. XXVII: 194–1946: Shaping the Post-war World: Employment and Commodities (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2012).

³¹ John Lehman, ‘The Rebirth of a U.S. Naval Strategy’, Strategic Review 9/3 (1981).

³² The Navy uses the terms analysis, estimate, assessment, appraisal, and planning to refer to different processes, but it does not have a clear definition for any of them. This is a common problem within the Navy unlike the other services. Peter Swartz with Karin Duggan, U.S. Navy Capstone Strategies and Concepts: Introduction, Background and Analyses (Center for Naval Analyses, 2011), 21ff. During the period in question, within the context of resource allocation (as opposed to, say, intelligence), analysis referred to the evaluation of competing options confronting decision makers and the likely consequences of their choices. When it came to the costs of specific platforms, analysts would consider their total life-cycle costs (R&D, acquisition, and maintenance) as well as those of supporting or complementary systems (e.g., a carrier’s cost must include that of its air wing and the ships necessary to defend it). Estimates are a form of analysis that requires analysts to collect data and perhaps create their own analytical methodologies. Assessments evaluate the estimates provided by other parties – but these should not be confused with net assessments, which are analyses of comparative force levels and capabilities often (but not always) in an adversarial context. Appraisals applied to functional areas of naval warfare (anti-submarine warfare, etc.) using inputs from the Navy’s various communities, including current, new, and recommended programs. Appraisals only dealt with one side’s requirements, capabilities, and systems and they were usually not resource constrained. Finally, whereas assessments relied on ‘trend analysis and linear extrapolation’, planning instead used ‘a non-linear approach that seeks to identify and influence future discontinuities’. James Pelkofski, et al., ‘Navy Strategic Planning’, in: James Tritten, ed, Case Studies in Strategic Planning (Naval Postgraduate School, 1990), 43.

³³ Small to Trost, ‘Program Appraisals and Analysis’, 18 Dec. 1981; Small to OP-095, et al., ‘Naval Warfare’, 01 Mar. 1982; and Small to Trost, et al., ‘POM-85 CPAM/Warfare Appraisals’, 02 Aug. 1982; all in: NHHC, Reference Files, Box 6. See also: Hattendorf, Strategy, 65ff.

³⁴ Hattendorf, Strategy, 45–64 (esp. 54–7); John Hanley, et al., Making Captains of War: The Chief of the Naval Operations Strategic Studies Group (Center for Naval Analyses 2016) 14–21.

³⁵ Hattendorf, Strategy, 73.

³⁶ The Navy established OP-96 in 1966 so that it could respond effectively to Secretary McNamara’s analytical demands. OP-96’s first head was then-Rear Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, and OP-96 soon became a prized billet for many of the Navy’s brightest officers. Thomas Hone and Curtis Utz, History of the Chief of Naval Operations, 1915–2015 (Washington: NHHC 2023), 243, n. 35, 254, 280, 288–9, 294; Dave Oliver and Anand Toprani, American Defense Reform: Lessons from Failure and Success in Navy History (Washington: Georgetown University Press 2022), 70–1.

³⁷ Holloway, ‘Strategic Concepts for the U.S. Navy’, 1978, in: John Hattendorf, ed., U.S. Naval Strategy in the 1970s (Newport: Naval War College Press 2007), 74, 83, 86. See also: Hone, History, 297, 320.

³⁸ Manthorpe memoirs, copy in author’s possession; Manthorpe to Toprani, 03 October 2023. The summary in Gregory Vistica, Fall from Glory: The Men Who Sank the U.S. Navy (New York: Touchstone 1997), 155–60 is, according to Manthorpe to Toprani, 26 July 2023, only roughly accurate. See also: Hattendorf, Strategy, 49–50.

³⁹ Barnett to Toprani, 07 July 2023.

⁴⁰ Allen Enthoven and K. Wayne Smith, How Much is Enough? Shaping the Defense Program, 1961–1969 (Santa Monica: RAND 2005), https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/commercial_books/2010/RAND_CB403.pdf (31ff).

⁴¹ Lawrence Kaplan, et al., The McNamara Ascendancy, 1961–1965 (Washington: OSD Historical Office 2006), 79ff; Richard Hunt, Melvin Laird and the Foundation of the Post-Vietnam Military (Washington: OSD Historical Office 2015), 15–9.

⁴² Congressional Research Service (CRS), ‘Defense Primer: Planning, Programming, Budgeting and Execution Process (PPBE)’, 27 Jan. 2020, https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF10429/8; CRS, ‘DOD Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and Execution (PPBE): Overview and Selected Issues for Congress’, 11 July 2022, https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R47178; CRS, ‘Defense Primer: Future Years Defense Program (FYDP)’, 23 Dec. 2022, https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF10831/12.

⁴³ Again, there is no standard definition in the Pentagon as to what constitutes the ‘out years’. Some people consider them the years beyond the POM/FDYP, while others consider anything beyond the upcoming Fiscal Year to be an ‘out year’.

⁴⁴ Clark to Trost, 20 Apr.1983, and Woodall, ‘Analysis of the Future: Some Thoughts on the Utility of Resurrection of the Extended Planning Annex (EPA) […]’, 25 Oct. 1997; copies of both documents in author’s possession.

⁴⁵ Trost to the Assistant Under Secretary of Defense for Plans and Development, ‘Extended Planning Annex Development’, 22 Dec. 1981, I am grateful to Stephen Woodall, who drafted this memorandum for Trost, for providing me with a copy from his personal files.

⁴⁶ Lehman to Weinberger, ‘Department of the Navy POM-84 (U) – Action Memorandum’, 12 May 1982, https://www.esd.whs.mil/Portals/54/Documents/FOID/Reading%20Room/MDR_Releases/FY19/FY19_Q1/Department_Navy_POM84.pdf; Center for Naval Analyses, Naval Planning, Programming, Budgeting System: Information for Decision Making An Assessment of POM-84 and POM-85 (Alexandria: CNA 1983), 6.

⁴⁷ OP-965, ‘The Extended Planning Annex for POM-84’, no date, enclosed with: Trost to Watkins, ‘Extended Planning Annex (EPA) to POM-84’, 17 September 1982, NHHC, CNO Immediate Office Files (00 Files), Box 142. All quotations from the EPA are from this document, which is technically a briefing derived from the data within the EPA, which itself is unintelligible to outsiders.

⁴⁸ Ullman to Toprani, 08 July 2022.

⁴⁹ TOA refers to the amount of the ‘obligations’ the government may incur to purchase specific items or services. It includes budget authority for the coming fiscal year but may also include unobligated balances from past years. Office of the Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller), ‘National Defense Budget Estimates for FY 2022’, Aug. 2021, https://comptroller.defense.gov/Portals/45/Documents/defbudget/FY2022/FY22_Green_Book.pdf (267–9).

⁵⁰ Memorandum for Admiral Small, ‘EPA Guidance’, 14 May 1987, https://www.esd.whs.mil/Portals/54/Documents/FOID/Reading%20Room/MDR_Releases/FY13/13-M-0053.pdf.

⁵¹ Woodall to Toprani, 12 June 2023.

⁵² Chu to Toprani, 15 Sept. 2023.

⁵³ Constant purchase levels allow the government and contractors to make more-accurate predictions about unit costs. If the government decides to purchase fewer items than contractors had assumed or ‘stretch out’ purchases over a longer period of time, per-unit costs will increase because of indirect costs such as inflation and most importantly overhead, part of which the government must reimburse and which stays the same no matter how much the government buys. Nussbaum to Toprani 26 July 2023.

⁵⁴ Emphasis in the original.

⁵⁵ Kevin Antonucci, ‘Operating and Support Costs and Affordability of a 324 Ship Naval Battle Force’ (Naval Postgraduate School 2011). I am grateful to Daniel Nussbaum for sharing a copy of this study with me.

⁵⁶ Nussbaum to Toprani, 07 June 2023.

⁵⁷ Michael Palmer, Origins of the Maritime Strategy: The Development of American Naval Strategy (Annapolis: Naval Institute 1990), 53

⁵⁸ From its high of 594 ships in 1987, the U.S. Navy shrank by almost half by 2000. NHHC, ‘US Ship Force Levels: 1886-present’, 17 Nov. 2017, https://www.history.navy.mil/research/histories/ship-histories/us-ship-force-levels.html.

⁵⁹ See, e.g., Lehman’s Posture Statement before the House Armed Services Committee on 05 Feb. 1986, esp. pg. 19, Hoover Institution, Records of the Committee on the Present Danger, Box 360.

⁶⁰ ‘When they pulled together the data, hashed it over, and rehashed it, the answer always came out the same. ‘[The] upper limit on what we can afford’, Ullman wrote, was twelve carriers and between 450 and 500 ships. That was about the size Navy that Jimmy Carter had planned for. […] Nobody in the Navy wanted to admit that there was no way the nation could afford the Six Hundred Ship Navy’. Vistica, Glory, 161. Similarly mistaken is: Steve Wills, ‘OPNAV Between Strategy, Assessment and Budget, 1982–2016’, in: Sebastian Bruns and Sarandis Papadopoulous, ed., Conceptualizing Maritime & Naval Strategy (Baden Baden: Nomos 2020), 58–60.

⁶¹ As Woodall recalled: ‘I spent my entire career training to kill Soviets, and if war came, I would have been very good at it’. Stephen Woodall interview.

⁶² Emphasis in the original. See also: David Rosenberg, ‘Process: The Realities of Formulating Modern Naval Strategy’, in: James Goldrick and John Hattendorf, ed., Mahan is Not Enough (Newport: Naval War College Press, 1993), 149–50.

⁶³ The Navy ended up designing the new Seawolf class, which turned out to be too expensive once the Cold War ended. The Navy built only three Seawolf submarines and replaced them with the cost-effective, but less capable, Virginia class. Oliver, Reform, 128–9.

⁶⁴ Strangely, most of the relevant documents are in NHHC, Papers of Carl Trost, boxes 6 and 22 rather than the CNO’s Immediate Office Files.

⁶⁵ Daniel Nussbaum interview.

⁶⁶ Lehman interview.

⁶⁷ Lehman, Command, 229–35.

⁶⁸ Oral History of Admiral William N. Small (Naval Historical Foundation, 1996), 54; Small to Swartz, 02 Oct. 1998, Papers of Peter Swartz.

⁶⁹ Small to Trost, 29 Nov. 1982, Trost Papers, Box 22; Trost to McCauley, 29 Nov. 1982, Trost Papers, Box 6; Small, ‘Restructuring of Systems Analysis Functions’, 28 Mar. 1983, Trost Papers, Box 22.

⁷⁰ Powers to Toprani, 14 Sept. 2023.

⁷¹ For details on the rivalry, see: Wills, ‘OPNAV’, 51ff.

⁷² Memorandum for the Secretary of the Navy, ‘Restructuring of OPNAV Systems Analysis Functions’, 29 Nov. and 01 Dec. 1982, NHHC, Trost Papers, Box 22.

⁷³ McCauley to Trost, ‘Restructuring of Systems Analysis Functions’, 20 Jan. 1983, NHHC, Trost Papers, Box 22.

⁷⁴ Lehman, Command, 96.

⁷⁵ Small to Watkins, 07 December 1982, NHHC, Trost Papers, Box 22.

⁷⁶ Watkins to Lehman, ‘Restructuring of Systems Analysis Functions’, 10 December 1982, NHHC, Trost Papers, Box 22; Hone, History, 339.

⁷⁷ Watkins to Lehman, ‘Consolidation Plan for Independent Cost Estimating’, 26 Aug. 1983, NHHC, 00 Files, Box 117. Cost estimating (or cost analysis) predicts the full life-cycle cost of goods and services, including that of the necessary inputs (e.g., raw materials and labor) before their purchase, while cost accounting provides the actual expenditure after their acquisition or fulfillment. Ellen Barber, ‘Introduction to Cost Analysis’, Defense Acquisition University (Feb. 2011): https://www.dau.edu/cop/ce/dau%20sponsored%20documents/b3%20intro%20to%20cost%20analysis%20feb%2011%20rev%20c.pdf.

⁷⁸ McCauley to Trost, ‘Navy Net Assessment Organization’, 07 Mar. 1983, NHHC, 00 Files, Box 116.

⁷⁹ Manthorpe to Toprani, 03 Apr. 2023.

⁸⁰ It is unclear when the Pentagon no longer required the services to produce an EPA as part of their POM, but the 10^th edition of the Department of the Navy’s RDT&E/Acquisition Management Guide from 1987, the last year of Lehman’s tenure, still listed the EPA as an annex of the POM (pg. 3).

⁸¹ Department of the Navy, Program Objectives Memorandum, FY 1985–1989 (POM-85), Volume Five: EPA Summary, June 1983, NHHC, 00 Files, Box 116.

⁸² Puritano to Lehman, 17 June 1983, NHHC, 00 Files, Box 116; Thayer to Lehman, ‘The Extended Planning Annex (EPA)’, 05 July 1983, NHHC, 00 Files, Box 117.

⁸³ Trost to the President of CNA, ‘Assurance of Future CNA Operations’, 09 Mar. 1983, NHHC, Trost Papers, Box 4.

⁸⁴ Don Boroughs, The Story of CNA: Civilian Scientists in War and Peace (Arlington: CNA, 2021), 45. The Hudson Institute then took over the CNA contract 1983, but CNA became an independent organization in 1990.

⁸⁵ Trost, ‘Center for Naval Analyses’, 15 Jan. 1983; and Sproull to Trost, 29 Mar. 1983, both in: NHHC, Trost Papers, Box 4.

⁸⁶ Michael Getler, ‘Navy Gets into War with University’, Washington Post, 01 Apr. 1983, https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1983/04/01/navy-gets-into-war-with-university/fc967a23–8026-4fbb-85bc-c631ac68bfc0/.

⁸⁷ Bing West interview.

⁸⁸ On the ‘unions’, see: Zumwalt, On Watch, 63–4.

⁸⁹ Borden to Trost, 22 Nov. 1982, NHHC, Trost Papers, Box 22.

⁹⁰ Woodall to Toprani, 06 Dec. 2022; Woodall, ‘Analysis’.

⁹¹ NAVMAT Program Cost Assessment, enclosed with: Williams to Hayes, 10 May 1983, NHHC, 00 Files, Box 116.

⁹² ‘Irv Blickstein on Programming the POM and Strategizing the Budget’, Center for Maritime and International Security (26 Mar. 2021), https://cimsec.org/irv-blickstein-on-programming-the-pom-and-strategizing-the-budget/.

⁹³ Nussbaum to Hughes, et al., 13 Au. 2018, Swartz Papers.

⁹⁴ Manthorpe to Toprani, 05 Apr. 2023.

⁹⁵ Woodall, ‘Analysis’.

⁹⁶ Lehman interview.

⁹⁷ James Stevenson, The $5 Billion Misunderstanding: The Collapse of the Navy’s A-12 Stealth Budget Bomber Program (Annapolis: Naval Institute 2001), 30–1

⁹⁸ Nomination of John F. Lehman, Jr., to be Secretary of the Navy (Washington: GPO 1981), 7, 26

⁹⁹ John Lehman, ‘Naval Superiority: Can We Afford and Manage the Expansion?’ 19 August 1981, reprinted in: Vital Speeches of the Day 47/24 (01 Oct. 1981), 738–40. Emphasis in the original. I am grateful to Peter Swartz for drawing my attention to this speech.

¹⁰⁰ George Wilson, ‘Lehman Wins a Budget Battle’, Washington Post (08 September 1983): https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1983/09/08/lehman-wins-a-budget-battle/8d9f552c-1956–4748-b503-3c2b20e31507/; Fred Hiatt, ‘Pentagon Officials Tangle’, Washington Post, 11 Oct. 1983, https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1983/10/11/pentagon-officials-tangle/c74e56fb-3797-42b2-b15c-4cc4cd38da1b/; Peeks, Requirements¸ 59–60.

¹⁰¹ ‘Announcement on the Naming of Two Naval Aircraft Carriers’, 11 Aug. 1983, The American Presidency Project: https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/announcement-the-naming-two-naval-aircraft-carriers; Hedrick Smith, The Power Game: How Washington Works (New York: Ballantine 1988), 189–194; Lehman, Command¸ 193–194; Lehman to Toprani, 11 July 2023. See also: Dov Zakheim, ‘Lehman’s Maritime Triumph’, Naval War College Review 71/4 (2018), https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=7678&context=nwc-review (esp. pg. 143).

¹⁰² Outlays continued to increase until the late 1980s because of money appropriated earlier that decade. Only a fraction of the spending Congress authorizes each year (Budget Authority or TOA) is actually spent that year (outlays). During the 1980s, out of every dollar the Pentagon spent each fiscal year, $0.38 were obligations from previous years and only $0.12 from current budget authority (the remainder are fixed costs such as personnel). David Hoffman, ‘Defense Budget “Bow Wave” Rolls On’, Washington Post, 07 Apr. 1985; Peeks, Requirements, 60.

¹⁰³ Oliver made this comment during a discussion of his book, Bronze Rules: Managing Risk and Leadership (Annapolis: Naval Institute 2020), at the Naval War College on 13 Apr 2022.

¹⁰⁴ Weinberger, ‘Improving NATO’s Conventional Capabilities’, June 1984, enclosed with: Perle to Weinberger, ‘Approval of Report to Congress on Improving NATO’s Conventional Capabilities – Action Memorandum’, 01 June 1984, https://www.esd.whs.mil/Portals/54/Documents/FOID/Reading%20Room/MDR_Releases/FY20/FY20_Q1/Approval_of_Report_to_Congress_on_Improving_Capabilities_1Jun1984.pdf; Gordon Barrass, The Great Cold War: A Journey Through the Hall of Mirrors (Palo Alto: Stanford University Press 2009), 250ff (esp. 337–344) and ‘The Renaissance in American Strategy and the Ending of the Great Cold War’, Military Review (Jan.-Feb. 2010), 101–10.

¹⁰⁵ See, e.g., Elaine Luria, ‘Look to the 1980s to Inform the Fleet of Today’, War on the Rocks (14 June 2021), https://warontherocks.com/2021/06/look-to-the-1980s-to-inform-the-fleet-of-today/; ‘A New U.S. Maritime Strategy’, Center for International Maritime Security (12 July 202): https://cimsec.org/a-new-u-s-maritime-strategy/. Admiral John Aquilino, Commander of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, recently remarked: ‘[We] all look at the Chinese to understand, truly, where they are, what they’re doing. The largest military buildup since World War Two, both in conventional forces and then strategic-nuclear. J-20s are in full-rate production, ships coming off their industrial baseline at numbers that only replicate what we did in the Lehman time and the 600 ship Navy kind of time frame’. Tyler Rogoway, ‘Blind See, Kill: The Grand Networking Plan to Take on China’, The War Zone (29 Aug. 2023): https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/blind-see-kill-u-s-pacific-commanders-grand-networking-plan-to-take-on-china.

¹⁰⁶ See also: Weinberger to Clark, ‘Working Lunch with the President – May 18^th’, 10 May 1982: https://www.esd.whs.mil/Portals/54/Documents/FOID/Reading%20Room/MDR_Releases/FY19/FY19_Q1/Working_Lunch_President_10May1982.pdf.

¹⁰⁷ Chu interview. See also: Weinberger, ‘Capabilities’, xii-xiii.

¹⁰⁸ Chu to Toprani, 15 Sept. 2023. See also: Rearden, Council, 428. For more on the budgetary origins of the ‘revolt’, see: Anand Toprani, ‘Budgets and Strategy: The Enduring Legacy of the Revolt of the Admirals’, Political Science Quarterly 134/1 (2019), 117–46 and ‘“Our Efforts Have Degenerated into a Competition for Dollars”: The “Revolt of the Admirals”, NSC-68, and the Political Economy of the Cold War’, Diplomacy & Statecraft 30/4 (2019), 681–706.

¹⁰⁹ Hattendorf, Strategy, 65–73.

¹¹⁰ George Sawyer, ‘Navy Acquisition Thoughts & Remembrances’, 20 Feb. 2022, copy in author’s possession; George Sawyer interview.

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Anand Toprani

Anand Toprani is an Associate Professor of Strategy and Policy at the U.S. Naval War College specializing in diplomatic and military history, energy geopolitics, and political economy. He is the author of Oil and the Great Powers: Britain and Germany, 1914-1945, co-author with RADM Dave Oliver (USN-ret.) of American Defense Reform: Lessons from Failure and Success in Navy History. He is currently writing a book about Secretary of the Navy John Lehman.