WASHINGTON — The Navy currently has 38 ships permanently forward-deployed in Japan, Spain, and Bahrain. It has doubled the number of warships it has based overseas since 2006.
The idea is to provide presence, to deter threats, to respond to crises and to build partnerships.
But, there's a problem.
The Government Accountability Office has found that repairs on those ships between 2014 and 2018 took longer than planned on 50 of 71 maintenance periods, or 70 percent of the time.
Put another way, those ships were out of commission 3,475 days longer than they were supposed to be. That adds up to more than nine years.
A new report from the GAO published this week says, "The Navy has persistently underestimated the time and work required to maintain these ships and keep them ready to carry out their missions."
"Everything about this is disturbing," said retired Navy Captain Joe Bouchard. "We are sending our young men and women in harm's way in ships that are not at full combat capacity. This is incredibly important because of the impact that these maintenance delays have, they reduce the combat readiness of the fleet."
Bouchard was commanding officer of a guided-missile destroyer and was forward-deployed on a frigate in the Pacific for three years in the 1970s. He says that while the Navy deserves much blame for poor planning, so too, does the Congress.
"Congress has been the root of this problem," he said. "Congress needs to act. Congress needs to support our young men and women in uniform who are on these ships."
The GAO report goes on to say that the demand for surface ship maintenance will exceed resources through 2026.
The GAO makes five recommendations, including urging the Secretary of the Navy to "conduct a single, comprehensive, systematic analysis of the overseas surface ship maintenance delays."