By CHRISTOPHER P. CAVAS
WASHINGTON — Responding to this week’s Defense News story that the Pentagon is strongly considering moves to reduce the US aircraft carrier fleet, 11 congressmen, led by Rep. Randy Forbes, R-Va., sent a letter Tuesday to Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel in support of current fleet levels.
House Armed Services Committee chairman Rep. Buck McKeon, R-Calif., three other Republicans, and six Democrats joined Forbes in signing the bipartisan letter.
“The Secretary of the Navy was right this past fall when he noted that a smaller aircraft carrier fleet would be unable to execute the missions described in the Defense Strategic Guidance,” Forbes wrote. “Such a reduction in the Navy’s carrier force would profoundly damage U.S. national security, limiting our ability to deter aggression around the world and respond to crises in a timely manner. It is unacceptable to pretend that the United States lives in anything less than an 11 carrier world given China’s growing assertiveness in the Asia-Pacific, rising instability in the Middle East and the persistent danger of global terrorism. As Rear Admiral [Thomas] Moore [the Navy’s program executive officer for aircraft carrier] has phrased it so starkly, we’re an eleven carrier Navy in a 15 carrier world.”
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