Posted:
March 8, 2017
By Paul Doell
National President
In his address to a joint session of Congress February 28, President Trump pledged to strengthen U.S. Armed Forces through "a budget that rebuilds the military, eliminates the defense sequester and calls for one of the largest increases in national defense spending in American history."
The speech itself offered no specifics, but the President a day earlier had told a conference of state governors at the White House that he would propose a $54 billion hike in the fiscal 2018 defense budget, a 9.2 percent increase over the current level. He told the governors the additional money would "rebuild the depleted military ... at a time we need it most."
On March 3, President Trump toured the new U.S. aircraft carrier Gerald R. Ford in Newport News, where he said the greater defense funding would allow the U.S. to "project American power in distant lands." He proposed lifting the Navy's carrier fleet from 10 ships to 12. "We also need more aircraft, modernized capabilities and greater force levels," the President added.
The President's proposal is subject to Congressional approval, and the debate will be both long and lively.
All of this was encouraging because official conversation about beefing up the military could lead to ways to strengthen defense shipping - a responsibility that falls most heavily on the active, privately owned and operated U.S. merchant fleet in commercial service and the civilian American seagoing workforce this fleet sustains. As a practical matter, the U.S. can't have a larger, more powerful military without a safe, efficient and absolutely reliable way to get its combat equipment and everyday supplies to its troops in an overseas war zone. As President Trump might put it, "We also need more U.S. cargo ships and more American merchant mariners."
The time-tested national security value of the private sector U.S. merchant fleet and American merchant mariners was confirmed most recently and most conspicuously in Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan and Operation Iraqi Freedom. U.S. cargo ships diverted from commercial trade delivered 95 percent of U.S. defense cargoes to these fronts over the long haul through the Maritime Security Program, a real budget bargain that is paid for not through the Department of Defense, but through the Department of Transportation.
But the U.S. merchant fleet today is in steep, steady decline, for reasons that will be discussed openly and at length in forthcoming debate. Fewer than 80 private sector U.S. merchant ships operate in international trade - a crisis condition aggravated by the attendant, proportional erosion of what the Defense Department's Transportation Command refers to as "the mariner base."
In testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee in May 2015, TRANSCOM warned that "further reductions in U.S.-flag capacity" and the unabated loss of American seagoing jobs threaten "our ability to fully activate, deploy and sustain forces." According to the most reliable current expert estimates, these sealift weaknesses could restrict emergency surge shipping operations to but a few months.
Alternatives? There are none.
As we know, and as newcomers to the Executive Branch and Congress will learn, the Defense Department doesn't have sealift ships that can match the privately owned and operated U.S. merchant fleet in size, scope, configuration and capability, and it would cost the department multiple billions to build or buy comparable capacity. A foreign-flag fallback option shouldn't even be on the table. During Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm in the Persian Gulf in 1990 and 1991, there were several documented cases of U.S.-chartered foreign-flag ships refusing to deliver defense cargoes to the war zone. There were also cases in which foreign merchant mariners refused to work these ships.
Sealift deficiencies arising from dependence upon foreign-flagged ships could surface quickly today, but on a much greater scale in a decidedly more dangerous, unstable world. Why risk a mission - and the lives of U.S military personnel - by relying on cargo fleets whose owners, operators, flag state governments and multinational crews may be hostile to U.S. interests? At best, why expose U.S. sealift operations to predatory pricing and exorbitant cost?
The U.S. learned much from its Desert Shield/Desert Storm sealift experiences, which resulted in a readiness reset for an aging fleet of government-owned reserve ships and the Maritime Security Program, under which up to 60 active, private sector, sealift-suited U.S. merchant ships are available on demand to the Defense Department at modest cost.
At this early point, it's not unreasonable to anticipate enhancement of military expansion with a simultaneous parallel plan to first prevent the further loss of commercial U.S. cargo ships and then to encourage development of a larger, more diverse private sector merchant fleet under the U.S. flag. What better way to "project American power in distant lands" completely and effectively?
A counterintuitive twist
On the subject of building a bigger and better military, there was one potentially problematic related twist ahead of the Ides. The White House said the massive additional defense investment would be offset significantly by deep cuts in discretionary spending, with foreign aid programs administered by the State Department and by the U.S. Agency for International development (USAID) taking the hardest hits.
As government-financed goods, foreign aid cargoes outside the defense realm are subject generally to the Cargo Preference Act of 1954, which holds at least 50 percent of such exports for privately owned and operated U.S. merchant vessels (100 percent of defense cargoes are set aside for U.S. bottoms under a 1904 law). Many federal agencies, USAID prominent among them, are adept at evading these cargo preference requirements, thereby contributing over many years to the U.S. merchant fleet's decline.
One immediate casualty could be the PL-480 "Food for Peace" humanitarian aid export program overseen by USAID. Through this successful diplomatic, goodwill program, farm products grown, processed, packaged and transported in the U.S. by private interests are delivered to ocean ports for shipment to ease famine in developing countries.
Until the MAP-21 transportation measure in 2012, 75 percent of PL-480 exports were reserved for U.S.-flagged bulk carriers and container ships under a 1985 farm bill. The PL-480 cargo preference amount is now 50 percent, and the program's budget fell by 35 percent over the last eight years - the Obama administration worked relentlessly, but unsuccessfully, to dismantle the program by replacing cargoes with cash vouchers or the equivalent to often questionable authorities in recipient countries.
If PL-480 is "zeroed out" in fiscal 2018, and if other cargo preference mandates are weakened or repealed, the fast fall of the commercial U.S.-flag merchant fleet and of the American merchant mariner defense base will be hastened, not halted.
As always, American Maritime Officers will be up front in Washington as these issues flesh out, making the case and fighting the fight on Capitol Hill and in the Executive Branch agencies, and we will keep all AMO members and their families informed along the way.
Please feel free to contact me with questions or comments on this or any other topic. I can be reached by phone on the headquarters office line at 954-921-2221 (extension 1001), on my cell at 954-881-5651, or by .
Will U.S. merchant fleet revival parallel military growth?
By Paul Doell
National President
In his address to a joint session of Congress February 28, President Trump pledged to strengthen U.S. Armed Forces through "a budget that rebuilds the military, eliminates the defense sequester and calls for one of the largest increases in national defense spending in American history."
The speech itself offered no specifics, but the President a day earlier had told a conference of state governors at the White House that he would propose a $54 billion hike in the fiscal 2018 defense budget, a 9.2 percent increase over the current level. He told the governors the additional money would "rebuild the depleted military ... at a time we need it most."
On March 3, President Trump toured the new U.S. aircraft carrier Gerald R. Ford in Newport News, where he said the greater defense funding would allow the U.S. to "project American power in distant lands." He proposed lifting the Navy's carrier fleet from 10 ships to 12. "We also need more aircraft, modernized capabilities and greater force levels," the President added.
The President's proposal is subject to Congressional approval, and the debate will be both long and lively.
All of this was encouraging because official conversation about beefing up the military could lead to ways to strengthen defense shipping - a responsibility that falls most heavily on the active, privately owned and operated U.S. merchant fleet in commercial service and the civilian American seagoing workforce this fleet sustains. As a practical matter, the U.S. can't have a larger, more powerful military without a safe, efficient and absolutely reliable way to get its combat equipment and everyday supplies to its troops in an overseas war zone. As President Trump might put it, "We also need more U.S. cargo ships and more American merchant mariners."
The time-tested national security value of the private sector U.S. merchant fleet and American merchant mariners was confirmed most recently and most conspicuously in Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan and Operation Iraqi Freedom. U.S. cargo ships diverted from commercial trade delivered 95 percent of U.S. defense cargoes to these fronts over the long haul through the Maritime Security Program, a real budget bargain that is paid for not through the Department of Defense, but through the Department of Transportation.
But the U.S. merchant fleet today is in steep, steady decline, for reasons that will be discussed openly and at length in forthcoming debate. Fewer than 80 private sector U.S. merchant ships operate in international trade - a crisis condition aggravated by the attendant, proportional erosion of what the Defense Department's Transportation Command refers to as "the mariner base."
In testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee in May 2015, TRANSCOM warned that "further reductions in U.S.-flag capacity" and the unabated loss of American seagoing jobs threaten "our ability to fully activate, deploy and sustain forces." According to the most reliable current expert estimates, these sealift weaknesses could restrict emergency surge shipping operations to but a few months.
Alternatives? There are none.
As we know, and as newcomers to the Executive Branch and Congress will learn, the Defense Department doesn't have sealift ships that can match the privately owned and operated U.S. merchant fleet in size, scope, configuration and capability, and it would cost the department multiple billions to build or buy comparable capacity. A foreign-flag fallback option shouldn't even be on the table. During Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm in the Persian Gulf in 1990 and 1991, there were several documented cases of U.S.-chartered foreign-flag ships refusing to deliver defense cargoes to the war zone. There were also cases in which foreign merchant mariners refused to work these ships.
Sealift deficiencies arising from dependence upon foreign-flagged ships could surface quickly today, but on a much greater scale in a decidedly more dangerous, unstable world. Why risk a mission - and the lives of U.S military personnel - by relying on cargo fleets whose owners, operators, flag state governments and multinational crews may be hostile to U.S. interests? At best, why expose U.S. sealift operations to predatory pricing and exorbitant cost?
The U.S. learned much from its Desert Shield/Desert Storm sealift experiences, which resulted in a readiness reset for an aging fleet of government-owned reserve ships and the Maritime Security Program, under which up to 60 active, private sector, sealift-suited U.S. merchant ships are available on demand to the Defense Department at modest cost.
At this early point, it's not unreasonable to anticipate enhancement of military expansion with a simultaneous parallel plan to first prevent the further loss of commercial U.S. cargo ships and then to encourage development of a larger, more diverse private sector merchant fleet under the U.S. flag. What better way to "project American power in distant lands" completely and effectively?
A counterintuitive twist
On the subject of building a bigger and better military, there was one potentially problematic related twist ahead of the Ides. The White House said the massive additional defense investment would be offset significantly by deep cuts in discretionary spending, with foreign aid programs administered by the State Department and by the U.S. Agency for International development (USAID) taking the hardest hits.
As government-financed goods, foreign aid cargoes outside the defense realm are subject generally to the Cargo Preference Act of 1954, which holds at least 50 percent of such exports for privately owned and operated U.S. merchant vessels (100 percent of defense cargoes are set aside for U.S. bottoms under a 1904 law). Many federal agencies, USAID prominent among them, are adept at evading these cargo preference requirements, thereby contributing over many years to the U.S. merchant fleet's decline.
One immediate casualty could be the PL-480 "Food for Peace" humanitarian aid export program overseen by USAID. Through this successful diplomatic, goodwill program, farm products grown, processed, packaged and transported in the U.S. by private interests are delivered to ocean ports for shipment to ease famine in developing countries.
Until the MAP-21 transportation measure in 2012, 75 percent of PL-480 exports were reserved for U.S.-flagged bulk carriers and container ships under a 1985 farm bill. The PL-480 cargo preference amount is now 50 percent, and the program's budget fell by 35 percent over the last eight years - the Obama administration worked relentlessly, but unsuccessfully, to dismantle the program by replacing cargoes with cash vouchers or the equivalent to often questionable authorities in recipient countries.
If PL-480 is "zeroed out" in fiscal 2018, and if other cargo preference mandates are weakened or repealed, the fast fall of the commercial U.S.-flag merchant fleet and of the American merchant mariner defense base will be hastened, not halted.
As always, American Maritime Officers will be up front in Washington as these issues flesh out, making the case and fighting the fight on Capitol Hill and in the Executive Branch agencies, and we will keep all AMO members and their families informed along the way.
Please feel free to contact me with questions or comments on this or any other topic. I can be reached by phone on the headquarters office line at 954-921-2221 (extension 1001), on my cell at 954-881-5651, or by .