From Paul Giarra, War on the Rocks: “The Navy doesn’t need a savvy businessman as secretary. It needs a mindful and informed leader to continue to insist that the chief of naval operations is allowed to formulate and speak for the Navy’s operational strategy, despite the apparent limitations imposed by the Goldwater-Nichols defense reforms. Together with the chief of naval operations, the Navy secretary needs to be able to articulate not just what the Navy needs, but why it needs that fleet, what it intends to do with it, and where. The next secretary needs to make this case. And then he needs to be able to work with Congress to rationalize the cost and build the fleet the United States needs.”
The Indo-Pacific Aircraft Carrier Race
From Richard A. Bitzinger, Asia Times: “Until quite recently, only two nations in the Asia-Pacific operated fixed-wing carriers: India with a 50-year-old-plus ex-British carrier; and Thailand with its “pocket carrier,” the Chakri Nareubet. Both vessels could only operate aging Harrier jump jets, and most of these aircraft were in fact long inoperable.”
From Robert E. Kelly, Lowy Institute Interpreter: “The broad framework of the Obama administration in East Asia has been the 'rebalance' or 'pivot', whereby the United States would increase focus on Asia given the region's expanding weight in the global economy, particularly because of the rise of China and India. Those two, plus Japan, Indonesia, South Korea, and Taiwan, represent some of world’s largest countries and economies. This clustered dynamism – what Thomas Barnett calls the 'new core' of the world economy - suggests that the US pay greater attention. Many also suspect the pivot was a credible excuse for the US to disengage somewhat from the Middle East. Obama clearly wanted to retrench from that area, or at least wind down US wars there. Declaiming a need to focus on the far weightier region of East Asia provided good cover for that.”