U.S. Marines might be forced to use foreign vessels to travel to global hot spots amid reports that budget cuts have left the Navy without enough ships to transport them.
The Navy needs several more amphibious ships to fulfill the Marines’ operational needs but will likely not obtain them in the near future, the International Business Times reports:
The Navy currently has 31 amphibious assaults ships, but needs as many as 38 in order to react to increased global obligations, in particular North Africa. But because of current budget constraints the Navy won’t be able to reach that number for another 13 years.
"Ceding our amphibious ships to other countries—it's almost silly and I can't believe it is even an option for the Navy," said Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., who served as a Marine in Iraq. "Now we are going to have to ask other countries, much less financially stable countries than America, to loan us their ships so that we can base our Marines on their ships. It's almost embarrassing."
Jim Webb, former Secretary of the Navy under President Ronald Reagan until 1988, said that the Navy was too small, noting that when he left the job the total amount of ships was 568. That figure has more than halved to 280 today.
"We are a maritime nation, and we communicate across the world through our sea services, and ... the size of the Navy right now is way too low," said Webb, who was a Marine infantry officer in Vietnam.
In a presidential debate with Mitt Romney in 2012, President Obama responded to the Republican candidate’s concerns about the shrinking Navy by stating that the issue is, "not a game of Battleship, where we’re counting ships."