The Pentagon is heavily reliant on commercial vessels to transport military resources abroad, but that fleet is too small and would be potentially unreliable in a major global conflict, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Transporting assets such as fighter jets, ammunition, armaments and even basic resources such as food and fuel to U.S. military forces abroad requires a robust logistics chain, leading the Pentagon’s Transportation Command (TRANSCOM) to tap commercial seafaring vessels to help, according to the WSJ. The fleet of vessels would be essential in providing support during a global conflict, but there aren’t enough of them, and there are questions about whether those ships would be mission-capable in the event of a crisis.
That problem is exacerbated by China — which U.S. intelligence considers the greatest threat to American national security — having a massive fleet of ships that could be mobilized at a near moment’s notice, according to the WSJ.
“We’re light years from where we need to be,” Stephen Carmel, head of the U.S. Marine Management, told the WSJ, referencing TRANSCOM’s fleet of fuel-transport ships. TRANSCOM would need more than 100 such vessels in a global conflict, according to some analysts’ estimates — but the command has only received promised access to 10.
The Pentagon is so heavily reliant on private-sector vessel companies in part because its own fleet of transport vessels is so small. The government only owns less than 50 such vessels, and 28 of those will be retired within the next decade, according to the WSJ. […]
— Read More: dailycallernewsfoundation.org
