

From fleet design to basic training, our admirals and senior civilian leaders are behaving in ways reminiscent of Jimmy Breslin’s “ The Gang that Couldn’t Shoot Straight.” Our Navy appears to drift from shoal to shore, pursuing strategies and tactics that seem obsolete from the day they are implemented. Look at the forces lining up against it: A bellicose China that threatens Taiwan and the entire Western Pacific, as well as a resurgent Russia, bent on claiming the entire melting polar region as its own. Befuddled by tough choices, dogged by inadequate training and crippled by poor judgment, our sea service is ill-prepared to meet its greatest challenges since World War II.
