These floating dumpsters cost the American taxpayer 500-600 million per ship.

The US Navy is trying to garage sell these malfunctioning ships to Greece and they are onto the scam. The Greek Defense Minister is smarter than the average bear.

Glad to see that even foreign navies with very tight budgets have the discipline not to take on ineffective and ultimately, fatally flawed surface ships.

“As far as the agreement with the United States is concerned, I am proud of the two military agreements with the United States that bear my signature, as well as the agreements with France and the UAE. The agreements with the United States, ladies and gentlemen, put Alexandroupolis on the map. And this is absolutely essential for national reasons, as you all know, and there is no disputing that.

The United States has honored what was outlined in these agreements, colleagues. Do you know what they did not honor? What is outlined in the Blinken letter. What Secretary of State Blinken wrote to the Prime Minister was not honored by the United States, and I said so plainly. And for this, neither the Greek Government, nor the Greek Prime Minister, nor our country bears any responsibility.

They mentioned LCS and proposed LCS vessels to us without fixing the propulsion system. It would have been absurd to accept them! And, on top of that, with a requirement to pay 50 million for each of them? No. A thousand times no. And you would have made the same decision I did.”

– Nikos Dendias, Defense Minister of Greece during his speech at the Parliament on December 14, 2024

https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2024/12/no-a-thousand-times-no-greek-defense-minister-on-lcs-deal/

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Brent Eastwood does a splendid job elucidating so many of the problems of the fatally flawed Ford super-carrier. I suspect he had to say “promising” but there is nothing here for the 21st century; this is the chariot and crossbow of the next generation. This is the sunken cost fallacy afloat. The prudent policy is to retire these behemoths immediately and completely rethink US and Western surface naval combat. The era of manned combat aircraft is over, whatever is aloft is a zombie force on borrowed time. The US Navy is quite literally playing chicken with thousands of lives in a gamble that the opponents will blink.

They won’t.

They can’t.

As we have discussed before, the strike package projection from a single super-carrier is less than ten birds with a combat radius of less than 750 nautical miles. China, Russia and Iran (not to mention the Houthis in Yemen) have the capacity right now to disable or sink a carrier near their homelands. They have been perfecting this amelioration effort for years if not decades, they are ready.

Key Points: The U.S. Navy’s Ford-class aircraft carriers represent technological advancement but face five significant challenges.

–First, the cost is staggering, with the Gerald R. Ford exceeding $13 billion and maintenance costs nearing $27 billion over its lifetime.

–Second, construction delays have plagued the program, with delivery timelines stretching years.

–Third, evolving threats like anti-ship missiles, hypersonics, and drones put carriers at significant risk.

–Fourth, resupplying the massive vessel for long deployments remains logistically challenging.

–Lastly, advanced technologies like EMALS and Advanced Arresting Gear have faced reliability issues.

-While promising, the Ford-class program has sparked debates about cost, delays, and future survivability.

The U.S. Navy’s Ford-Class Aircraft Carriers: 5 Biggest Problems

Not only is the super-carrier crippled by existential problems in capability, its very existence is reminiscent of the Battleship Hypnotism that enthralled admirals of the West prior to 8 December 1941.

A live-fire battle with China would answer many of the following questions. Can a carrier survive a direct hit from an anti-ship missile? Do carriers need to patrol outside the range of the Anti-Access/ Area Denial defensive bubble that the Chinese have so deftly created around their First Island Chain? Will manned or unmanned submarines be the death of a U.S. aircraft carrier?

These questions will have to be pondered by some of the best thinkers in the U.S. Navy. Otherwise, the Gerald R. Ford will not be worth the exorbitant cost, and future aircraft carriers of the Ford-class may be reconsidered. 

The next war may include anti-ship missiles, drones, and submarines. Carrier-based combat could be made obsolete by asymmetric weapons and a determined enemy who is likely to try anything to slow down or destroy the Gerald R. Ford.

The U.S. Navy’s Ford-Class Aircraft Carrier ‘Nightmare’ Has Begun

A chilling report was just issued by the CRS on 13 December 2024 filled with foreboding and magic thinking.

Navy Ford (CVN-78) Class Aircraft Carrier Program: Background and Issues for Congress

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The pattern is a revolving door of deliberate insider trading and influence by hiring retiring flag officers with active Rolodexes to be exploited in bent bidding and shadowy acquisition practices in an already sclerotic and gummed-up acquisition system that can’t create working weapons systems at scale.

The flag officer cadre in America is a very exclusive club where you are a made man for life who can peddle your influence and your cache forever unless you screw up like the gentleman described below or slamming your man-rod in the cash register like GEN Petraeus at the CIA. On November 9, 2012, President Obama accepted Petraeus’ resignation as Director of the CIA, after Petraeus admitted having a sexual relationship with his biographer. On April 23, 2015, Petraeus pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of mishandling classified materials in a sweetheart deal.

The indictment of four-star Navy Admiral Robert Burke on bribery charges late last month raised eyebrows about the extent of corruption in the Navy and beyond. The scheme was simple. Burke allegedly steered a $355,000 Pentagon contract to a small workforce training firm — described unhelpfully in the Justice Department’s description as “Company A.” Less than a year later he took a job at Company A in exchange for a $500,000 annual salary and 100,000 stock options.

***

In fact, this is, by far, the most common path for retired senior military officers. As a Quincy Institute analysis found, over 80% of four-star generals and admirals that have retired in the last five years (26 of 32) went on to work in the arms sector. In short, most retiring four-stars, like Burke, go on to lucrative positions in the arms industry. Unlike Burke, they follow the rules, so this is all perfectly legal corruption.

***

Last, but certainly not least, there are the lobbyists. Last year alone, Pentagon contractors spent nearly $138 million on lobbying and had 905 lobbyists working on their behalf, according to OpenSecrets. That’s almost two lobbyists for every member of Congress, and more than 600 of them had gone through the revolving door —previously working at the Pentagon, Congress, or the Executive branch.

Read the whole thing:

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/navy-bribery-charges/

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