Navy in maintaining a global presence via seabasing and ensuring access to contested regions. This came in the form of the doctrine of network-centric warfare, which emerged in the late 1990s and gave key roles to the U.S. The lack of a clearly defined naval mission in the 1990s, combined with the same budgetary pressures faced by the other services as defense funding fell, meant that the U.S. The Beginnings of the Littoral Combat Shipįollowing the end of the Cold War, the disappearance of the threat from the Soviet Union meant that the U.S. military capabilities while wasting resources that could be better used elsewhere. While close working relationships between the services, policymakers, and contractors can be beneficial, blunders like the littoral combat ship can undermine U.S. The acquisition of the littoral combat ship is an example of the military-industrial complex in action, and one that should not be forgotten. Navy’s over-reliance on a small number of shipyards, combined with a powerful lobbying effort by prime defense contractors, meant that congressional efforts to remove funding in the early stages of the program - citing concerns that were ultimately proved correct - were doomed to fail.
While the ships themselves are currently facing the prospect of decommissioning and replacement, and many will not be sad to see them go, the program has one saving grace - it offers some important lessons about the American defense industrial base. Each of the 23 commissioned littoral combat ships cost around $500 million to build, with astronomical operating costs adding to the program’s hefty price tag. Uncharitably dubbed the “little crappy ship” by its detractors, the program has faced cost overruns, delays, mechanical failures, and questions over the platforms’ survivability in high-intensity combat. It has been plagued by problems since its conception in 2001. The littoral combat ship can answer that question. politics.ĭoes this treadmill still exist half a century later? He described the military-industrial complex (i.e., the deep interconnection of the military, politicians, and industry) as a “military-contract treadmill” that had unwarranted influence over U.S. William Proxmire in his excoriating 1970 book Report from Wasteland. The military-industrial complex “has more tentacles than an octopus,” and its “dimensions are almost infinite.” So wrote Sen.
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