Two LPD Amphibious Ships Cut From 2020 Budget Plan... IT HAS BEGUN! BUDGET ARMAGEDDON!!!

via Breaking Defense.

Wary of bringing big, expensive warships full of sailors and Marines in missile range of hostile coastlines, the Pentagon plans to cut two new amphibious warships out of the 2020-2024 budget plan to be released later this month, defense officials confirmed.

The decision to delay the planned purchase of two San Antonio-class Flight II landing dock ships, known as LPDs, out past 2024 is part of a much wider reevaluation of naval warfare. Under high-level pressure to build a fleet better able to face Chinese and Russian precision missiles, the Navy is reducing its investment in large but potentially warships like amphibs and carriers so it can free up money for more offensive weaponry on smaller surface ships, submarines, and aircraft.

The Navy is set to make the request in its fiscal 2020 budget set to be delivered to Congress on March 12, which will also include a controversial plan to cut the mid-life refueling of the USS Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier, essentially retiring the flattop two decades early.

Don't be fooled friends.

Budget armageddon has begun.

The days of the gravy train are over.  The latest round of tax cuts has sealed the deal in a way that I love...smaller govt.  The unexpected consequence? This thing happening to the Pentagon is coming a bit sooner than I expected. The 2020's were gonna be terrible but I thought it wouldn't hit till MAYBE 2025 or so.

What does this mean?

Well if you've been following the news then you've seen that the US Army is cutting.  Same with the USAF and now the US Navy.

The most dramatic cuts so far have come from the Navy but the writing is on the wall.

Bin Laden, a failed anti-terror/regional realignment and a rising China/resurgent Russia have pushed us into a corner partly of our own making.

At the end of the day, for better or worse, events have lined up to do to us what Reagan did to the Soviet Union.

Can we recover?  Yes.  But we've got to be smart NOW!  We've got to make the hard choices and do the hard thing NOW!  The old formula of simply cutting manpower is a non-starter.  Tough choices with regard to bases (talking overseas), commitments to "questionable" allies and idiot programs that drain the trough and don't add to combat power must be eviscerated.

Additionally we have to re-examine the Combatant Commander concept, the constantly expanding commands and cut with a cleaver, not a scalpel.

Gents!  The going just got tough.  We've got to get tougher!