[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 75 (Wednesday, May 3, 2023)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1516-S1519]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                               U.S. NAVY

  Mr. SULLIVAN. Madam President, recently, there have been numerous 
articles in the media about the U.S. Navy's lack of amphibious ships--
one that I would like to submit for the Record, headlined ``Grounding 
of U.S. Marine Unit Spotlights Lack of Ships in Asia-Pacific,'' can be 
found online at https://www.wsj.com/articles/grounding-of-u-s-marine-
unit-spotlights-lack-of-ships-in-asia-pacific-757315b4.
  (Mr. WHITEHOUSE assumed the Chair.)
  In this piece, the writer leads with how the 31st Marine 
Expeditionary Unit, a rapid response force of the Marine Corps designed 
for quick deployment on three Navy ships--what we call an ``amphibious 
ready group''--how they were forced to abandon a training exercise 
because the amphibious warships that they are supposed to train on were 
not available due to maintenance problems.
  Here is what the article said in part:
  The Marine unit's grounded status illustrates the larger obstacles 
the United States is facing as it tries to pivot its military to handle 
the challenges from China. Overall, defense officials said the Navy 
doesn't have enough amphibious ships to transport marines, and a 
central part of the Marine Corps's mission is to hop from island to 
island in the Asia-Pacific and harry Chinese forces in the event of a 
conflict.
  By the way, Mr. President, the Marines are really good at this. They 
have been doing it for decades. But they need ships.
  Another article from Defense News is also a recent one about the lack 
of amphibious ships and the problem that poses. This one is from 
another part of the world but very recent. The article starts with how 
hundreds of American citizens were stranded in war-torn Sudan.
  It says:

       Hundreds of Americans in war-torn Sudan last month needed a 
     way out of the country, but the U.S. Marine Corps, the go-to 
     service for such rescues [of American citizens] couldn't 
     help.

  The article continued:

       Typically, this kind of mission would be standard for the 
     Navy and Marine Corps' amphibious ready group--

  A Marine expeditionary unit, or what we call in the Marine Corps a 
MEU, a MEU-R, a Marine expeditionary unit, an amphibious ready group--
three ships, super well trained, special operations capable, can go 
anywhere in the world, kick the door in, save American citizens.
  The article continues:

       For the Americans who fled to the coast [in Sudan] the 
     Pentagon sent an auxiliary transport ship--

  that they contracted out, I believe, from another country--

     to shuttle them safely to . . . Saudi Arabia.

  It was, in essence, a self-evacuation of U.S. citizens.
  Mr. President, NPR reported that the buses actually took hundreds of 
Americans to the Port of Sudan. Imagine--imagine--my colleagues, what 
would have happened had those Americans, traveling in contract buses in 
the middle of a civil war, got caught in the crossfire.
  The article that I just quoted was entitled ``Marines want 31 
amphibious ships. The Pentagon disagrees. Now what?'' I ask unanimous 
consent to have that article printed in the Record at the end of my 
remarks.
  Finally, Mr. President, there was another recent article from Defense 
One. Its title was ``Navy On Path To Violate 31-Amphibious-Ship 
Requirement in 2024.''
  Now, Mr. President, this is what I wanted to get to. Last year, in 
the Armed Services Committee, we held a number of hearings with the 
Navy and the Marine Corps saying: What is the minimum number of 
amphibious ships that would enable the Marine Corps to do its global 
force response mission--the minimum number? After many hearings, after 
much discussion with the Marines and Navy, we came up, in a bill of 
mine, with a minimum of 31 ships.
  This bill in the Armed Services Committee last year passed 
unanimously. Every Democrat and every Republican voted for it.
  The law now reads as follows. I know this is a little small, but here 
is the new U.S. Code that has the new language. It says:

       The naval combat forces of the Navy shall include not less 
     than 11 operational aircraft carriers and not less than 31 
     operational amphibious warfare ships, of which not less than 
     10 shall be amphibious assault ships--

  What we call in the Marine Corps ``big-deck assault ships'' that can 
carry helicopters and Ospreys and Harriers and now F-35 Bravos. That 
was the law. That passed. The President signed it.
  Here is the problem. The U.S. Navy is violating the law. The U.S. 
Navy is treating that law--31 amphibs, a minimum--as a suggestion from 
the Congress, as an option from the Congress.
  How do I know? Because we had a hearing 2 weeks ago on the Armed 
Services Committee, and the Secretary of the Navy essentially said: We 
are looking at different options for the President's budget on how many 
amphibs that the Navy is going to have.
  And, currently, the Navy presented a budget that doesn't have 31 
amphibs.
  I had some cross words with the Secretary of the Navy, the CNO of the 
Navy, because they are violating the law. And I will tell you, my 
Democratic and Republican colleagues on the Armed Services Committee 
were supportive of what I was saying. We had a hearing on the Armed 
Services Readiness Subcommittee yesterday. The Vice Chief of Naval 
Operations, Admiral Franchetti, said that the Navy was ``studying the 
issue.''
  The Navy can't study the issue anymore. The Navy needs to follow the

[[Page S1517]]

law. The U.S. Congress has done the studies. We need the ships.

  But here is what the Navy presented to the Armed Services Committee 2 
weeks ago. They provided us their 30-year shipbuilding plan for the 
Navy. Right here is the 31 amphib ship statutory minimum that is 
required by the law. Here is the Navy shipbuilding plan for the next 30 
years. You see in the numbers, these are different options: plan one, 
plan two, plan three.
  You might notice the Navy never gets to 31 amphibs. So the Secretary 
of the Navy, the CNO of the Navy, and the Vice CNO of the Navy came to 
the Congress in the last 2 weeks and said: Your 31 amphib ship 
requirement, we are going to ignore it. Your 31 amphib ship 
requirement, Congress, United States of America, we are going to 
violate that.
  This is unacceptable. The U.S. Navy, the Secretary of the Navy, the 
Secretary of Defense should not be thumbing their nose at the Congress, 
and, worse, they should not be violating the law and not trying to 
abide by the law. They are saying, for 30 years, we are going to ignore 
the Congress, and we are going to ignore the laws of the United States 
of America.
  This cannot happen. This cannot happen.
  Let me end with this. Whether you are a Democrat or a Republican, 
whether you are a hawk on defense issues or a dove on defense issues, 
if you are a U.S. Senator, this should make you really mad. This should 
make you really mad.
  Last year, the Congress spoke. And, again, on the Armed Services 
Committee, on which I serve, it was unanimous. Every member of that 
committee who had studied the issue said, at a minimum, the Navy needs 
31 amphibs so the U.S. Marine Corps can do its mission around the 
world. Everybody agreed. We passed the law.
  The Navy, the Secretary of the Navy, and the Secretary of Defense are 
thumbing their nose at this body, are breaking the law as we speak, are 
intending to break the law for the next 30 years. That is their 30-year 
shipbuilding plan. It never hits 31 ships.
  But here is the worst thing they are doing, and this is a real 
serious issue. They are putting the lives of American citizens at risk. 
Why do I say that? Well, let me end where I began, with Sudan, the 
rescue of American citizens. Again, normally, that is a mission tailor-
made for the U.S. Marine Corps, whether in an embassy or another 
dangerous part of the world--what we call a noncombatant evacuation 
operation, a NEO. The Marines do them all the time. They bring up their 
amphibs, launch helos, launch support craft, helicopters, fighters, if 
they need the air support.
  The capability of a MEU-R to go rescue American citizens--a lot of 
them--is unsurpassed by any service in the world.
  The U.S. Marines do it all the time. But guess what they can't do it 
without? They can't do it without amphibious ships. And right now, we 
don't have enough. So we dodged a bullet 2 weeks ago in Sudan.
  American citizens were put on buses and driven across dangerous parts 
of Sudan in a civil war, for hours after hours, and got to a port, 
self-evacuated on some other country's ships. We are so lucky that 
those Americans did not get killed or wounded--did not get killed or 
wounded--because there was no Marine Corps to rescue them.
  I am going to keep raising this issue. The Secretary of Defense, 
Secretary of the Navy, today, are violating the law. Today, they have 
no intention of meeting this 31 amphib ship requirement, and American 
citizens are at risk. And the next time we might not be so lucky. The 
next time Americans somewhere around the world need to be rescued, the 
next time an enemy of our country does something nefarious to our 
citizens, our national interests, and we don't have the ability to 
respond as a Marine Corps because we don't have the ships, we are going 
to know who is responsible.
  I yield floor.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                    [From Defense News, May 2, 2023]

  Marines Want 31 Amphibious Ships. The Pentagon Disagrees. Now What?

                          (By Megan Eckstein)

       Washington.--Hundreds of Americans trapped in war-torn 
     Sudan last month needed a way out of the country, but the 
     U.S. Marine Corps, the go-to service for such rescues, 
     couldn't help.
       Typically, this kind of mission would be standard for the 
     Navy and Marine Corps' amphibious ready group and Marine 
     expeditionary unit, made up of 2,300 Marines aboard three 
     ships who are trained to fight their way into and evacuate 
     citizens from dangerous locations.
       Instead, as violence surged, the Pentagon relied on drones 
     to monitor a 500-mile escape route from the capital of 
     Khartoum to the Red Sea city of Port Sudan. For the Americans 
     who fled to the coast, the Pentagon sent an auxiliary 
     transport ship to shuttle them to safety in Jeddah, Saudi 
     Arabia.
       It was a complicated and risky self-evacuation.
       At the same time, off the coast of Marine Corps Base Camp 
     Lejeune, North Carolina, the Bataan ARG and 26th MEU were 
     conducting a noncombatant evacuation simulation--training for 
     the very operation Americans in Sudan needed. But the group 
     stayed put because it wasn't yet certified for global 
     missions.
       The Navy didn't have another set of ready amphibious ships 
     to deploy from the East Coast on short notice.
       All of this followed a similar situation a few months 
     earlier, when service leaders were unable to send a team to 
     Turkey and Syria to provide aid after a 7.8-magnitude 
     earthquake rocked the region.
       Maj. Gen. Roger Turner, the Marine Corps' operations 
     division director, told Defense News the naval forces ``have 
     this razor-thin capacity'' with amphibious ships, and when 
     emergencies arise, ``there's no capacity to react.''
       It's a trend that could continue.
       Today, the Navy has 31 amphibious ships--what the Marine 
     Corps considers the bare minimum it needs--but the Pentagon 
     plans to shrink the fleet below that number in fiscal 2024. 
     As a result, Turner anticipates the Corps will be more 
     challenged to respond to global crises.
       Throughout last year and into this spring, that number--
     31--has been at the center of debates, as the Navy, Marine 
     Corps, Defense Department, Congress and industry weigh in on 
     how many amphibious ships the military needs, what they 
     should look like and how much they should cost.
       Now, the argument is about to come to a head.
       In June, the Pentagon is expected to complete a study on 
     whether to continue buying amphibious ships and, if so, what 
     capabilities those vessels will have.
       The final decision is expected to have major ramifications 
     for the Marine Corps and defense contractor Ingalls 
     Shipbuilding, a division of HII.
       For example, the study might back a requirement for 31 
     ships and recommend continuing to build San Antonio-class 
     vessels at a cost of about $2 billion each. Or the report 
     could recommend a new design that would cost less per ship--
     an idea the Corps already rejected, and one that could 
     disrupt Ingalls' production line.
       Or there's a third option: The report could call for a 
     continued pause in the Pentagon buying amphibious ships, 
     which could force Ingalls to close its production line and 
     would force the Marine Corps to reevaluate its amphibious 
     operations plans.
       But unless the Office of the Secretary of Defense approves 
     the continued construction of ships, or unless Congress 
     overrides the Pentagon, ``trying to maintain even a minimal 
     [amphibious] presence is going to be really difficult,'' 
     Turner said.
       This comes at a time when he said ``aggressive behavior of 
     the [People's Republic of China] is driving people to us; 
     they want us to be the security partner of choice,'' making 
     American amphibious presence all the more important today.
       Outsider observers like Mackenzie Eaglen, an expert in 
     military readiness at the American Enterprise Institute think 
     tank, believe the debate itself is problematic.
       ``Funding disagreements signal indecision to our 
     adversaries on the role of this capability,'' she warned.


                         A 31-ship requirement

       For years, the Marine Corps had a requirement of 38 
     amphibious ships, with the caveat it would accept 34 in a 
     fiscally constrained environment.
       This requirement was based on the rationale that the 
     service needed 38 ships to move two entire Marine 
     expeditionary brigades into combat for a forcible entry.
       In July 2019, Gen. David Berger took command of the service 
     and quickly released a document titled ``Commandant's 
     Planning Guidance'' that backed away from the requirement of 
     transporting those two brigades, saying the Corps would fight 
     differently in the future.
       Since then, a range of concepts have emerged, focused on 
     the idea that small units would already be dispersed 
     throughout the Pacific region to be able to tamp down an 
     emerging conflict until additional forces arrive.
       The Marine Corps began talking publicly about a 31-ship 
     requirement in 2021, and the Navy acknowledged that 
     requirement in 2022.
       According to the director of the Maritime Expeditionary 
     Warfare Division, Shon Brodie, the 31-ship figure is based on 
     an idea that the fleet should do three things:
       Keep two three-ship amphibious ready groups at sea at any 
     given time.
       Support contingency plans that call for five three-ship 
     amphibious ready groups to deploy on short notice.

[[Page S1518]]

       Allow for enough ready ships--those not tied up in 
     maintenance--that some would be available for training 
     Marines in events like fleet exercises.
       The requirement is specifically divided up into 10 
     amphibious assault ships (made up of the America-class LHAs 
     and Wasp-class LHDs that host fixed-wing jets like the F-
     35B), and 21 medium-sized amphibious vessels (either the 
     aging Whidbey Island-class LSDs or the newer San Antonio-
     class LPDs). An amphibious ready group includes one 
     amphibious assault ship and two medium-sized ships.
       Brodie told Defense News this 31-ship requirement is backed 
     by studies undertaken from 2008 to 2022, and reflects ships' 
     recent maintenance readiness rates, which hover around 40%.
       That rate means in a fleet of 31 ships, 12 or 13 might be 
     available at any given time. If six are supposed to be 
     deployed, and another six are getting ready to deploy next, 
     that leaves little to no additional capacity for training or 
     surging in response to natural disasters or conflicts.
       This low readiness rate has complicated the discussion and 
     is a key reason the Marine Corps considers 31 ships the bare 
     minimum.
       Pilots with the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit fly over the 
     amphibious transport dock Anchorage on Dec. 8, 2022. (Sgt. 
     Brendan Custer/U.S. Marine Corps)
       Bryan Clark, director of the Center for Defense Concepts 
     and Technology at the Hudson Institute think tank, said 31 
     ships is the right number, but noted ``presence is now the 
     driver, rather than warfighting lift requirements.''
       While the amphibious ready group and Marine expeditionary 
     unit, or ARG/MEU, team still can storm an island and take it 
     from enemy forces, the group is most often used to train 
     alongside partners and allies, respond to friendly nations 
     after a natural disaster, or rescue American citizens trapped 
     in dangerous countries.
       Eaglen said this emphasis on presence as a means of 
     deterrence has contributed to the disagreement with the 
     Pentagon over the 31-ship requirement.
       ``The rub as I see it between the Office of the Secretary 
     of Defense and the Marine Corps is over amphib ship 
     requirements for operational plans, versus the additional 
     duties of crisis response (and to a lesser extent building 
     partner capacity) the Marines have on a daily basis,'' she 
     told Defense News. ``To me, the commandant is saying he wants 
     and needs more ships for tasks scoped outside [of 
     warfighting].''
       Dakota Wood, a senior research fellow for defense programs 
     at the Heritage Foundation, acknowledged concerns over the 
     amphibious ships' survivability against Chinese anti-ship 
     missiles, but said ``large-scale combat operations against a 
     highly capable enemy like China is only part of the story.''
       ``Much has been made about China being the most substantial 
     security challenge for the U.S., but Navy-Marine Corps 
     forces, made possible with Marines embarked aboard Navy 
     amphibious ships, have repeatedly [proved] their worth across 
     a range of small crises in various parts of the world,'' he 
     told Defense News.


                            Fleet under fire

       Though the Marine Corps maintains it needs 31 ships, the 
     Pentagon has not committed to that requirement.
       DoD officials have not spoken publicly on the matter. Asked 
     by Defense News whether the Office of the Secretary of 
     Defense backs the 31-ship requirement, Pentagon spokesman 
     Chris Sherwood said the requirement can't be considered in 
     isolation and the department is ``focused on having the right 
     mix of capabilities to meet the objectives of the 2022 
     National Defense Strategy.''
       The Navy's fiscal 2023 budget request, shaped by the Office 
     of the Secretary of Defense and the White House before going 
     to Congress, called for truncating the San Antonio-class 
     production line after one final ship that fiscal year. This 
     move would end the San Antonio program after 16 ships, rather 
     than the planned 26.
       The FY24 request advances that plan, including no 
     additional LPDs in the five-year spending plan.
       With the Marine Corps and the Pentagon at odds, the Office 
     of the Secretary of Defense and the services are conducting a 
     capability and cost analysis to consider alternative ship 
     designs and acquisition strategies that might lower the cost 
     of future amphibious ships. That study is set to conclude in 
     June.
       U.S. Navy vessels sail with a Royal Thai Navy ship and a 
     South Korean ship while transiting the Gulf of Thailand 
     during the exercise Cobra Gold on March 3, 2023. (MC3 Joshua 
     Martinez/U.S. Navy)
       Marine Corps, and later Navy, leaders have pushed to buy 
     these ships in multiyear procurement contracts, which must 
     generate cost-savings as a condition of service secretaries 
     approving them. These savings are often on the order of 10%. 
     But a top Marine general told Defense News that the Office of 
     the Secretary of Defense wants larger savings by paring down 
     the ship design and capability.
       Lt. Gen. Karsten Heckl, the deputy commandant for combat 
     development and integration, told Defense News in March that 
     Pentagon officials had presented him with several rough 
     drawings of ship designs that would be cheaper than the 
     current LPDs.
       ``None of them are acceptable,'' he said. ``They're trying 
     to reduce cost by reducing my requirement. The answer to 
     reduced cost would have been to exercise [two previous 
     congressional authorizations for multi-ship contracts], one 
     of which was a five-ship and would have saved the American 
     taxpayers almost $900 million.''
       Heckl, speaking at the annual Sea-Air-Space conference in 
     April, said the Marines had in 2014 worked with the Navy to 
     scale down the LPD design to the cheaper Flight II design, 
     now under construction at Ingalls Shipbuilding. ``We drove 
     out cost. We're done.''
       Berger, who was part of that 2014 effort, made the same 
     point in an April 18 Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, 
     saying that ``every bit of efficiency [was] squeezed out'' of 
     the LPD design.
       ``If there's another effort to reduce that further, I know 
     that we went to the minimums in 2014,'' the commandant added.
       When Navy leadership first rolled out the plan to nix 
     future LPDs, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday said 
     that as the service prepares for a potential fight against 
     China, it must prioritize programs most relevant to that 
     conflict.
       But more recently, top Navy officials said they would like 
     to continue buying LPDs. Gilday told reporters in early 
     April: ``We agree on the 31 requirement, we agree on 
     leveraging the multiyear procurement in terms of doing a 
     bundle buy, and hopefully this study that ends in June 
     informs these next steps.''
       Sherwood, when asked about the Pentagon's commitment to 
     restart LPD buys in FY25 and to use multiyear procurement 
     authority, said the Office of the Secretary of Defense plans 
     to ``address the next purchase in our FY25 budget.''
       Lawmakers last year included a provision in the FY23 
     National Defense Authorization Act giving the commandant of 
     the Marine Corps the authority to set the requirement for 
     amphibious ships. That effectively makes the congressionally 
     mandated requirement 31.


                              today's plan

       The Navy's FY24 long-range shipbuilding plan, released 
     April 17, envisions a dwindling amphibious fleet unless a 
     compromise can be reached on building a future LPD-like ship.
       Until the amphibious ship study determines the future of 
     the San Antonio program--whether to continue or truncate it; 
     whether to buy ships one at a time or commit to a multi-ship 
     buy; whether to keep the Flight II design or pare it down 
     further--the Navy's existing long-range plan does not include 
     buying medium amphibious ships.
       It continues retiring the aging Whidbey Island LSDs, 
     though, calling for six of the 10 remaining ships to be 
     retired from FY24 to FY26.
       Under the baseline plan--the long-range ship plan includes 
     three potential options--the fleet of 31 amphibious vessels 
     today would sit at 29 in a decade, 24 in two decades and 19 
     in three decades.
       If the Navy were to continue buying the San Antonio-class 
     LPDs every other year, for about a billion dollars a year, 
     the fleet could instead sit at 34 in a decade, 34 in two 
     decades and 33 in three decades.
       The San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock Fort 
     Lauderdale is seen moored in Florida ahead of its July 30, 
     2022, commissioning ceremony. (Sgt. Gavin Shelton/U.S. Marine 
     Corps)
       Clark said the Office of the Secretary of Defense may not 
     want the Navy to spend $2 billion every other year for a ship 
     it doesn't highly value right now, particularly because that 
     cadence would generate a fleet slightly larger than the 
     Corps' 31-ship requirement.
       On the other hand, if the Navy stops the production line, 
     lets the fleet size shrink and then later opts to restart the 
     production line, the cost might be exorbitant--if Ingalls 
     could even reconstitute its workforce and supply base.
       ``Are you better off buying those ships? Is that actually 
     cheaper in the long run than it would be to stop the 
     production line and turn around and restart it?'' Clark said. 
     ``It may be that it almost becomes a wash.''
       That's the case with aircraft carriers: The Navy 
     essentially pays HII's Newport News Shipbuilding to keep the 
     production line ``activated and fully manned'' in order to 
     keep the sole builder of nuclear-powered carriers viable, 
     Clark said. The line isn't perfectly optimized, as that would 
     create a larger fleet than the Navy needs, but it delivers a 
     new ship every five to six years, and the Navy retains the 
     industrial base to produce these complex ships.
       This arrangement ``ends up being slightly cheaper than if 
     you started and stopped and started the construction line 
     multiple times,'' Clark explained. ``The question is: Does 
     Congress or [the Office of the Secretary of Defense]--mostly 
     Congress--want to take that longer term view and say, `We're 
     just going to keep building LPDs on two-year centers because 
     in the end it's cheaper than to stop and start this line, 
     unless you don't think you need LPDs [for future operations]? 
     ''
       Several experts expressed concern the Pentagon won't take 
     long-term measures, like approving multi-ship contracts, to 
     build and maintain a 31-ship fleet.
       Brent Sadler, a senior research fellow for naval warfare 
     and advanced technology at the Heritage Foundation, told 
     Defense News that the Office of the Secretary of Defense and 
     its Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation office ``don't see 
     value in amphibs in

[[Page S1519]]

     a China fight, and therefore [they are] not worth the 
     money.''
       Eaglen added that the the Office of the Secretary of 
     Defense ``is concerned some amphibs are too slow and 
     therefore easy targets after the shooting starts'' with 
     China, despite the Marine Corps seeing amphibious ships and 
     the surface connectors they haul as ``critical to fighting 
     inside the First Island Chain using Marines as a stand-in 
     force.'' (The first island chain stretches from Japan's 
     East China Sea islands through the Philippines.)
       ``Ultimately, Congress will be the adjudicator, and they 
     will again side with the commandant,'' she predicted.


              The cost of falling short of a 31-ship fleet

       Berger told the Senate committee that not having enough 
     ships puts at risk Marines' ability to deter or win a war, 
     plus their ability to respond to global crises.
       ``You have to be there with allies and partners because 
     they have to believe that the United States is not running 
     away from them, is going to be there even when things get 
     tough,'' he said.
       The commandant added that ``if you still believe . . . 
     three amphibious ships loaded up with 2,300 Marines, if they 
     have a deterrent value, and I think they do, then you want 
     them right in the adversary's grill, right in their face 
     where they can see them all the time . . . Can we afford 
     conventional deterrence? Absolutely yes, because the 
     alternative is a lot worse.''
       U.S. Marines sit in formation in combat rubber raiding 
     crafts during a launch and recovery exercise with the 
     amphibious transport dock New Orleans in the Philippine Sea 
     on Aug. 6, 2022. (Lance Cpl. Yvonne Iwae/U.S. Marine Corps)
       Assistant Commandant of the Marine Corps Gen. Eric Smith 
     during a panel discussion at Sea-Air-Space said the service 
     is providing as much airlift as possible for its forces in 
     the Pacific, allowing Marines to get to exercises and respond 
     to problems.
       But there are still gaps when no ARG/MEUs are patrolling 
     the Pacific, and Smith warned those would increase if the 
     fleet size decreases.
       If Americans traveling or working abroad find themselves in 
     the middle of a violent uprising, ``you better hope it's in 
     the months that we have an ARG/MEU ready to come get you. If 
     you're a combatant commander and somebody tries to close down 
     a SLOC, a sea line of communication, you're going to want to 
     hope that's during the months that we're there.''
       Calling the ARG/MEU the ``crown jewel of our expeditionary 
     crisis response capability,'' Turner said ``with the minimum 
     of 31 ships that has been established and the readiness 
     challenges that we're facing that we discussed, really the 
     confluence between capacity and readiness has pinched that 
     capability in ways that are really not helpful.''
       If the Navy continues down its path of decommissioning the 
     old LSDs and not replacing them with new LPDs, ``trying to 
     maintain even a minimal ARG/MEU presence is going to be 
     really difficult.''
       ``At a time that we should be adding capability, we're 
     actually reducing capability,'' Turner said.

                          ____________________