Former US Navy Secretary John F. Lehman has warned in an exclusive interview with Asia Times that the US faces the danger of a “New Pearl Harbor from growing cooperation between China, Russia and Iran that is marked by increased military and technology sharing.
“China, Russia and Iran are doing joint naval exercises and they are sharing anti-aircraft and antisubmarine technology,” Lehman said. “They don’t have to be allies. They figure if they carry out their designs in co-ordinated fashion that this will stretch the US so thin that we can’t deal with it — and that is the worry right now.”
But as the US military confronts a three-way alignment that Lehman compares to the Tripartite Alliance between Germany, Italy and Japan before World War II, Lehman says the chief danger isn’t from anti-ship missiles or supercavitating torpedoes. Rather, the main threat to American preparedness, he says, springs from a painfully slow US process for procuring new weapons systems. He also blames recent collisions involving Navy ships in Asian waters on the combined pressures of generational change, and training and budget cuts, on a smaller, peacetime Navy.
“All these problems are fixable,” Lehman said. “We just need the leadership and will to do it.”
Lehman served as the Reagan administration’s Navy secretary between 1981-1987. He was the architect of the 600-ship Navy that harried the Soviet Union in the Cold War.
He believes the past is repeating itself in the current face-off between the US and a new set of foes. “If you go back and read how the Triple Alliance before World War I or the Axis alliance before World War II evolved, you’ve got exactly the same thing happening now. Russia, China and Iran are concert parties,” Lehman said.
Procurements maze
Against this backdrop, Lehman sees an urgent need to quickly develop and deploy new US weapons systems. But he says a tortuous, decades-long acquisitions process involving the Pentagon, defense contractors, and Congress, makes many US planes, ships and supporting systems obsolete by the time they are operational.
The former top Navy official reckons it takes the US more than 22 years to get a major weapons system up and running. Russia and China, he says, can do it in about 6-7 years. He notes that new Congressional legislation is needed to streamline and simplify the procurements process.
“We’re strangling on bureaucracy and overhead,” Lehman said flatly. “In digital technology, the procurement system has become so paralytic that by the time we get new digital weapons and electronics deployed, it’s ten years old.”
Lehman’s views on the need for quick deployments of new US weapons systems are shared by former US naval officers. “We can talk about potential future technological advantages forever. However, it doesn’t mean anything unless Congress funds the military our country needs. Some segment of our military-industrial complex must also be motivated and have the capability to manufacture the quality and quantity of the weapons needed,” Joseph F. Callo, a retired rear admiral in the US Navy Reserve, told Asia Times.
But Lehman also downplays the notion that new weapons like lasers and rail guns will be instant “game changers” against China and Russia.
“Lasers and rail guns will have their role — but naval weapons are evolutionary, not revolutionary,” he said, pointing to history.
“The biggest challenge for the the Navy is that they are currently under-resourced and over-committed. For the last 15 years, the fleet has continued to shrink, with fewer ships, while the requirements and demands from combatant commanders have continued to increase.”
He notes that the Navy’s current fleet of under 300 ships is about half of its Cold War strength.
Navy mishaps explained
Lehman says this has been a major factor in a series of fatal accidents involving Navy ships and planes in the western Pacific this year. A total of 20 US sailors have died in incidents which are stirring doubts about Navy preparedness as military activity surges because of a nuclear crisis with North Korea.
“There has been this constant pressure to do more with less,” Lehman noted.
The Navy, according to Lehman, is also reeling from generational change as older, more experienced personnel are replaced by younger types who are lower on the learning curve. “People are standing watches that they’re not experienced enough to stand,” Lehman pointed out.
He adds that the Navy faces a staff retention problem as budget cuts and other changes make the military a less desirable place to work vs. the private sector. Fewer ships also mean extended deployments, taking sailors away from their families for longer periods.
“This happens frequently between wars. The last time was in the 1970s and we’re reliving that now with the hemorrhaging of the most qualified people,” Lehman said.
“There has been this constant pressure to do more with less”
Navy budget cuts have also led to spare parts and maintenance shortages. “The equipment they have doesn’t work half the time,” Lehman noted. Funds are also needed to reactivate mothballed Navy ships to take the strain off of deployment schedules.
Lehman says current bipartisan support in Congress for increased defense spending is a step in the right direction. The Trump administration has requested US$677.1 billion in total defense spending under its fiscal 2018 budget. Republican and Democratic legislators are expected to dole out billions more than the administration has requested.
“It’s a very serious situation,” Lehman said, but if Washington acts quickly to enact legislation to streamline weapons procurements, raise defense funding, address the spare parts and maintenance issue and reactivate more ships, the former Navy secretary says things will turn around.
“But if we don’t do any or some of these things, then we’re in very serious danger of a Pearl Harbor type of situation,” Lehman warned.
Doug Tsuruoka is Editor-at-Large of Asia Times
Fear fear, a triple alliance! But what alliances does US have? How about NATO? How about the Quad including India, Japan, Australia and Indonesia? The usual drivel to drive up military spending and easire wasteful procurement.
Oh wow, two pearl harbor types pieces from Yakees on Asia times in 1 week! Is this really Asia times or Anglo Saxon times in disguise?
And the poor dude’s got all his pearl harbor anology all wrong. The closest pearl harbors in our tims are
1. Iraq. Bush’s "shock and awe" anyone? Then got find out the excuse US used to go in was FALSE, which US used in front of EVERY NATION ON EARTH in the UN to justify their actions infront of the whole world. This action messed up the whole middle east and helped spawn new wave of terrorism on our godamn little planet.
2. Libya. Suddenly the North Africa nation got bombed into a failed state, and funny enough, Yankees then got busy persecuting Mastermind Hillary for failing to protect a couple of Yankees while murder and killing happened in the rest of the former Libya country, while yankees seemingly forgot their original mission was "to protect civilians". This is the fuking moment me and many others begin to completley see through the stupid veil of freedom and democracy and human rights Yankees weave infront of others blinding them to what they truely are. HIllary then proceed to get a chance to get elected president- she should be in jail for what she did to a formerly functioning state on this Earth! Oh and anyone else rememeber what hillary was doing when chaos is gripping Libya? Giving an TV interview (with gal) chucking "I came I saw He died". Well there was lot of other innocent dying going on Hillary.
3. Syria. Moderate rebels anyone? A dollar each or was it a million dollar each, then pentagon admitted there were none. And anyone still remembers in 2013 US came SO CLOSE to become ISIS’s airforce but stopped at last minute? I didn’t. Does this count as another close "pearl harbor" moment in our times?
And funny he called iran russia china the new tripower pact countries. Now what is Iran equivalent? Italty? Did Italy shot down another nation’s airlines then proceed to shamelessly reward the captian that did it a reward medal? (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655)
Oh wait it was the Yankees.
If this yankee dude wants to call Iran Russia China a new tripower pact then pray to heavens this new tripower pact can keep these yankees in check so we don’t experience more exciting pearl harbor types, not ON the paranoid yankees, but FROM them!
Let me add once more…for all the bellicose war rhetoric coming from Yankees towards Iran in past decade and half right up till few days away with Trump in the news in case anyone missed it, this yankee’s concern that Iran gonna help do a "pearl Harbor" on US is ABSOLUTELY CUTE AND ADORABLE.
And the real pearl harbors already happened, you poor yankee. every one of the 3 I listed above is a pearl harbor on your honor, on your credibility, on your trustworthiness and more. Half of the worlds real intelligent, informed and people with REASON already left you or are in serious doubt about you, many that are left are just naieve types and vultures attracted to the dying corpose, attracted to the energies you have left that are of use to them. Good luck finding real reliable "friends" in them for your fight against the new "tripower pact".
Blaming lack of funding for recent sea collisions by invoking Pearl Harbour? Effective and low.
Oh wow you bunch of jealous haters… Obviously the guy is a bit of a dinosaur but honestly how can you compare these weird regimes who got their arses kicked to the USA?
you guys just don’t understand that we worked hard to create a world order of decent nations, of which Asian nations are a solid part of.
Do you really think that the likes of Lybia under the lunatic Gaddafi or any of the other women surpressing, stone age countries of the middle east were going to be allowed to step up and challenge the likes of the western world?
Now under serious reform AND in a controlled manner these areas of the world will be allowed to grow. But the problem is it really is so easy for a power greedy nut case to step up and threaten the world order.
And thank God that the US has got the balls to assert its order upon the world.
Just visit the place and you will see that it is definitely a worthy world leader.
So now China is getting there too, that’s great but of course it’s growth will be monitored.
It is no joke how quickly this world could change if some weird and unreliable regime gets into power. Personally I like the world as it is and the free civilization that we have in many parts of it.
And many parts of the world rising from poverty. And stable, reliable respectable countries emerging.
It is the west at the helm and credit were credit is due for the balls and prowess of the United States.
Imagine yourself at the helm of the whole world before you criticize American leaders so freely. Would you crap your pants when you heard about nuclear weapons getting into the wrong hands?
Would you freak out when you saw North Koreans chearing the launch of a missile which they proudly say would reach America?
How would you deal with it?
And would kind of chaos would descend upon the whole world if the US were to be defeated in war?
So just think about that the next time you feel the need to criticize us.
South Korean leaders are smart isn’t it?
And the Japanese?
If they see fit to remain allies there is surely a good reason for it.
And even Impressive China still has a long long way to go before it can truly be en par with us. Just come visit and you will quickly understand.
Our countries are impressive, humane, well organized places and we have earned our place at the top. ☺
Vince Cheok I appreciate your intelligent reply.
If you read the above comments from your colleagues you will probably notice that they are heavily biased ideas and an exaggerated and excessive western criticism bordering on racist and extremely narrow minded.
That’s probably how I ended up on a similar page.
Now that I understand what pieved these guys it gives me better context to understand their comments, however I maintain that my response was totally en par with the comments given.
I am not a white supremacist however I will not just sit by and watch people dish out narrow minded criticism of my culture just because the writer of the above article is a bit of a dinasour.
And I would suppose that if you have been educated in western countries then you can of course have something better to say about us than your whining colleagues who are as fuddy duddy as the writer of the article. ????
Incidently I do actually like Donald Trump. Many many and far too many people in Europe who have modern sensibilities judge the past actions of European cultures way too harshly. And just can’t find something good to see in themselves and their history.
This was reflected in Obamas pussy footing around.
Trump on the other hand charges in all guns blazing and refuses to apologize for all that he is.
This emboldens and liberates many Europeans who can’t find good in themselves.
Trump is tackling things head on like a bull in a China shop and I think it’s great.
He shakes and rattles institutions and questions everything.
He has re militarized Europe which is good. He has taken Asia head on to counter China’s rise and I think that is a good thing all in all.
I’m not sure what’s going to happen in the middle east but at least change of some description is taking place.
He is human. And not afraid to show it.
In any case we westerners have tamed the world at large and offered up a level playing field to the world.
Let’s just hope Asia isn’t yet arrogant enough to start disrespecting our achievements because we’ll how did Hong Kong get so rich and powerful?
What about Singapore and South Korea?
We have given alot to the world and I actually think a thanks is in order rather than loads of people being so quick to criticize.
First, a comparison of cooperation among China, Russia, and Iran on defense matters to the Triple Alliance is absurd on many levels and the idea that a "new Pearl Harbor" is in the cards is ridiculous.
Second, the US military budget is off the charts. The "official" budget grossly understates true spending hidden in the State, Energy, and other departments.
Third, the US military is the most powerful the world has ever known. It is technologically peerless. It has 11 nuclear aircraft carrier groups and more on order. It can blockade any part of the world’s oceans whenever it chooses. It could defeat any combination of naval forces with a small fraction of its forces.
The real problem is that the US is trying to dominate the entire world with military power and even these immense forces are not sufficient. But trying to dominate the world with military force is a dead end. Clearly it is not working and it is time that the US rethink its entire approach to world affairs.
Budget cuts to the Navy? you got to be kidding. Pearl Harbor? Maybe he’s senile.
Vince Cheok the main war that the US has won since WW2 is the cold war in fact. That’s how we capped off our top spot in this world.
And unlike you there are many many Asian people who would very much like us to remain here to assure that Asian countries grow into healthy democracies and not twisted and dangerous dictatorships.
The United States is a force for good in a complex world and I would never put my hopes of a stable world into the hands of Russia, China, Iran et al.
The reason is that the American constitution protects its citizens from the individual leaders who may occupy top spot.
This is simply not the case in Russia or China.
Asia is making great advances in becoming a stable and sane part of the world but it could so easily fall into a hell of warring dictators.
The United States and Europe protect the world from such eventualities and many many citizens from other parts of the world appreciate that fact.
The CIA doesn’t remove leaders for American interest it removes them because they are a danger to peace and stability.
We stand for something good and I’m fed up with hearing the endless criticism from fools who believe China and Russia will save us.
Stuart Budgen ,
I can only speak for myself. I assure you that most of my past Western colleagues at work and at University are like myself (as an Asian) moderate and unassuming and taught to listen and not be judgmental, (let those who have no sins cast the first stone!), and to focus on mutual win-win solutions, so that in business and hopefully also in life there is no matrix of winner or loser.
We are not into egocentricity or egotism. For the greatest sin in Christianity is Pride. And as the maxim goes ‘Pride goes before a Fall’
We are to be thankful and grateful for the good people of any nation, race, culture or tradition whether Occidental, Oriental or African, who have contributed to the cross fertisation and the diversity and thus value added to the quality and colour and complexion and modernity of human life.
What goes around comes around or as Jesus said – Thou Shall Reap the Seeds That You Sow’ or as the Buddha said ‘Good begets good and bad begets bad’ or as the Vedantic Hindu saying goes – ‘Every action has a corresponding equal befitting karmic reaction’.
Whether and how nations or states rise and fall, militarily or economically, like the ‘ascending and descending’ on the Jacob’s Ladder, comes down to these simple dictates or tenets of these spiritual wise men.
Vince Cheok well that’s quite a nice speech all in all.
Now let’s see it being practiced in yours and your friends comments vis a vis to the western world.
And let’s see if China’s win win doesn’t just end up being a masked imperialistic drive for hegemony because if you look into its past, just like Russia and most other countries, well there would be much to come around in karmic effects… Because we didn’t invent war, far from it.
What we did invent is a modern world in which we have a unique opportunity to transcend the old empire mindset.
A level playing field of modern scientific, evidence based democracy.
Yes we did. And what rises from the ashes of the Middle East will be a moderate Arabic democratic world.
Likewise in Asia.
That’s our gift to mankind.. You guys honor it and make it better if you can. ☺
Lehman hasn’t got the point.For several reasons his wishes and plans will remain unachievable. America is not the old America.It is the biggest debtor nation in history, riddled with huge 20 plus trillion dollar burden that is irreversibly progressing And no one in America or anywhere else believe America can ever repay it. .If America is to arm as Mr Lehman wants it will have to turn to China itself to borrow the money.
America now is nation which lost its way and purpose.It is in the grip of lobbies which
not only do not care for American interests but more often than not act against those interests and pressurise American lawmakers to accede to their demands.Many of their lawmakers are nothing but traitors who openly flaunt this treason
Reality is that America is a failed state while its leaders blame other nations for being s.Failed in managing its economy,politically all its lawmakers have turned themselves into purchasable commodities by lobbies of foreign powers .America can do nothing against China or Russia
Fear and hype. Total nonsense. Does anyone really believe that fat boy is getting the latest in guidance system or warhead technolgy from the Chinese or Russia?
Neocon war Hawk now want to have his own version of Pearl Harbor surprise attack.
God help U.S.
Stuart Budgen This is a typical patronising response. So you are surprised that you got an intelligent answer from an Asian? You are attacking the readers and not the drivel of that writer? And no less an ex Navy Secretary? You are proud of the destruction of Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam? The legacy of Agent Orange? You are proud of the destruction of Libya and now the flood of refugees to Europe? The destruction of the economies of Libya and Iraq? North Korea saw what happened to Libya (who gave their nuclear weapons) and Iraq and what will happen to Iran. They interpreted that without nuclear weapons, this will also happen to them. Why do you think your world view is the correct one? And right now with the orange carrot in charge, you still feel on top of the world? Your closest ally just dumped on you.
Stuart Budgen,
Absolutely true that today’s modernity is due largely to Western capitalism and enterprise and the flourish of Western arts and the sciences in all fields. To this I admit that I owe a debt and gratitude for being lucky enough to be ‘Westernised’.
But otherwise you are truly patronising and condenscending and egoistical.
I disagree absolutely with your unsubstantiated view that China is hegemonistic.
Territorial wise China had been conquered many times by barbaric tribes from its North like the Mongols, Tartars, Manchus and the like, but the Chinese Han people themselves have never ventured or bothered to venture beyond what in their ‘Dreamtime’ of antiquity they perceive to be the ‘Middle Kingdom’, where their ancestral spirits reside. You have to be like an American indigenous Indian to understand this about the unique spiritual association only to and with a particular acreage on Earth. The Middle Kingdom is bounded by the natural frontiers or borders of South and East China Seas, the Himalayas, the Western Kazakhstan desert and the Mongolian Steppes to the North. If anybody claims that the Middle Kingdom can extend beyond those parameters he or she is not Chinese at all. For our Chinese ancestral spirits would never enter the realm of ‘foreign spirits’! I know this because my father before he died explained this to me, that he dreaded the thought of dying outside the Middle Kingdom as his spirit might not be able to find his way back home to the Middle Kingdom. It is the Chinese equivalent to Israel or the Promised Land.
Culture and Spiritual Philosophy wise, the Chinese are a very introverted, insular and parochial people, akin to the Jews. To be a Jew or a Chinese has nothing to do with citizenship or adopting Chinese values and beliefs. It is even more than patronymic. It has to do with whether you attached to and abide with your ancestral spirits.
The Chinese have no wish or desire or compulsion for others to eat with chopsticks, write in brush stroke hieroglyphics, practise kungfu or Taichi or Chan (Zen) meditation, believe in the Qi and fungshui and yin and yang and karmic retribution, worship their parents and ancestors, to follow the Confucian tenet that there is no greater love than a mother’s love for her newborn child, and no greater duty and responsibility than filial piety, (and thus the family is the basic unit of society, not the individual), and to play weiqi instead of chess, and play the guzheng instead of the guitar or the violin, and most of all to remain atheist or pagan believing only in the Tao of Mother Nature and thus of the various nature spirits including ancestral spirits. We maintain and continue the living antiquity of our 5000+ Chinese culture and traditions because of this ancestral worship.
As long as U have an Ahole in the white house,,, even god is keeping away
Vince Cheok thanks now I think we are beginning to understand each other and I genuinely do hope that China will simply reduce American aggressiveness and help rebuild a better world. However I fear that all empires just can’t help to attempt hegemony.
In any case China’s rise is a long and slow process and contrary to what many people think, it doesn’t mean that the west shall wain.
Let’s hope for a positive east/west balance with the best of all worlds contributing to a peaceful and stable future.
KS Chin I’m not surprised at all to receive an intelligent answer from an Asian man because I simply love Asian thought and have studied it for a great part of my life.
Actually that part of my comment was a genuine and healthy compliment as I tend to practice complimenting the person I speak to about his point of view before giving my reply.
What you interpret as pride or arrogance in me is simply panache and aplomb if you like. Strength and heroism. This is the culmination if western achievement in a healthy mind.
For me to shine one’s light does not mean to extinguish other peoples lights, I just shine like the sun and if it lights your way that’s great, if it pulls you out of the dark that’s great too.
If you are really bad or wrong in some way then I will correct you.
What you don’t seem to realize is that I am British and we have had an empire which ruled the whole world. My mentality is a result of that.
I don’t think that I am better than you I just am what I am.
With regards to war since world War 2 I would say that America didn’t just decide to kill people all over the world for fun. The was a war going on and America and its allies fought that war and won, that’s all.
Now can you blame the victor for all the bloodshed afterwards? Surely there would not have been a war in the first place unless there were people from various countries who chose to participate. So why don’t people hate Russia for the bloodshed or Japan or Germany etc etc… Why only us?
It is because it is easier for people to hate and betray than to believe in and love.
America isn’t a perfect place, of course not but it stands for good and that is great and worth believing in.
I know many Asian people who absolutely do not want America to leave Asia. Because they want us to finish what we started which is to bring democracy to the world.
People who are afraid that we will leave only for some new dictator to take power in Thailand or Cambodia.
That’s why our wars are ongoing because it is a long process to weed out the bad and install trust worthy nations who will never pose a threat to peace and stability.
If you can say that Asia is a continent full of trustworthy governments, I’m sure that we would be ready to leave, go home eat hamburgers and watch baseball. ☺
“Peacetime Navy”?
You’ve been at war for almost 2 decades!
Same-o-same-o. Lehman failed to build his 600 ship Navy then, and he will fail to build it today. He is right about a lot of Navy problems, but the number of hulls afloat ain’t one of ’em.
Jing Wang some are against and some are for. Same in Asia.
Some people believe that America wants to create a world of stable, reliable democracies and some don’t.
From my experience of realistic documentary programs I have seen young people and women in Iraq having secret parties and underground freedom revolutions. Loving the freedom of the west and escaping the archaic patriarchies and beheadings of traditional Arabic society.
Our culture is a light unto many and a curse too. Each to his own opinions.
I do know that post world War 2 Arabia was a backwards and archaic civilization which wouldn’t have hesitated to slaughter the Jews.
And that gradually the Arabic world is being moderated and modernized just like everywhere else.
Who is your psychotherapist, mr. former secretary? IMHO he is in vain receiving his salary.
The US military is an epic failure because it was never designed to fight major wars, or even ignorant tribal warriors armed with 20 year-old AKs.
It was designed to make money for corrupt corporations, and get people elected.