600-ship Navy

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The 600 Ship Navy was a strategic plan of the United States Navy during the 1980s to rebuild its fleet after cutbacks that followed the end of the Vietnam War. The plan, which originated with Republican leaders, was an important campaign plank of Ronald Reagan in the 1980 presidential election, who advocated a larger military and confrontation with the Soviet Union.

The program included:

Recommissioning the Iowa-class battleships.
Keeping older ships in service longer.
A large new construction program.

The idea was supported by John F. Lehman who became Reagan's Secretary of the Navy.

Contents

1 Background
2 Reagan plan
3 Plan accomplishments
4 End of the plan
5 Reference

Background

The idea behind the 600-ship navy can be traced back to the Vietnam War. As is so often the case during times of war the four main branches of the armed service—Army, Navy, Marines, and Air Forces—rapidly expanded to meet the demands placed on them.

The fall of Saigon and the United States' withdrawal from Vietnam brought about a loss of prestige for America's armed forces. Morale was at an all time low.#redirect [[Template:Fact]] The Soviet Union, which had been supporting North Vietnam, began staging their naval vessels from former U.S. ports in South Vietnam. Building on this gain, Soviet vessels began to sail in all seven seas with increased vigor, and even ventured into the Gulf of Mexico. Soviet forces also stepped up infantry, armour and air force deployments in Eastern Europe. By 1978 Admiral James L. Holloway III concluded that the United States Navy had a very slim margin over its Soviet counterpart.#redirect [[Template:Fact]]

Finally, in 1979, the takeover of a US embassy in the Iran hostage crisis, and the failure of a rescue mission in Operation Eagle Claw, heightened the sense that American military power was becoming more limited.

Reagan plan

It was against this backdrop in 1980 that the United States began an election year. Ronald Reagan, a Republican, ran the presidential race on a platform of improving the armed service, which appealed to then-current American fears regarding Soviet military power.#redirect [[Template:Fact]] Under the programs put forth by Reagan, the overseas strategic retaliation arm was strengthened, the development of new weaponry like the B-1B bomber, the Bradley fighting vehicle, and the Abrams tank were all completed and rolled out.

Plan accomplishments

President Ronald Reagan speaks at the recommissioning ceremony for the USS New Jersey

But it was the Navy that would see the largest benefit of the rebuilding. Under the Reagan Administration, the first of the Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines was completed. Construction on the Nimitz class of supercarriers and Los Angeles-class attack submarines were dramatically stepped up. The revolutionary, new Aegis combat system was installed on the up-and-coming Ticonderoga-class ships, production of which was also stepped up. Several aircraft carriers were put through Service Life Extension Programs (SLEPs) aimed at keeping them in service longer. And the old but useful Iowa-class battleships were all recommissioned and refitted with AGM-84 Harpoon, BGM-109 Tomahawk, and Phalanx CIWS system capabilities. The first Harpoons, the first Tomahawks, and the AGM-88 HARM missiles all debuted on the navy's ships. Naval aviation was stepped up with the introduction of the F/A-18 Hornet, along with improved versions of the EA-6 Prowler electronic countermeasure aircraft, the A-6 Intruder and the F-14 Tomcat.

These weapons and technologies helped put the United States Navy back on top during the Cold War^{[[Citing sources citation needed]]}, and they also helped inspire a change of strategy. Before that time, the U.S. fleet's primary job was to passively defend America's coast and protect its Sea lines of communication (SLOC) to and from Europe.#redirect [[Template:Fact]] Admiral Thomas B. Hayward, and later Admiral James D. Watkins, argued that the Navy should take an active role in the world by being able to mount offensives around Europe and in the Far East, which would force the Soviet Union to wage any "hot" war on two fronts, a strategically unfavourable situation.

Watkins and Lehman, who were good at public relations, sold the nation and Congress on the necessity of having a "600-Ship Navy".#redirect [[Template:Fact]] While much of the increases did not reach the full deployment, by 1990 the United States Navy was by far the largest in the world, with over 100 submarines and 15 carrier battle groups.

End of the plan

With the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s and the lack of a perceived threat against the United States, several of the Reagan Administration's policies and plans were scaled back or abandoned, such as the "600-Ship Navy". U.S. bases across Europe and the United States were slowly decommissioned and closed; others were mothballed. In the Navy, this resulted in the retirement of several older carriers, the decommissioning of all four of the Iowa-class battleships (two of them permanently) and the cancellation of the remaining Seawolf-class submarines.

Reference

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