CDR SALAMANDER: Build The Naval Yards Now.

Yes, we are enjoying the harvest of our long discussed wages of happy talk when it comes to our maritime industrial base. It is, in a fashion, rather sad to watch our own deliberate and chosen decline.

Enough “problem admiration” and waiting for something to be extruded by the janissaries in the Potomac Flotilla. They have lost their right to demand deference. The last couple of decades have measured them and found them wanting. We should put them in some kind of bureaucratic quarantine until the right Congress and Chief Executive can put them in hospice.

Our problem did not happen overnight and won’t be fixed overnight. It does not have one cause and it won’t have one solution. This was all plain to see well over a decade ago. Hell, two decades ago.

The old phrase, “there’s a lot of ruin in a nation” – well, there is a lot of ruin in a navy. One generation can feast on the hard won capital of the previous generation for quite awhile until there is but a skeleton left of what was once a mighty host.

Enough. . . . We cannot build a larger fleet until we rebuild the infrastructure to properly maintain the one we have.

Yards. Build more; expand the ones we have; reactivate retired yards if able.

I’m afraid we’ll need them.