NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — Acting Navy Secretary Sean Stackley warned April 5 that unless the government rapidly improves its ability to meet the national security challenges the nation is facing, “we will lose the competition” with our potential adversaries.
Addressing the 2017 Secretary of the Navy Luncheon on the final day of the Navy League’s Sea-Air-Space Exposition, Stackley cited the example of the bold 1942 Doolittle raid on Tokyo, in which a combined Navy and Army Air Corps force in less than 100 days designed and pulled off an unprecedented operation.
“It is fair to ask, could we pull it off today?” he said.
“There is no doubt in my mind that our warfighters could, and regularly do, pull off such achievements today,” Stackley said. “Our men and women in uniform regularly and routinely demonstrate the innovation and initiative to execute missions that just months ago were drawn up.”
“I’m concerned, however, that our organizations and process at home do not match that same sense of urgency, that same measure of commitment,” he added.
An illustration, he said, was the fact that in the third quarter of the fiscal year, the military is operating again on a continuing resolution, that threatens to slow modernization and further erode readiness.”
Stackley noted the congressional hearing that day in which “our service chiefs, sitting side by side,” expressed the necessity of breaking the cycle.
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