T ,M Navigating troubled waters - ePaper - Stripes

FACES

Drake, The Weeknd, Pink are big winners at Billboard awards

Page 17

MILITARY

UFO sightings are a security worry in DC

Page 4

PGA CHAMPIONSHIP

Mickelson makes history as oldest golfer to win major

Page 24

Former Air Force employee pleads guilty to $1.1 million theft >> Page 6

Volume 80 Edition 27 ?SS 2021 TUESDAY, MAY 25, 2021



50?/Free to Deployed Areas

Navigating troubled waters

Navy says it's charting a new course after rash of problems with ship design, maintenance

BY DAVID SHARP

Associated Press

BATH, Maine -- The Navy's speedy littoral combat ships had propulsion failures. The gun on its stealthy destroyer is a dud because of expensive ammo. Its

newest aircraft carrier had problems with the system that launches aircraft.

On top of that, embarrassing photos of rusty ships online have underscored delays in maintaining warships, made worse by the pandemic.

The Navy's troubles have caused de-

lays and cost billions of dollars. They come as tensions are growing in the South China Sea, Russia's navy is emboldened, Iranian speedboats are harassing vessels in the Persian Gulf.

"Are we ready to meet the threat from China? No," said Loren Thompson, a de-

fense analyst at the Lexington Institute. Adm. Mike Gilday, chief of naval oper-

ations, insists the Navy is now on a "positive trajectory" but the Navy will have to rebuild confidence under congressional

SEE TROUBLED ON PAGE 5

The guided missile destroyer USS Stout shows rust as it returns to Naval Station Norfolk, Va., from a 210-day deployment on Oct. 12, 2020.

JASON PASTRICK, U.S. NAVY/AP

General: As US scales back in Mideast, China could step in

BY LOLITA C. BALDOR

Associated Press

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia -- As the United States scales back its military presence across the Middle East to focus on great power competition with China and Russia, it risks giving those two countries a chance to fill the gap and expand their influence around the Gulf, the top U.S. commander for the region said Sunday.

While traveling through the Middle East over the past week, Marine Gen. Frank McKenzie, who heads U.S. Central Command, fielded a persistent question from the military and political leaders he met: Is the U.S. still committed to their country and the region, and what more support can they get.

From the dusty battlefields in Syria to the rocket-pummeled neighborhoods in Iraq and Saudi Arabia, they worry that America's

pivot to Asia means they will be left without the troops, ships, aircraft and other military aid they need to battle Iranian-backed militants attacking their people.

If the U.S. is slow to respond, they may look elsewhere for help.

"The Middle East writ broadly is an area of intense competition between the great

SEE MIDEAST ON PAGE 3

RELATED

Space Command leader: Chinese are America's primary challenge on surface, in space

Page 3

PAGE 2

BUSINESS/WEATHER

? STARS AND STRIPES ?

Tuesday, May 25, 2021

Suez Canal's claim over stuck ship referred by court

EXCHANGE RATES

Associated Press

CAIRO -- An Egyptian appeals court said Sunday it lacks jurisdiction to look into the Suez Canal Authority's demands to uphold financial claims that led to the seizure of the cargo ship that blocked the waterway in March.

The authority and the ship's owner disputes who was at fault when the Ever Given ran aground in the canal linking the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea and how much compensation should be paid.

The appeals chamber of the Ismailia Economic Court referred the case to a lower court to decide on the legality of the seizure of the ship until the settlement of compensation claim between the Suez Canal Authority and Shoei Kisen Kaisha Ltd., the ship's Japanese owner, according to Hazem Barakat, a lawyer representing the vessel's owner.

The Ever Given was on its way to the Dutch port of Rotterdam on March 23 when it slammed into the bank of a single-lane stretch of

the canal about 3.7 miles north of the southern entrance, near the city of Suez.

Since it was freed, the Panamaflagged vessel, which carries cargo between Asia and Europe, has been ordered by authorities to remain in a holding lake mid-canal as its owner and the canal authority try to settle the compensation dispute.

The money would cover the salvage operation, costs of stalled canal traffic and lost transit fees for the week of theblocked the canal.

Military rates

Euro costs (May 25) Dollar buys (May 25) British pound (May 25) Japanese yen (May 25) South Korean won (May 25)

Commercial rates

Bahrain(Dinar) Britain (Pound) Canada (Dollar) China(Yuan) Denmark (Krone) Egypt (Pound) Euro Hong Kong (Dollar) Hungary (Forint) Israel (Shekel) Japan (Yen) Kuwait(Dinar)

Norway (Krone)

Philippines (Peso) Poland (Zloty) Saudi Arabia (Riyal) Singapore (Dollar)

$1.19 0.7976

$1.39 106.00 1100.00

.3770 1.4163 1.2053 6.4216 6.0839 15.6705

.8181 7.7654 284.58 3.2526 108.78

.3007 8.3440

48.08 3.67

3.7504 1.3285

South Korea (Won) Switzerland (Franc) Thailand (Baht) Turkey (NewLira)

1125.49 .8959 31.35

8.3921

(Military exchange rates are those available to customers at military banking facilities in the country of issuance for Japan, South Korea, Ger many, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. For nonlocal currency exchange rates (i.e., pur chasing British pounds in Germany), check with your local military banking facility. Commercial rates are interbank rates provided for reference when buying currency. All figures are foreign currencies to one dollar, except for the British pound, which is represented in dollarsto pound, and the euro, which is dollarstoeuro.)

INTEREST RATES

Prime rate Interest Rates Discount rate Federal funds market rate 3month bill 30year bond

3.25 0.75 0.09 0.01 2.33

WEATHER OUTLOOK

TUESDAY IN THE MIDDLE EAST

TUESDAY IN EUROPE

WEDNESDAY IN THE PACIFIC

Baghdad 95/73

Kuwait City Bahrain 105/85 95/87

Riyadh 109/81 Doha

110/84

Kabul 77/51

Kandahar 97/60

Djibouti 94/76

TODAY

IN STRIPES

American Roundup ...... 11 Classified .................... 13 Comics .........................16 Crossword ................... 16 Faces .......................... 17 Opinion ........................ 14 Sports .................... 18-24

Lajes, Azores 65/62

Mildenhall/ Lakenheath

57/42

Drawsko Pomorskie

56/53

Brussels 55/46

Ramstein

Zagan 59/52

56/46

Stuttgart 57/46

Aviano/ Vicenza 61/53

P?pa 59/52

Mor?n

89/60 Rota

77/61

Naples 71/63

Sigonella

85/53

Souda Bay

73/65

Seoul 71/49

Osan 72/49

Busan 65/60

Sasebo 68/62

Iwakuni 65/62

Misawa 63/53

Tokyo 69/60

Guam 84/81

Okinawa 80/77

The weather is provided by the American Forces Network Weather Center, 2nd Weather Squadron at Offutt Air Force Base, Neb.

Tuesday, May 25, 2021

MILITARY

? STARS AND STRIPES ?

PAGE 3

General: `Our pacing threat is the Chinese'

In Tokyo, Space Command leader deems Beijing top challenge on, above Earth

BY SETH ROBSON

Stars and Stripes

YOKOTA AIR BASE, Japan -- China is the primary challenge not only on the surface but also for U.S. forces preparing to fight and win in any future conflict in space, according to the chief of the U.S. Space Command.

"Our pacing threat is the Chinese, so we are watching how they are growing their space capability," Army Gen. James Dickinson, who oversees the command based at Peterson Air Force Base, Colo., said during a stop at the home of U.S. Forces Japan in western Tokyo on Saturday.

The Army's senior air defense artillery officer has led the military's 11th and newest combatant command since August when he took over from Gen. John Raymond, the Space Force's chief of space operations.

The Space Force, established in December 2019, gets plenty of attention but the Space Command, formed four months earlier, is the organization that would oversee any war in space, Dickinson said.

"The Space Force is responsible for organizing and equipping space forces. We are about warfighting," he said of the difference between the two organizations.

Space Command is the equivalent of the Tampa, Fla.-based Central Command, which has managed the wars in Iraq and Afghan-

AKIFUMI ISHIKAWA/Stars and Stripes

Army Gen. James Dickinson, right, who oversees U.S. Space Command, reviews Japanese troops during a visit to the Ministry of Defense in Tokyo on Friday.

istan in recent decades, or the Ha-

waii-based

Indo-Pacific

Command, responsible for an area

of operations that covers more than

half of the globe, Dickinson said.

Space Command's area of oper-

ations is outer space, which ex-

tends from an altitude of 62 miles

above the ground to infinity, he

added.

Global powers such as China,

Russia and the United States have

resisted positioning weapons in

space or destroying the assets, like

satellites, of other nations, but the

weaponization of space is likely un-

less countered by effective international opposition, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists.

"Space is very important right now," Dickinson said. "We are seeing what our competitors are doing in space."

During any conflict the command would draw on the capabilities of the Space Force and other military branches, he said.

Space Command makes sure that service branches can communicate and access global positioning and navigation data they need to support air, sea and land oper-

ations, Dickinson said. China shot down one of its own

satellites in 2007. Since then "it has continued to test kinetic counterspace systems nearly every year, sometimes disguised as" ballistic missile intercept tests, the congressionally mandated U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission reported in November 2019.

"We are seeing the expansion of their space program and we are watching that very closely," Dickinson said, noting the communists' recent retrieval of moon rocks and

efforts to build their own space station.

A previous version of Space Command existed from 1985 to 2002 when its personnel and missions were absorbed by the Northern Command and the Strategic Command.

"Those mission sets have come back to the Space Command," said Dickinson, who called on new INDOPACOM chief Adm. John Aquilino on his way to Japan.

Space Command has an important role in a theater where the tyranny of distance is a factor, he said.

In Tokyo, on his first overseas trip since the coronavirus pandemic began, he met with Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi, Minister of State for Space Policy Shinji Inoue, Japan Self-Defense Forces Joint Staff leader Gen. Koji Yamazaki and Japan Air Self-Defense Force chief Gen. Shunji Izutsu.

"It is quite an accomplishment to stand up a Space Operations Squadron," he said, referring to the establishment of such a unit by Japan last May at Fuchu Air Base, a few miles east of Yokota.

Dickinson, who also met U.S. Forces Japan commander Lt. Gen. Kevin Schneider in Tokyo, flew to Okinawa on Saturday before heading to South Korea. There, he met on Monday with South Korean defense minister Suh Wook, U.S. Forces Korea commander Gen. Robert Abrams and the chairman of South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Won In-choul.

robson.seth@ Twitter: @SethRobson1

Mideast: CENTCOM leader says Russia, China could exploit need for weapons

FROM PAGE 1

powers. And I think that as we adjust our posture in the region, Russia and China will be looking very closely to see if a vacuum opens that they can exploit," McKenzie told reporters traveling with him. "I think they see the United States shifting posture to look at other parts of the world and they sense there may be an opportunity there."

Speaking in his hotel room after meeting with Saudi officials, McKenzie said weapons sales would be one need that Moscow and Beijing could exploit. Russia, he said, tries to sell air defense systems and other weapons to whomever it can, and China has a longterm goal to expand its economic power and ultimately establish military bases in the region.

In the few short months since President Joe Biden took office, he has ordered the full withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan and begun to review America's force presence in Iraq, Syria and around the globe. His administration is

cutting U.S. military support for the Saudi-led offensive against Iranian-back Houthi rebels in Yemen, and the Pentagon has moved ships, forces and weapons systems out of other Middle East countries.

At the same time, however, Biden this month dispatched senior administration officials to the Gulf region to reassure nervous allies as the U.S. looks to reopen talks with Iran on the 2015 nuclear deal, which former President Donald Trump scrapped three years ago.

The effort to restart talks with Iran triggers worries in a number of Middle East nations who rely on the U.S. to maintain pressure on Tehran and its campaigns to fund and supply weapons to militant groups in the region.

But there is ongoing discussion within the Pentagon about sending more assets to the Pacific to fight a rising China. And U.S. military commanders around the globe, including McKenzie, may lose troops and resources as a result. Those could include warships such as the aircraft carrier now sitting in the

"The United States is the partner of choice. It's only when that option is not open are countries going to hedge and seek other opportunities."

Marine Gen. Frank McKenzie

CENTCOM commander

Gulf, providing security for the Afghanistan withdrawal.

The Biden administration views China's rapidly expanding economic influence and military might as America's primary longterm security challenge. Officials

believe the U.S. must be more ready to counter threats to Taiwan and China's development of military outposts on manmade islands in the South China Sea.

Military commanders caution that China's growing assertiveness isn't limited to Asia, noting that Beijing is aggressively seeking footholds in Africa, South America and the Middle East.

"I agree completely that China needs to be the pacing threat we orient on," McKenzie said in the interview with reporters from The Associated Press and ABC News. "At the same time, we are a global power and we need to have a global outlook. And that means that you have the ability to consider the globe as a whole."

In meetings Sunday, Saudi leaders were "very concerned" about the ongoing U.S. military posture review, McKenzie said. The kingdom is under almost daily bombardment from Houthi rebels with a variety of ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and small drones. And Saudi leaders rely on the U.S.

to help them defend themselves. McKenzie said his message to

them was that the number of troops and weapons is not as important as the overall capability of the integrated U.S. and Saudi air and missile defense system arrayed around the country.

And more broadly, he said, that strategy of doing more in the region with less military presence may prevent China and Russia from cashing in on any U.S. void.

"I'm not sure it's actually going to turn out to be an opportunity for them when it's all said and done," he said.

The troop numbers may not be the same as the hundreds of thousands that were in the region five to seven years ago, he said, but the U.S. will have a presence in the region.

"I think we're going to play a very smart game ... to leverage what we have," he said. "The United States is the partner of choice. It's only when that option is not open are countries going to hedge and seek other opportunities."

PAGE 4

MILITARY

? STARS AND STRIPES ?

Tuesday, May 25, 2021

UFOs went from joke to concern in DC

BY MICHAEL S. ROSENWALD

The Washington Post

WASHINGTON -- In 2007, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid called his colleagues Ted Stevens and Daniel Inouye to a specially secured room in the Capitol where highly classified information was discussed.

Stevens, a Republican from Alaska, and Inouye, a Democrat from Hawaii, controlled funding for supersecret Pentagon operations. Reid wanted to put an idea on their radar, one that needed to be kept hushhush not just for national security but because it was, as Reid's aides told him, kind of crazy.

He wanted the Pentagon to investigate UFOs.

"Everyone told me this would cause me nothing but trouble," said Reid, a Democrat who represented Nevada, home of the military's top-secret Area 51 test site, a central

attraction of sorts for UFO hunters. "But I wasn't afraid of it. And I guess time has proven me right."

That's because official Washington is swirling with chatter -- among top senators, Pentagon insiders and former CIA directors -- about UFOs. What was once a ticket to the political loony bin has leaped off Hollywood screens and out of sciencefiction novels and into the national conversation. There are even new government acronyms.

"This used to be a career-ending kind of thing," said John Podesta, who generally kept his interest in UFOs to himself when he was President Bill Clinton's chief of staff. "You didn't want to get caught talking about it, because you'd be accused of walking out of an `X-Files' episode."

But now there isn't just talk. Last summer, the Defense Department issued a news release with the following

headline: "Establishment of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force." The mission of the UAPTF, an acronym mouthful, "is to detect, analyze and catalog UAPs that could potentially pose a threat to U.S. national security," according to the Pentagon.

A few months later, as part of President Donald Trump's spending and pandemic relief package, the Senate Intelligence Committee, led by Sen. Mark Warner, DVa., included a provision calling for the director of national intelligence to help produce an unclassified report on everything government agencies know about UFOs, including scores of unusual sightings reported by military pilots.

That report is due next month. Reid is retired but still talking about UFOs to anyone who asks. The man at the center of Washington chatter on the matter these days is Luis Elizondo, a former military intelligence officer who, according to

Reid, ran the Defense Department unit that emerged from the secret meeting held in the Capitol building.

Elizondo recently appeared on "60 Minutes," saying, "I'm not telling you that, that it doesn't sound wacky. What I'm telling you, it's real. The question is, what is it? What are its intentions? What are its capabilities?"

In an interview with The Washington Post, Elizondo explained why the issue in Washington had turned from farce to serious inquiry.

"We are now relying on military and intelligence-collection capabilities to collect the data and then try to interpret the data," he said. "This is not a conversation about how Grandma saw some lights in the backyard and then people wind up scratching their heads wondering what it was."

The country cannot wait any longer to take the matter seriously, he said.

Monumental effort:

Plebes place cover

after over 3 hours

BY DANIELLE OHL

The (Annapolis, Md.) Capital

ANNAPOLIS, Md. -- The Naval Academy Class of 2024 almost set a new record in their effort to scale the Herndon Monument -- just maybe not the one they had hoped for.

The now 4th class midshipmen Saturday recorded the secondslowest Herndon Climb in Naval Academy history at 3 hours, 41 minutes exactly.

As the plebes fought their way to the top of the 21-foot obelisk, slick with water and shortening, the cannon signaling three and a half hours had passed boomed out over the Yard. Groans and chants of "we suck" rippled through the exhausted hoard, covered in grass, mud and sweat. But in the final hour, the class hugged tightly together around the gray granite, forming a more stable base than the one they'd cobbled together over the previous three. Forty-one minutes later, a skinny Tennessean named Michael Lancaster scrambled atop the fleshy pyramid.

Lancaster stretched, both hands gripping the midshipman's cover, but he couldn't quite make it. Shimmying to the right, his foot found higher purchase atop another classmate. One shove, then another. The cap stayed, freeing the plebes from their fight just in time to avoid breaking the Class of 1998's 4 hour, 5 minute and 17 second all-time longest climb.

Ushered over to the gazebo, Lancaster faced his beaming

classmates and threw a fist in the air.

"We are the COVID class. We've beat COVID! We beat Herndon! And we are plebes no more!" he shouted.

Of course, there were people who saw the writing on the very greasy monument.

Don Loren and Jim Ripley, of the Class of 1974, sat watching them trying and failing again and again to hoist a classmate high enough to end the climb. Loren and Ripley are "linked" to the Class of 2024 through the academy's Link In The Chain program, which pairs classes decades apart for moral and developmental support.

Asked for their assessment, the two agreed: organizational problems.

"They're going to be at least two (hours)," Ripley said.

Arlington, Texas, native Aubin Hattendorf of 21st Company made it up to the second tier of the human ladder before she found herself pulled down. "It was very slimy," she said, with a hose spraying her, and hot as bodies pressed together under the 88-degree sun. Sometimes, when she lost her footing, one of her classmates got a foot in the face.

Only vaccinated plebes participated in the Herndon Climb this year, Naval Academy spokeswoman Maddie Flayler said. And Superintendent Vice Adm. Sean Buck has previously said 99% of midshipmen chose to receive the coronavirus vaccine voluntarily.

PHOTOS BY JULIO CORTEZ/AP

Plebes pile on while trying to reach the top of the Herndon Monument during the Herndon Monument Climb at the U.S. Naval Academy, on Saturday, in Annapolis, Md.

Midshipman 4th Class Michael Lancaster, 19, center, of Signal Hill, Tenn., celebrates with classmates inside a fountain after he placed a cover on top of the Herndon Monument.

A plebe holding a cover reaches toward the top of the Herndon Monument.

The COVID-19 pandemic canceled last year's Herndon Climb. In 2019, the Class of 2022 took an hour and five minutes to complete the challenge.

This year's "Iron Company," the honor bestowed on the company that performs best during Sea

Trials, happened to be Lancaster's 14th company. He admitted for most of the climb, he hung back.

"I was really scared," he admitted. But Lancaster's build, "kind of skinny, kind of tall" by his description, was an advantage. A classmate encouraged him to go

up. You're the ace in the hole, he said they told him.

Lancaster waited until his classmates formed a solid base. Then, they sent him up.

"I just put it up there by the grace of God and some good luck," he said.

Tuesday, May 25, 2021

MILITARY

? STARS AND STRIPES ?

PAGE 5

Landstuhl uses cryotherapy to treat allergies

BY JENNIFER H. SVAN

Stars and Stripes

The U.S. Army's largest hospital overseas is offering a procedure new to Germany that's been shown to help allergy sufferers and others with chronic rhinitis, officials said.

Doctors at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center last month began performing intranasal cryotherapy, a technique that uses extreme cold to freeze and disrupt inflamed nerve endings in the back of the nose associated with rhinitis, or allergy-like symptoms that last more than a month.

The procedure has been available for about two years in the United States. But it only gained approval in Germany late last year. The coronavirus pandemic underscored the urgent need to help those suffering from allergies and allergy-like symptoms, said Army Lt. Col. Jessica Peck, a facial plastic surgeon and chief of LRMC's

ear, nose and throat clinic. "If you have a chronically runny

nose, it's difficult to wear a mask," Peck said.

Rhinitis can be caused by an allergy to substances like pollen or triggered by something in the environment, like dust or weather changes.

"The nerve is kind of always overreactive and overstimulated," she said.

The condition can worsen in spring and summer in Germany, where about 20% of adults suffer from seasonal allergies, Peck said.

The cryotherapy procedure is recommended for patients who have post-nasal drip, congestion, nasal itching and other symptoms of rhinitis that last more than a month, she said, and where medication has been insufficient or ineffective. It can help patients reduce their medication and become more physically tolerant of their environment.

MARCY SANCHEZ/U.S. Army

Army Dr. (Lt. Col.) Jessica Peck performs an intranasal cryotherapy procedure at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, on April 23.

Using an endoscope with a camera, doctors guide a handheld device with a long probe inside the nasal cavity, said Dr. Christopher Tonn, an Air Force major.

Tonn and Peck introduced the procedure to LRMC and helped train a German doctor who is teaching others. They have at least six procedures scheduled at LRMC in the next month.

The probe cools the target tissue with liquid nitrogen, a process that takes about 30 seconds and is repeated in the other nostril, Tonn said.

The procedure is covered by

Tricare and is available by referral to U.S. military personnel and adult family members.

"Because we move around so much in the military ... you find that there are things you are allergic to that you weren't at your last duty station. That can make it frustrating to keep your symptoms under control as you move," Peck said.

Not being able to breathe through the nose can restrict physical activity, impair sleep and affect job performance, she said.

Diana Bryant, an LRMC nurse and spouse of an Air Force retiree,

has been on medication for more than 20 years to treat nonallergic sinus problems.

Bryant, 56, was Germany's and the hospital's first patient to undergo the procedure last month.

"I immediately felt like I could breathe better," she said.

Bryant said her only side effect was a headache that lasted four or five days. She no longer needs a daily nasal spray, her post-nasal drip is almost gone and she's sleeping better, she said.

svan.jennifer@ Twitter:@stripesktown

Troubled: Lawmakers criticize delays, over budget costs of Navy fleet

FROM PAGE 1

scrutiny as it prepares a new strategic plan that'll include another long-term investment: unmanned vehicles. The Biden administration is readying a Navy budget proposal this week to send to lawmakers.

The Navy fleet currently falls shy of 300 ships, despite a stated goal of 355 ships. The Chinese fleet now outnumbers the U.S. Navy.

"The Chinese are closer to our goal than we are," said Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, who sits on the Appropriation Committee and wants to boost Navy spending.

Democratic Sen. Jack Reed and Republican Sen. Jim Inhofe, chairman and ranking member of the Armed Services Committee, have criticized delays and cost overruns on lead ships, and urged the Navy to ensure technology is ready before putting it aboard.

Members of Congress, who control the purse strings, say the Navy must also spend billions of dollars more in its public shipyards that maintain the ships.

"The Navy has got to get their derriere in gear," said Rep. Rob Wittman, a Republican from Vir-

JARED MORNEAU, BATH IRON WORKS/AP

Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday tours General Dynamics Bath Iron Works in Bath, Maine, on May 10.

ginia, who described the Navy as "at one of those crossroads."

The Navy's problem, as Thompson sees it, is that leaders rushed ambitious new ship classes to production and started construction before designs were finalized and technology fully tested.

"It tried too hard to leap ahead technologically at the beginning of the last decade," Thompson said. "As a result, every vessel that it started had severe problems."

For example, the electric-drive Zumwalt, commissioned in 2016,

was designed to get close to shore to bombard land targets. But its 155mm advanced gun system is being scrapped because each rocket-propelled, GPS-guided shell costs nearly as much as a cruise missile.

Meanwhile, two versions of the speedy littoral combat ship were envisioned as chasing down pirate ships off Somalia. One version had class-wide propulsion problems, and both were criticized as too lightly armored for open ocean combat. The Navy is already

scrapping the first four of them. The most expensive ship in Na-

vy history, meanwhile, is the newest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald Ford. It has had problems with the system that launches jets and the elevators that move weapons, among other things. It was supposed to cost $10.5 billion but the price tag has risen to $13.3 billion and "four weapons elevators are still not finished and the reliability of key systems is low," said Inhofe, a Republican from Oklahoma.

These ship classes have taught the Navy costly lessons. Costs on the first ships in the classes were 23% to 155% -- or about $5 billion -- higher than original estimates, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

The Navy's unceasing tempo continues to cause stress on ships and crew. Photos of the USS Stout, an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, showed plentiful rust as it returned from a 210-day deployment last fall to Norfolk Naval Station in Virginia. The rust was cosmetic but underscored the toll of deferred maintenance and long deployments on ships and sailors, who made no port calls during the pandemic.

"It's wearing out the Navy, the

crews, their personnel, their families," said Matt Caris, a defense analyst at Avascent, a consulting firm in Washington, who said investments are needed in sailors, maintenance and new ships.

Maintaining the existing fleet is also going to mean upgrades to the nation's four public shipyards and hiring and training thousands of workers, said Democratic Rep. Jim Langevin of Rhode Island.

"Deferred maintenance is never a good idea," he said.

Speaking at Navy shipbuilder Bath Iron Works on a recent afternoon, Gilday insisted things are getting better. The length of time that ships were delayed has declined by 80% at public shipyards and 60% at private yards compared to where things were 18 months ago, Gilday said.

And those ships that suffered delays and cost overruns hold potential. The stealthy Zumwalt destroyer built at Bath Iron Works will be the first naval vessel equipped with hypersonic missiles, he said.

"I'm not saying that we're satisfied with where we are," Gilday said. "What I will say is that I think that certainly the trends are headed in the right direction."

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