Tag Archives: United States Secretary of the Navy

Changing The Culture Of Our Military

Posted on by

Yesterday, The Washington Free Beacon posted an article about Hung Cao, the new Secretary of the Navy.

The article reports:

When Hung Cao was 4 years old, the U.S. military rescued him to freedom, evacuating him and his immediate family—seven people, two suitcases—from Saigon just hours before the capital of South Vietnam fell to the communists.

What was a stroke of good fortune for Cao has worked out pretty well so far for America, too. Cao has spent a lifetime since then repaying the U.S. He graduated from the Naval Academy at Annapolis and served as a Navy diver and explosive ordnance disposal officer with deployments to Iraq, Afghanistan, and Somalia, retiring from active duty in 2021 as a captain. In 2024, as a candidate for U.S. Senate from Virginia, he spoke at the Republican National Convention: “My name’s Hung Cao, and America saved my life. I grabbed on to the American dream … I love this country so much.”

Now, as acting secretary of the Navy, 51 years after leaving Vietnam, Cao is stepping into his highest profile role yet. His promotion may help shape a winning outcome for America in the clash with Iran, and strengthen the U.S. in future conflicts. It also adds him to a cohort of patriotic immigrants who have served in the Trump administration—including Melania Trump, Sebastian Gorka, Elon Musk—that serve as a marked contrast to far-left foreign born Democrats such as New York mayor Zohran Mamdani, Rep. Ilhan Omar, and Rep. Pramila Jayapal.

The article concludes:

At his confirmation hearing, Cao said, “Take it from this warrior. War must be the last resort, but if war comes, let it be swift and decisive. … To our enemies and those who mean to do us harm, you can run but you’ll only die tired.”

Perhaps ironically, Cao was rescued in part because of the “birthright citizenship” that some Republicans now want to roll back. His father won a Rockefeller scholarship for graduate work at Cornell University; Cao’s older sister was born in the U.S. while his parents were at Cornell. As a result, the family qualified for evacuation from Saigon. As Cao put it in a 2024 book, “her American citizenship not only saved our family, but it paved the way for each of us to live our own American dream.”

This is the kind of person we need in charge of our military branches.

The Risk Of Upside-Down Priorities

Posted on by

On Saturday, Red State posted an article with the following headline:

As China’s Blue-Water Navy Continues Massive Expansion, US Navy Secretary Says Climate Is His ‘Top Priority’

Wow. Doesn’t that make you feel well-protected?

The article reports:

Let’s begin with a sobering — to the sane among us — reality.

China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) surpassed the U.S. Navy in fleet size sometime around 2020 and now possesses roughly 340 warships, according to the Pentagon’s 2022 China Military Power Report, released in November. Moreover, China’s fleet is expected to grow to 400 ships by 2025.

Meanwhile, the U.S. fleet consists of fewer than 300 ships, with a Pentagon goal of 350 manned ships by 2045, according to the U.S. Navy’s Navigation Plan 2022, released last summer.

Incidentally, a blue-water navy is a maritime force capable of operating globally, essentially across the deep waters of open oceans. While definitions of what actually constitutes such a force vary, the constant is a requirement for the ability to exercise sea control at long range. In other words, the more dominant a nation’s blue-water navy, the better chance that nation has of controlling the world’s strategic sea lanes.

So, what is the U.S. Navy under Joe Biden doing about this sobering reality?

As reported by the Washington Examiner, Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro has said, multiple times, that fighting climate change has been one of his biggest priorities since taking office. During a recent trip to the Bahamas to meet with Bahamian Prime Minister Philip Davis, the two men talked at length about… wait for it… climate change, and what the United States is doing to fight it. Here’s Del Toro:

As the Secretary of the Navy, I can tell you that I have made climate one of my top priorities since the first day I came into office. The U.S. Navy and Marine Corps team has been working on climate and energy security for a long time, and we are accelerating and broadening those efforts.

If they were truly working on energy security, they would be telling the government to resume drilling in America. It would be really nice if the Secretary of the Navy cared about protecting America from foreign aggression. His priorities as he explains them are upside-down.

Your Tax Dollars At Work

Posted on by

It is no secret that one of the priorities of the Obama Administration is green energy. The problem with green energy is that we do not yet have the technology to make it cost effective. I suspect we will have that technology within the next thirty years, but we do not have it now. However, that has not stopped the government from using it when it is entirely impractical to do so.

Reuters posted a story today about the U. S. Navy‘s latest foray into the world of green energy.  The “Great Green Fleet,” the first carrier strike group to be powered largely by alternative fuels, is currently headed to the central Pacific in an effort to prove that bio-fuels are as effective as conventional fuels.

There is, however, a problem. The article reports:

Some Republican lawmakers have seized on the fuel’s $26-a-gallon price, compared to $3.60 for conventional fuel. They paint the program as a waste of precious funds at a time when the U.S. government’s budget remains severely strained, the Pentagon is facing cuts and energy companies are finding big quantities of oil and gas in the United States.

Navy Secretary Ray Mabus, the program’s biggest public booster, calls it vital for the military’s energy security.

We need to understand that green energy will become cost effective and practical when the free market is allowed to develop an effective green fuel. Meanwhile, throwing money at solar panel manufactures that go bankrupt and rewarding political cronies who are involved in green energy simply slows down the progress toward practical and inexpensive green energy. If energy independence is so important to the Obama Administration, why did they veto the Keystone Pipeline, close down coal-powered electric plants, and slow down permits for drilling in the Gulf of Mexico?

Enhanced by Zemanta