“A Period of Consequences”

Nov 9

"This Ukraine Crisis . . . is Just the Warmup"

Bartlett Maritime Corporation Notes Recent Comments Made by Naval Leaders Highlighting the Critical Role of the US Navy’s Submarine Force in Maintaining American National Security

Cleveland, OH November 08, 2022. Bartlett Maritime Corporation notes the recent comments made by a series of broadly recognized and highly respected Naval leaders, all which highlight the critical role of the US Navy’s Submarine Force in Maintaining American National Security. This further emphasizes the absolute importance of all actions, such as those proposed by Bartlett Maritime Corporation, to expand and enhance the capacity and capability of the submarine industrial base supporting both new ship construction and commissioned ship maintenance.

The nation’s Submarine Industrial Base, which in the 1960’s consistently delivered a new submarine into service every 44 days while properly maintaining this rapidly growing fleet and as recently as the 1980’s delivered 5 new submarines into service per year while properly maintaining a Submarine Force of more than 100 submarines, is in the midst of a now-widely-acknowledged and well understood capacity and capability crisis. There are many reports from various agencies detailing this crisis, summarized at https://www.bartlettmaritime.com/.

In response, Bartlett Maritime Corporation is preparing to execute its immediately actionable, cost-effective public-private-partnership proposal – The Bartlett Maritime Plan™ – to add the required capacity and capability to the Submarine Industrial Base. The company’s team includes an exceptionally well-qualified team of senior leaders in both Naval shipbuilding & maintenance and in various key aspects of commercial industry on both the company’s Senior Advisory Board and the company’s senior operating staff.

During a November 2nd speech, attended by Bartlett Maritime Corporation leadership at the Naval Submarine League's 2022 Annual Symposium & Industry Update, Admiral Charles A. Richard, Commander of United States Strategic Command, said the U.S. must get itself prepared for a very challenging period.

"This Ukraine crisis that we're in right now, this is just the warmup," ADM Richard said. "The big one is coming. And it isn't going to be very long before we're going to get tested in ways that we haven't been tested a long time."

Characterizing the accelerating strategic competition between the US and China he said "As I assess our level of deterrence against China, the ship is slowly sinking. It is sinking slowly, but it is sinking, as fundamentally they are putting capability in the field faster than we are. As those curves keep going, it isn't going to matter how good ours is or how good our commanders are, or how good our horses are — we're not going to have enough of them. And that is a very near-term problem."

One area where the U.S. still dominates is with its underseas capabilities — the U.S. submarine fleet, ADM Richard said.

"Undersea capabilities is still the one ... maybe the only true asymmetric advantage we still have against our opponents," Richard said. "But unless we pick up the pace, in terms of getting our maintenance problems fixed, getting new construction going ... if we can't figure that out ... we are not going to put ourselves in a good position to maintain strategic deterrence and national defense."

Regaining the advantage in other areas might mean looking backwards, as much as 60 or more years, ADM Richard said, to a time when the U.S. military was able to do things faster than what it does today. This is consistent with Bartlett Maritime Corporation’s own focus, as noted above, on replicating the industrial base capabilities and performance of the 1960’s.

“We have got to get back into the business of not talking about how we are going to mitigate our assumed eventual failure to get Columbia in on time, and B-21, and LRSO, and flip it to the way we used to ask questions in this nation, which is what's it going to take? Is it money? Is it people? Do you need authorities? What risk? That's how we got to the Moon by 1969. We need to bring some of that back. Otherwise, China is simply going to outcompete us, and Russia isn't going anywhere anytime soon."

Former CNO, ADM John Richardson, USN(Ret) (L) & Dr. Henry J. “Jerry” Hendrix, Ph.D., CAPT, USN(Ret) (R) below a painting of General of the Army Philip Sheridan Metropolitan Club of the City of Washington, D.C.

The next day, November 3rd, The Metropolitan Club of the City of Washington, DC held its annual Navy Birthday celebration, celebrating 247 years of US naval excellence. The speakers for this event, also attended by Bartlett Maritime Corporation leadership, continued along the same theme selected by STRATCOM Commander ADM Richard. The first speaker, Dr. Henry J. “Jerry” Hendrix, Ph.D., a retired US Navy Captain and noted Naval Strategist, harkened back to Winston Churchill’s warnings prior to the start of World War 2, and characterized now and the coming time as “A Period of Consequences.”

These remarks are provided in full at the end of this release and include Churchill’s November 1936 statement, “Owing to past neglect, in the face of the plainest warnings, we have entered upon a period of danger greater than has befallen Britain since the U-Boat campaign was crushed, the Era of Procrastination, of half measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays, is coming to a close. In its place we are entering a period of consequences.”

Dr. Hendrix continued, “Regarding the strategic situation in the Pacific, let me start by saying that the situation is dire. I have previously described the years directly ahead of us as “The Davidson Window,” drawing upon the March 2021 warning of outgoing Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Phil Davidson in which he stated that he believed that China might move to capture Taiwan “within the next six years” or by 2027. But recent events have combined to accelerate this process, and I believe that we are looking at the People’s Republic of China acting by the summer or fall of 2024. The bottom line is that, if we are not already inside the event horizon of a cataclysmic conflagration, then we are at least teetering upon a knife’s edge, as a series of interrelated developments - like dominos arrayed in a row - begin to move of their own energy and volition towards conflict.”

Dr. Hendrix then discussed the actions which China has taken over the last two decades to prepare for action. This includes, notably, their development of highly credible “Anti-Access/Area Denial” or “A2AD” weapons such as “long range fighters, bombers, and missiles, to include “carrier killer” DF-21s and the “Guam Killer” DF-26s, all to push our carriers and their air wings - all of our “power projection” forces - far from their shores. Or so they thought.”

Dr. Hendrix then notes, “To the best of our knowledge, they have not found a way to detect, track and attack our submarines - and our boats - both our nuclear fast attack submarines and our guided missile submarines, with their large magazines of weapons, still raise issues of concern for the Chinese. However, they know that they have a window, the “Davidson Window,” in which to act to recover Taiwan, or forever hold their peace, and that window is right before us. . .”

In a call to action which reemphasizes ADM Richards’ own call to action the previous day, Dr. Hendrix states, “Against this strategic backdrop discussions of future US Navy building programs recede in importance. I think we need a 456 ship Navy, with 60 frigates, 62 attack submarines, 8 guided missile submarines and lots of unmanned vessels. I have written this repeatedly, but, frankly, the Navy of 2050 interests me much less at this moment than the Navy of 2024. Right now, and I mean “action this day” for you Churchill fans, we need to focus on ship maintenance and repair, extending ship lives, improving the material condition of our platforms, and maximizing the production of our weapons, especially those associated with our highly effective undersea platforms.”

Following Dr. Hendrix’ comments, retired US Navy Admiral John Richardson, 31st Chief of Naval Operations, discussed the need to take our own side in the current competition, using the history of the Navy’s Submarine Force as an illustrative example. He discussed actions that need to get underway now to ensure that the warfighting dominance established by the Submarine Force during World War 2 is maintained - and even enhanced - to provide the best possible deterrence to major conflict and more broadly, to maintain global peace and stability."

Commenting on these events, Bartlett Maritime Corporation Chairman and Chief Executive Officer CAPT Edward Bartlett, notes “When we discuss our company’s strategic plan, we speak in terms of a rapidly emerging “convergence,” which we define a national realization which crystalizes on the immediate need for a larger, more capable US Navy. When the Government Accountability Office released their Report 19-229, detailing the maintenance crisis which has been adversely impacting the readiness of the Submarine Force, we realized that immediate action was required. Without hesitation we made a completely speculative multi-million-dollar personal investment to develop both an affordable, immediately actionable public private partnership program to definitively address the underlying industrial base crisis, as well as to develop a team of outstanding, highly experienced leaders to implement this, and related plans. Now that convergence is upon us, as evidenced by the broad consensus exhibited in the recent comments of these broadly recognized and highly respected Naval leaders, we look forward with great anticipation to an anticipated near-term contracting action to implement the first phase of our proposed program.”

Bartlett continued, “ADM Richard has alluded that “the ship is sinking.” Our proud US Navy has a tradition, dating back at least to Captain James Lawrence in command of USS Chesapeake in 1813, which guides us as it continues to guide the US Navy. This tradition notably was exhibited and maintained in action by Commander Howard W. Gilmore, first of seven WW2 Submarine Medal of Honor Awardees, in his case posthumously for his action in command of Gato Class Fleet submarine USS Growler (SS 215) on war patrol off the Truk-Rabau shipping lanes in 1943, as well as by Commander Ernest E. Evans, in command of USS Johnston (DD 557), also posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for leading action by his ship, which operated with the other small boys of Taffy 3 the next year in victory at the 1944 Battle off Samar (Leyte Gulf). More recently the same tradition was upheld by Captain Paul X. Rinn in command of USS Samuel B Roberts (FFG 58) in the Persian Gulf in 1988. Notably, Captain Rinn’s refusal to quit and his bold leadership in the face of the almost certain catastrophic loss of his then-nearly-new ship – a ship coincidentally named for one of the small boys lost in the victory off Samar, and whose back was broken by an Iranian mine – saved his ship and crew to complete a notable full service-life in the fleet. This tradition, of course, is to never give up the ship. We completely agree with Admiral George Dewey, hero of Manila Bay, who said, later repeated by President Theodore Roosevelt, "A good Navy is not a provocation to war. It is the surest guaranty of peace.””

“. . . without a Respectable Navy, Alas America!”

Captain John Paul Jones, October 17, 1776