Report: Risks to Navy from Ships Assigned to Overseas Homeports

A new report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) raises concerns over long-term risks to U.S. Navy ships assigned to overseas homeports. The study found that "casualty reports -- incidents of degraded or out-of-service equipment -- have doubled over the past 5 years and that the material condition of overseas-homeported ships has decreased slightly faster than that of U.S.-homeported ships."

According to the GAO, the Navy has failed to identify or mitigate the risks associated with an increasing reliance on homeporting overseas. Some vessels engaged in overseas homeporting have undergone repeated maintenance deferrals "that has resulted in long-term degraded material condition and increased maintenance costs," possibly leading to shorter service lives. Over the past decade, the USN has doubled its share of the total fleet at overseas homeports -- from seven percent of the fleet (20 ships) in 2006 up 14 percent (40 ships) in 2015. "Our analysis of Navy operations and support cost data -- personnel, operations, and sustainment costs from fiscal years 2004 through 2013 for surface and amphibious ships -- found that annual per ship operations and support costs for all ships homeported overseas are about 15 percent, or approximately $9 million, higher than for ships homeported in the United States, with some variance by ship class," the GAO report said. For the 12 destroyers under anticipated overseas homeporting by the end of the 2015 fiscal year, these additional costs would add up to nearly $100 million, about 17 percent higher than if the ships were homeported in the United States. In a time of defense spending cutbacks and an ongoing weak U.S. economy, the excess costs of overseas homeporting are being weighed against the strategic advantages such forward deployment offers and the economic benefits to American communities from domestic homeporting.

Sierra Rayne——Bio and Archives

Sierra Rayne holds a Ph.D. in Chemistry and writes regularly on environment, energy, and national security topics. He can be found on Twitter at @srayne_ca