Last week, Jim Webb echoed Robert Kaplan's claim that the United States Navy is in danger of becoming too small. This isn't terribly surprising; Webb was Secretary of the Navy under Reagan, and resigned because he felt the Navy was getting short shrift. It's still wrong, though. I go into more detail in the article, but what the USN seems to be aiming for right now is a force that can destroy any opponent or any plausible combination of opponents, while at the same time serving as the core of a network of navies that do the job of global maritime maintenance. To me, this makes a tremendous amount of sense; it spares us the expense of having to build a 500 ship fleet (or however many we might need), while allowing us to do what we want, and to cement positive relationships with navies around the world. This is soft hegemony at its best. We help provide a public good, while not bankrupting ourselves along the way. --Robert Farley
