The Navy’s recent demonstrated inability to perform its basic task of sailing ships

From Fire the Admirals to Encourage the Others by Kurt Schlichter. Schlichter is admirably clear and muscular in his opinions and arguments. The whole column is worth a read. I have been astonished at how little comment the lack of adherence to orders has elicited.

But I love this line:

As much as the admirals – who really ought to have a bit more humility in light of the Navy’s recent demonstrated inability to perform its basic task of sailing ships without crashing them into other ships – might not approve of Trump, approving of him is not their job.

Sense a small degree of inter-service disdain. Schlichter was a colonel in the US Army with 28 years of service. There is little love lost between the Army and the Navy.

Schlichter isn't wrong. The Navy has in recent years been plagued with a raft of accidents demonstrating some systemic issue in training. It has also struggled with any sort of efficiency or even adequacy in deployment of new weapons platforms. And the available for service record is atrocious. I think I saw something just the past couple of days that all six US aircraft carriers on the east coast are in port for service at the moment and not available for deployment.

If you can't do you basic job, refusing orders and circumventing the chain of command seem to be a desperate and foolish response.