Is the Navy Smaller Today Than in 1917? Does It Matter?

On the campaign trail, Mitt Romney criticized President Obama's foreign policy by citing that the Navy is the smallest it has been since 1916.

If you watched Monday's debate, you saw Mr. Romney raise the point again. The president, with no lack of snark, suggested that such comparisons are inaccurate. The Navy may be smaller, but by replacing battleships with aircraft carriers and nuclear submarines it remains the strongest navy on the planet.

Who's right? They both are, although Mr. Obama's claim is more relevant (snark notwithstanding).

A pair of infographics at Popular Science illustrate the problem. The US Navy in 2012 is indeed smaller, with fifty fewer active ships than 1917. On the other hand, we have eleven active carrier strike groups--equal to 50% of the total world deployment. Just one of those carrier strike groups could sink the entire US Navy in 1917, and probably any other navy it went up against: British, German, Japanese or otherwise.

Amphibious assault craft: USS Bataan
Photo courtesy: Wikipedia

In other words, it's not the number of ships in your navy, it's what you can do with them.

However, that the president is right about the power of the modern navy doesn't mean that his challenger is wrong about the overall message. Mr. Romney's point is that the Navy should be bigger than it is now in order to meet the unseen threats beyond our current time horizon.

Presidents Clinton, George W. Bush and Obama have overseen a transition from a navy that contained the Soviet Union to one more geared towards shoreline conflict and amphibious assault (in support of humanitarian missions and the War on Terror). Romney, on the other hand, argues that this is short-sighted, and that we rebuilding the Navy to deter a future great power war.

What do you think?

Major Terror Attacks 1991-2011

Here's a bit of a preview of Monday's class. Posted below are three charts I designed based on data from the High Casualty Terrorist Bombings (HCTB) data set compiled and hosted by the Center for Systemic Peace.

The HCTB data set is a record of bombing attacks on civilian and political (non-combat) targets that result in fifteen deaths or more. The record runs from March 1991 through March 2012.

Using their data, I demonstrate the increasing rate of terror attacks and deaths from said attacks. The first chart below aggregates the data by year: annual deaths in red (left axis), annual attacks in blue (right axis). Note the spike in 2001 and the peak in 2007.

Click images to enlarge. More charts after the jump.