Strength In Numbers

I don't know about you, but I remember when the Navy had almost 600 major surface combatants to its credit. Under a certain Ronald W. Reagan, to be exact.

Today, the number is less than 300. Far less.

To be sure, in peacetime, we have plenty of ships to spare -- unless it's considered that sometimes we need our vessels in unexpected places. Such as Louisiana and Mississippi.

In fact, some serious naval firepower is being assembled off the coast of those states, and some of it are already there.

But I would almost wager that this throws a monkey wrench into the meticulously scheduled ship deployment plans of our Navy. After all, we have the seven seas to patrol!

It's times like these that I yearn for the days when we could spare a carrier group or two, or three, and not worry about robbing Peter to pay Paul.