핵심요약

• USS 에이브러햄 링컨호는 이란 인근에서 9개월간 식량 부족, 수질 오염 등의 열악한 환경을 겪고 있습니다.
• 미 국방부 예산은 인플레이션을 고려하더라도 1조 달러에 달합니다.
• 미 해군의 계획과 예산에는 냉전 종식 이후 30년 이상의 근본적인 오류가 존재합니다.
• 중동 지역의 보급망은 이란 미사일 공격으로 인해 바레인 등 주요 허브가 파괴되어 취약해졌습니다.

도입

본 기사는 미 해군의 핵심 플랫폼에서 발생한 심각한 운영상의 문제를 통해, 현재 진행 중인 중동 전쟁 상황 속에서 미 해군 시스템의 구조적 취약점과 계획의 오류가 어떻게 현실적인 위기로 이어지는지를 분석합니다. 이는 단순히 함정의 상황을 넘어, 막대한 국방 예산이 투입되는 상황에서 전략적 목표 달성을 위한 물류 및 운영 체계의 근본적인 재검토가 필요함을 시사합니다.

본문 1: 운영 환경 악화와 시스템 신뢰도 문제

USS 에이브러햄 링컨호에서 보고된 식량 부족, 수질 오염, 배관 중단 등의 열악한 조건은 단순한 기술적 결함을 넘어, 군사 작전 수행에 필수적인 기본 인프라의 붕괴를 의미합니다. 이러한 상황은 병력의 사기 저하와 심리적 붕괴를 초래하여 승조원들의 이탈을 야기하고 있습니다. 이는 장기간의 작전 수행에서 요구되는 고도의 신뢰성과 안정적인 지원 시스템이 전무하다는 점을 드러냅니다. 미 국방부 예산이 1조 달러에 달함에도 불구하고, 가장 가치 있고 유지보수가 철저한 플랫폼에서 이러한 기본적인 운영 문제가 발생했다는 것은, 예산 집행과 현장 운영 간의 연계성이 심각하게 결여되어 있음을 의미합니다. 이는 시스템의 신뢰도에 대한 근본적인 의문을 제기합니다.

본문 2: 전략적 계획 오류와 공급망 취약성

미 해군의 운영 문제의 근본적인 원인은 단기적인 작전 실패가 아니라, 냉전 종식 이후 30년 이상 누적된 계획과 예산상의 오판에서 비롯됩니다. 전쟁을 단기간에 승리할 수 있다는 가정 하에 'Plan B'를 마련하지 못한 전략적 미스매치와 시스템 설계의 오류가 존재합니다. 더욱이, 중동 지역의 보급망은 극도로 취약한 상태입니다. 미 해군이 의존하는 식량, 연료 등 보급품은 바레인과 같은 지역 허브를 통해 공급되는데, 이 지역은 이란의 미사일 공격으로 인해 보급망의 핵심 허브가 파괴되었습니다. 이는 지리적 위치에 따른 지정학적 위험이 어떻게 군사 물류의 연속성을 위협하는지를 명확히 보여줍니다. 즉, 아무리 거대한 예산과 첨단 기술을 보유하더라도, 지역적 갈등이 보급 경로를 차단할 경우 전술적 목표 달성이 불가능해질 수 있다는 점이 핵심입니다.

본문 3: 장기적 리스크와 미래 전망

이러한 사례는 현재의 군사적 위기가 단기적인 전술적 문제뿐만 아니라, 장기적인 전략적 계획과 공급망의 회복탄력성에 대한 근본적인 질문을 던진다는 점을 시사합니다. 향후 미 해군이 중동 지역에서 지속적인 작전을 수행하기 위해서는, 예산 규모와 관계없이, 지정학적 불안정성이 보급망에 미치는 영향을 예측하고, 지역적 충돌 발생 시 즉각적으로 대응할 수 있는 분산되고 대체 가능한 공급망 시스템을 구축해야 합니다. 시스템의 안정성과 현장 운영의 연계성을 확보하는 것이 미래 안보 전략의 핵심 과제가 될 것입니다.

결론

결론적으로, USS 에이브러햄 링컨호의 운영 악화는 미 해군 시스템이 직면한 구조적 비효율성과 지정학적 위험이 결합되어 나타난 결과로 읽힙니다. 막대한 국방 예산이 투입되는 만큼, 시스템 설계 단계부터 공급망의 탄력성과 현장 인프라의 안정성을 최우선으로 고려해야 합니다. 향후 미 해군이 중동 지역에서 성공적으로 임무를 완수하기 위해서는, 단기적인 위기 대응뿐만 아니라 장기적인 계획의 재정립과 공급망의 다각화에 집중해야 할 것입니다. 이러한 구조적 취약점을 보완하는 것이 미래 안보 환경에서 미 해군의 전략적 성공을 결정하는 중요한 변수가 될 것입니다.

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원문 링크: https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMiggFBVV95cUxOWWlXTE5xOG90MW9OaFZ5NFBtWUZYXzR0SW96MmV1REpyTWdaZFFUMjRTSFFnZ1JIaFdaSmdYazlsNGRMSkNReFhOdUFTWjVxSi00U1FfUVU3cksxQzdXdlcxMW0yZGFmMEJKcFNPUWF1Mk9NbTFmbnlHTGFEalFPSFV3?oc=5

There Is Something Very Wrong With the U.S. Navy Right Now - Slate

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The dreadful conditions on the USS Abraham Lincoln , a Navy aircraft carrier stationed near Iran for nine months, have been widely reported. They include food shortages, water contamination, plumbing stoppages, lost mail, and mental health decay, spurring some crew members to jump ship .

President Donald Trump denied the news stories as “ fake ,” but the top U.S. commander in the region, Adm. Brad Cooper , confirmed them after inspecting the vessel.

The question many are asking with gaped jaws: How could this have possibly happened? The Defense Department’s budget tops $1 trillion, the largest sum ever , even allowing for inflation. The war on Iran is Trump’s top priority. How could basic operations on the Navy’s most highly valued and most vigorously maintained platform have deteriorated so badly?

Trump is partly to blame for starting the war under the belief that he could win it in a few weeks, with no need for a Plan B. But the lack of a Plan B also stems from miscalculations and mistakes in the Navy’s plans and budgets dating back more than 30 years—since the end of the Cold War.

The Navy has a large number of supply officers. For operations in the Middle East, some are based at U.S. Central Command headquarters, some in the Navy’s 5 th Fleet in Bahrain, some on each ship. Supplies for the vessels—food, fuel, assorted goods for the shops on board—come from local suppliers in the region or from ports, especially in Bahrain, where ships with the Navy’s Combat Logistics Command bring in supplies.

These supply officers must have known they were in deep trouble from the first days of the war, when Iranian missiles destroyed much of the U.S. base in Bahrain , including the hub of the entire region’s supply chain. Additional targets were hit in Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates—also part of the supply chain that the Navy had depended on for decades.

“This meant we could no longer send supply ships there,” a former senior Navy officer told me. The closest alternative hub was the British-controlled island of Diego Garcia, 2,200 miles away. Initially, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer barred U.S. planes and warships from using the island as a base for attacking Iran. After pressure from Trump, Starmer gave them access for “defensive” purposes—which meant, mainly, for use as a supply hub.

The island is beyond the range of most Iranian missiles. (Even so, Iran launched two attacks ; one missile fell into the ocean, and the other was shot down.) However, by the same token, it’s a far way from the U.S. ships and so takes much longer to replenish supplies.

Another factor, according to a former Navy operations officer, is that some of the usual local vendors, especially of fresh food, cut back their supplies, fearing that they too would be attacked by Iran.

Even without these restraints, the supply system would have been stretched because, since mobilization for a possible war began late last year, the Navy has stationed two aircraft carriers and their escort destroyer ships in the area—whereas it has almost never had more than one and often none at all. Each carrier has about 5,000 crew members ; the escort ships carry a combined total of another 1,000 . So now, with two carrier groups, there are 12,000 people to service and feed, not 6,000.

Another source of strain: In peacetime, the ports were used for rest and recuperation by sailors seeking a break from an aircraft carrier’s crammed quarters and exhausting routines. The need for R&R is especially dire during wartime, when their stations take on life-and-death intensity. (During the Vietnam War, American soldiers were given weeklong leaves in Hawai‘i, Australia, or the Philippines.) Yet, because the ports were under Iranian attack, the crews on board the USS Abraham Lincoln were denied reprieve—aggravating their shortages and mental strain.

As the former Navy operations officer put it, “There was a breakdown in gross supply chains—with gross results.”

The Lincoln ’s fate has been the most heavily publicized, but it isn’t the only aircraft carrier to suffer these traumas. The former senior Navy officer, who stays in touch with current commanders, told me, “Many if not all carrier deployments in recent years have been extended to eight or nine months” from their usual schedule of six, especially but not exclusively in the Middle East. “In that regard, we are eating our future readiness. It’s not sustainable.” He added that the escort destroyer ships policing the blockade of Iran “are just as bad off, if not worse.”

Could this have been prevented? Perhaps, if the Navy had moved away from large aircraft carriers and more toward small ships that could attack with speed and stealth along shorelines. (The Navy did have a program to do this, called the Littoral Combat Ships , but the boats were disastrously built, and the whole plan was abandoned.) Or more redundancy could have been built into the supply chains, but this would have cost money for contingencies that few took seriously enough to fund.

A big part of the problem is a failure of imagination. The people in power—officers and civilians—seem to have ignored the possibility that the enemy would attack our weakest links, in this case the supply hubs. The former operations officer, who keeps up with publications of naval strategy, told me that several junior officers have been pointing out this issue for some time now—but few senior officers, besides the specialists , have paid attention.

An old adage has it that strategy is for amateurs and logistics is for professionals. This isn’t quite true. (The Trump administration is clear proof that strategy requires professionals too.) But it is accurate to say that strategy is adventurous, while logistics can be boring. As a result, few pay attention to the latter’s needs. Strategy also focuses on weapons systems, which corporations build for lots of money and legislators approve for lots of factory jobs. By contrast, logistics is pretty mundane; the big contractors don’t pine for contracts to build oiler ships, cranes, or commissaries.

This pattern is nothing new. Back in the 1980s and ’90s, many analysts and journalists noted that the Pentagon was spending large amounts of money on weapons but not much on spare parts, ammunition, or fuel (the budget account known as “operations and maintenance”). It didn’t matter much back then, as the U.S. wasn’t fighting a lot of wars. Now that we are, you’d think more attention would be paid. But it hasn’t been, as we’ve seen in reports about the depletion of munitions and, now, the deterioration of an entire aircraft carrier’s infrastructure, owing to what would have once been called a “small war” against a third-rate military power after just a few months of battle.

It is hard to escape the conclusion that if we ever have to fight a truly long war against a more capable military, like, say, China, we’re going to be in a lot of trouble—unless we fix these problems.

Source: https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMiggFBVV95cUxOWWlXTE5xOG90MW9OaFZ5NFBtWUZYXzR0SW96MmV1REpyTWdaZFFUMjRTSFFnZ1JIaFdaSmdYazlsNGRMSkNReFhOdUFTWjVxSi00U1FfUVU3cksxQzdXdlcxMW0yZGFmMEJKcFNPUWF1Mk9NbTFmbnlHTGFEalFPSFV3?oc=5