My U.S. Navy continues to be overstretched across the oceans of the world against our potential enemies of China, North Korea, Russia and Iran.

Our 11 carrier strike groups should be deploying for about six months at a time, but are now deploying to the world’s hot spots on the order of nine months or more on a regular basis. We have around 285 naval vessels, when we need at least 300 ships to project U.S. naval power around the world.

George Will pointed out in a recent column that we have only 50 attack submarines, but we need 66 to complete missions.

In addition to securing the needed funding, a major problem is the lack of adequate shipbuilding and maintenance facilities in the U.S. to service our submarines and surface ships. We are short three drydocks and the workers needed to staff them. Additionally, we are not meeting our goals to recruit naval personnel. An increase of Navy ships from 285 to 300 would probably require an additional 25,000 to 40,000 personnel.

Our defense budget needs to be increased from 3% of GDP to somewhere around 6% or 7% of GDP.

Donald Moskowitz

Londonderry, New Hampshire